Wireless wont connect on laptop, others fine

Hello,

I just received my E1505 Dell Latitude refurbished from Dell. Everything seems to work fine, except my wireless. I use wireless on 2 PCs and my old laptop here, and both PCs along with my old laptop work fine right now, im on one as we speak.

However, I cant for the life of me get the laptop to connect to the network. It uses Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG, and can detect my home network, but when I try and connect it just reads "Unable to connect".

The ssid on the router is set to home. Thats what the laptop detects, and since it has no WEP enabled on the router, it should connect just like everything else. However, it doesnt.

I also tried to deactivate the Intel program, telling it to use Wireless Zero. Wireless Zero sits at "Waiting for network..." for about 1-2 minutes then fails.

I also installed the latest software for it from Intels site, same problem. I then downloaded the latest wireless package from the dell site for my Wireless, but it still fails.

The internet works fine when I plug a cat5e cable into it, but wont connect through the wireless. I set it to never turn wireless off, and the wireless symbol is glowing, but it still wont go. I also tried Dell's "Net Assistant" and it fails at "Association test".

If anyone could help me, that would be great.

EDIT: I also have tried to repair the connection, set the IP manually.

 

Hello,
What router do you have? Since your internet works wired to the modem, it isn't the modem.

This means it's either your wireless card, or your router.
Can you connect to another wireless network to see if it works? If it does, it's the router then. With that, i would download the newest firmware for it. (I'll tell you how and link you to the download once you say the router model).

 

I am trying it on another network today. The router is a DI-614+ by D-Link, and I believe it already has the latest firmware ("Firmware Version: 2.33 , 5 Jul 2004 ") since I believe D-Link has stopped support for the product.

I will let you know how the other network works out.

 

Have you tried with any other wireless networks and the non-working laptop? If it won't work on other networks either, I'd suggest calling Dell support and getting them to replace your wireless card.

Might also open the panel on the bottom of the machine where the wireless card is and make sure that the antenna and such are correctly connected.

 

I think he means that when he plugs it into the router, it works fine - not the modem.


It sounds to me like the wireless on your dell isn't working correctly, try other networks, and if you can't connect, then call dell techincal support and see what they suggest.

 

Im at my friends now, and the wireless works. How odd. Anyone have any ideas about how to get it to work at home?

 

Your symptoms were exactly the same as mine. I eventually found that
my router's security setting was "Shared Key" WEP, whereas my laptop's security setting was "Open" WEP (typical, I believe, for laptops that roam). Even though "Shared Key" is a subset of "Open", I had to set my router to "Open" to make it work. FWIW.

 

I found this thread earlier today on Google while trying to solve the exact same problem. (same laptop and wireless card too)

I eventually managed to fix my problem by going into the router settings and adding my wireless cards mac address to the "Mac Address Filtering" list and also the "DHCP Client List".

You can find your Mac Address by going to Start->Run, type "cmd" (without quotes). then type "ipconfig /all" (also without the quotes) at the command prompt. There may be multiple Mac Addresses listed but it should be fairly simple to work out which one is your wireless card.

Hope that helps solve your problem.