Trying to make my old Inspiron 4000 wireless?

Hi, I have an old Inspiron 4000, running windows ME, 700mhz processor. I think it has either 128 or 256mb of ram. I haven't used it in years, but I tried booting it up yesterday and it works fine. I want to use it for internet only. Is it possible to do that, or is it too obsolete? I know I probably could find a compatible wireless card for it, but would it have a slower internet connection? Also if this is possible, should I go with a wireless card or a usb adapter? The usb is probably not usb 2. Also, are there any other components I would need to buy? Thanks.

 

What is your current internet access system?

 

I have cable with a netgear router. I don't know what kind of router (my neighbor across the hall and I share the connection). But the signal strength is 48mbps, and the computer I'm on now has A/B/G compatibility. I hope some of that helped. Also, I found this card on ebay - D-Link DWL-G630 AirPlus Wireless-G PCMCIA Notebook Card - it is compatible, I just don't know how fast it will be.

 

Probably your best bet would be to install Windows 2000 Pro ( DRIVERS) and get a Windows 2000 compatible PCMCIA wireless card.

 

1. The 48Mbps could go up to 54Mbps within the network, that's not related to Internet. Internet most likely will be much slower than 48Mbps depending of your ISP technology and agreement, what do you have, DSL, coax, fiber?

2. Run speedtest.net on your current computer and see what are the throughput downlink and uplink, that will be your speed more or less depending of the activity of your friend sharing internet.

3. I like WackyT's idea, but find here another wacky idea, upgrade your windows, XP let's say then you get the network management appplication part solved.

4. It's going to be a try and see event with the wireless card, I don't know much your old laptop but can you put a minicard inside? Does it has an external PCI slot? You need to contact the vendor so they can suggest a card, otherwise as I said, just try and see.

5. It's very likely that your router is G so 54Mbps max, but check out the model, it could also be N (300Mbps) but it is working at 48Mbps because your nic is G. Newvertheless I think you will be ok with another G nic because the slower throughput of your internet.

I hope all these points helps some.

 

Hey Wacky T

Why not install a linksys range expander and allow that to boost your signal instead?

 

I have no problem with my wireless signal.

Wirelessman: Dell doesn't have drivers for XP for this notebook on their website. And running XP on 128 or 256MB is slooow. He'll get a lot better performance out of 2000 on that platform.

There is no internal wireless mini PCI slot mentioned in this review of the Inspiron 4000. It does have:
2 x 32-bit Type-II or 1 x Type-III, Card Bus-compatible, zoom video support (bottom slot for Windows 95/98/2000)
That's why I suggested a PCMCIA wireless card.

 

Thanks, then he should as a minimum upgrade to 2000. And upgrade the RAM too. Although he said that he will be using it only for internet, which doesn't require much RAM.

 

I have the same model. I added 2x256Mb ram and upgraded os to Win XP home (Win ME was rubbish). I added a wireless card, a D-Link AirPlus G model DWL-G630. It works great with my Linksys router. It does not get along well with my Vista systems though (trying to share printers). Dumb protocols are fudged up I think.
You will have to sink a bit of money to make that unit work for you, Its a good stand by pc for web surfing outside or in the yard etc.

 

Thanks for all the advice. But how much is it going to cost to upgrade to Windows 2000? I agree that Windows ME sucks.

 

I don't know, but jaytmoon is saying that XP is possible, then I would rather go with XP.

 

I found my old xp cd (with the cd keys) from my last desktop. I think I'm going to try installing that. Thanks for all of the advice.

 

Whattodo, good luck and be sure to report back on how it turns out.