Weird Wifi Problem on my Vostro 1500

I got my Vostro 1500 a few weeks ago and its been great except for one nagging problem.

Whenever I'm in a low wifi reception zone, like at school (blanket wifi with good spots and bad) or my girlfriends (keeps the router in the basement, women...) I will lose the ability to connect to any network if I lose reception to the network I'm current on.

So say I'm logged into a low reception network, surfing the web and doing whatever, if I lose that connection and have to restart it my Wifi utility will stop showing any wireless networks. Doesnt matter if there were 5-10 of them there 30 seconds ago they will all be gone and I wont be able to connect to anything until I restart my computer.

I tried turning the wifi on and off, via the wifi catcher and the dell utility. I also tried moving around and changing my position. Only a restart seems to fix it, and only until it disconnects again. I also tried updating the wifi card driver, no luck.

Anyone have a similar problem or know how I can fix this?

 

same issue i have on the vostro 1400 with INtel wireless card.... and vista premium.

Only happens on campus where connections vary depending on which part of campus I am on.

also, my computer seems to connect to multiple networks when I only tell it to connect to one.

It's driving me NUTS.

Also, i would have 3 bars and network would be fine and then all of a sudden I would lose it. then I can't connect AT ALL until i restart ( I guess this is the same problems as you OP).....

any fixes ?

 

Sounds like the same problem, but I have the dell wireless b/g card. Not the intel and I'm running XP Home.

 

Bumping for an answer

 

needing an answer here too....

 

I had some sort of related issues where I would lose the list of wireless networks but restarting the 4 services starting with Intel ProSet/Wireless (start > run > services.msc) fixed everything. Now, mysteriously, the problem no longer occurs, even when I try to deliberately reproduce it.

 

I've also had issues with my card not being able to connect to my schools network even though they show full bars where I am, or it will only connect local. I don't ever seem to have this problem if I am connecting to my own router though. I have the Dell Wireless g card.

n19htmare, try opening up Network and Sharing Center click on manage wireless networks, and remove all of the networks in there, it seemed to fix the multiple connections problem for me.

 

Not sure if this is a similar issue but sometimes I will lose my wireless connection (I get the yellow warning triangle and an explanation mark - Local i think it means)

From then on I cannot reconnect to my wireless network or indeed find it. Getting into the network connections icon in control panel takes forever also from this point.

I have yried most things and the only way I can restore the wireless connection and get back on the net is to restart the computer.

It is as though the wifi has crashed as the restart takes 3 times as long as a normal restart when the wifi is ok.

Anyone any ideas

Cheers!

 

Happens to me as well, only that it happens more often at home. suddenly I loose connection and the wifi catcehr doesn't detect any signals and I'm unable to connect, only a restart will fix it. also when that hapens if I check under devices for ntworking, it says that a driver is not installed. I have intel pro n and tried to reinstall the drivers and updating but it still happens. any answers?