Dell Inspiron 1525 + Windows 7 -> Wireless Issues

Hi,

I've got an old Dell Inspiron 1525 with a Dell DW 1490 WiFi card, under Windows XP wireless worked fine, I got a stable 40mbit connection. Today I formatted the laptop to Windows 7 and Windows automatically installed a driver for it, it connected and worked fine for a few hours, but ever since it's running extremely slow (< 10KB/s).

I've looked everywhere for an updated driver but can't seem to find a compatible one, I've tried about 10 different ones from Dells website, they all either say they're not compatible with the device, or not compatible with the OS... even though the details page(s) say otherwise. If I try to manually force an update using the downloaded drivers it just says "Windows has determined the driver software for your device is up to date".

If I connect a separate USB wireless stick it works fine, but I can't get the internal Dell 1490 working correctly.

Does anyone have a working driver? Thanks.

 

Hi AndyB,

Inspiron 1525 has not been tested with Windows 7. Hence drivers are not avaialble. YOu can try installin the Windows Vista drivers and check if it works on Windows 7. The drivers can be downloaded from the following link:
Driver Details | Dell US

 

Like to inform that Windows7 will install and run on 1525, 1526 without any problems. I just load the vista drivers into W7 and it worked. Not sure what you mean not tested when I have multiple dell laptop running W7 without any problems. I also installed W7 onto a Vostro 1400 as well and it runs and works. But anything like a B130 or D600, D610 might and will not work properly with W7 but those are older then the 1525 series.....

 

Thanks for the replies, Windows 7 itself does indeed work fine on the laptop, it even installs the drivers for everything automatically (excluding the Ricoh chipset driver). Unfortunately after trying several different drivers including the Vista one linked above I still couldn't get the internal wireless card working reliably so I ended up buying a USB WiFi card (DWA-140) and using that instead which gives me a stable ~70mbit. The laptop is only being used as a XBMC streambox so having additional USB devices doesn't bother me.

 

So could you tell me your dell service tag number? What I did for my WiFi was to upgrade to the 1505 dell and used the broad-comm WiFi driver to get N WiFi. That might be a better way for you to upgrade the WiFi. And I can a test the 1505 WiFi n is a excellent upgrade to go to. I like to see what it comes up with your service tag as to what drivers it has for the dell 1490 card....