Intermittent WiFi Issues… FIXED!

Ever since upgrading from Vista to Windows 7 on my Dell 11z, I’ve been having Internet connectivity issues with my wireless home router. I’ll be connected and working along with either Firefox or Windows Remote Desktop, and all of sudden my Internet connect will be dropped. I check my WiFi connection and I am still connected to my wireless router, but the Internet connectivity is down. Sometimes it will come back online after waiting a minute or two, and other times it just won’t reconnect unless I reboot my machine. Even then, it drops the Internet connection intermittently about every 2 minutes or so. So what gives?

At first, I thought the problem might be my Belkin N+ Wireless Router since I got it recently. However, all of my other laptops seem to connect to the Internet with no dropping issues. I then thought it might be either the WiFi card itself or the WiFi drivers I installed. So, I went to Dell’s web site to download and install the latest drivers for the Dell 1520 Wireless-N Mini Card available for my Dell 11z. After installing that driver (version 5.30.21.0) I still had the same intermittent Internet disconnects.

I then did some Googling and found a posting on the Dell Support Forums site that stated Dell Support Reps often tell their customers to download the latest device drivers from the manufacturer’s site directly, since they have the latest and greatest stuff. As such, I found a link to a Broadcom WiFi mini-card driver that was newer (version 5.60.18.8) than what Dell had on their site. So I downloaded that version and gave it a try.

Low and behold, my intermittent WiFi Internet connection issue was solved! I can connect to my home wireless router and not have to worry about waiting every two minutes for my Internet session to reconnect. Hurray! So I learned a couple of lessons from this exercise:

1. The Dell driver’s site doesn’t always have the best device drivers. It may be better to go directly to the device manufacturer’s site and use their drivers (provided you know enough about the device and who makes it).
2. Device drivers are usually the culprit when you have issues on a newly installed OS.
3. Google is your best friend to resolving system issues.

So I’m very happy now that my Dell 11z is running much better. Nothing is more frustrating than an constantly dropping Internet connection!

Dell has updated Win 7 Drivers for 11z

When I first did the Win 7 upgrade for my 11z (last month) Dell had very few Win 7 drivers available on their support site. Consequently, I had to do a lot of digging around and guesswork to find suitable drivers. Fortunately, Dell has updated their support page for the 11z and most of the necessary Win 7 drivers are now available. Most importantly are the WiFi 1520 Card and Bluetooth card drivers. I’ve gone through the process of updating all of my drivers to match what is available on the Dell support site.

Also, I noticed a new BIOS firmware upgrade is available for the 11z dated 25 November 2009, which has a few bug fixes. Dell recommends installing this update, so I’ve done so on my 11z with no ill effects. Hopefully it will run a bit smoother!

Windows 7 Running Great on my Dell 11z

It’s been about  a week since I installed Windows 7 on my new Dell 11z, and everything is working great. Very quick, smooth, and no problems. It took me a while to get all the missing drivers and apps straighten out, but now the 11z is in full production mode.

Because of its compactness, I tend to take my 11z with me more when I head out to a coffeeshop or if I know I might have some down time waiting for an appointment or such. With such a laptop you begin to know all the free WiFi spots in the area, so staying connected isn’t that big of a problem. In fact, Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft are offering free WiFi at various airports in the US during the holiday season.

I’m still amazed at the clarity of the 11z display, as it’s very crisp and bright. It certainly makes up for the small size of the screen. The only negative I can call out is the short battery life. I get around 2.5 hours with the WiFi turned on, which is ok but sometimes I wish I could go 3-4 hours so I can ditch bring the AC power adapter. As a temporary solution, I’ve got a 110v cigarette lighter adapter that I use to charge my 11z in my car while I’m driving to different appointments. That seems to keep my 11z topped off when I go over the 2.5 hour limit.

Painful upgrade to Windows 7 for my Dell 11z

I just spent the entire day and a half working on getting Windows 7 installed on my Dell Inspiron 11z Netbook… what a hassle. Just to recap: I ordered my Dell 11z last month a few weeks before the release date of Windows 7, and Dell offered a promotion to “pre-install” Windows 7 on certain machines if they are delivered after Oct 22nd. My order fell in this category, so I made my purchase with the belief that my Dell 11z would ship on Oct 25th with Windows 7 installed, and thus I would avoid the hassle of doing an upgrade installation and having to fight to find the right drivers, etc. Well, that didn’t happen. My Dell 11z arrived with Windows Vista installed, and after talking with Dell support several times discovered my only recourse was to get the Windows 7 upgrade DVDs from Dell and do the upgrade myself.

First of all, the upgrade installation came on DVDs and I do not have an external DVD-ROM drive. So, I had to do some Googling to figure out how to create a bootable USB flash drive, copy all the install files to it, and boot up my Dell 11z from this USB drive.

After doing the installation (which went fairly smoothly), I discovered that several internal devices (such as the WiFi Card, Bluetooth module, card reader) were not present on my system under Device Manager. Apparently, these drivers were not part of the “native” drivers available with Windows 7. So I visited the Dell web site to discover that most of these drivers are non-existent under the Dell 11z product for Windows 7 drivers and apps.

I decided to contact Dell tech support via the online chat, and I get someone who just runs me in circles doing a bunch of crazy stuff. He’s giving me links to download drivers and apps that just don’t work. Finally, he tells me my Win 7 installation must have “gone bad” and I will need to reinstall Vista, then Windows 7 on top of that. Go suck an egg, brother… I’m not doing that!

Dell finally ships my Win 7 Upgrade DVD

After being told that my Dell Win 7 Upgrade DVD wouldn’t be shipped until around Nov 22nd, I just got an email confirming that Dell did ship out the upgrade this morning.

I have a UPS tracking number, but it apparently isn’t registered in the UPS system yet so I don’t know when the upgrade will be delivered. I’m actually getting two shipments (one for my Dell 11z and the other for my Son’s Dell Inspiron 15) so Dell may be processing all the registered requests pretty quickly now.

For those waiting for their upgrades, good luck. My next project, will be figuring out how to install Win 7 from a USB drive since I don’t have an external DVD-ROM drive available to use with my Dell 11z.

Dell delays my Win 7 Upgrade shipment

I just check the status of my Windows 7 OS Upgrade shipment, and Dell has moved the estimated shipping date out from November 7th to November 22nd. Ugh. I’m not sure what is going on with Dell these days.

Did they run out of DVDs, or do they not have the necessary drivers for the Dell 11z model figured out? Maybe customers are reporting major issues with running Windows 7 on their 11z (if they even have Win 7 installed by Dell on their machines)?

So much for the “buy now and we’ll ship your 11z with Windows 7 preinstalled” false advertisement. I really wish I had made a screenshot of their web page ad stating this so I could throw it back in Dell’s face to complain about it. I could probably just get the Windows 7 Family 3-Pack and install it today and not wait for Dell’s BS.

Dell 11z: First impressions – Part I

I finally got my Dell Inspirion 11z laptop (or netbook, by my standards) and here’s my quick review.

First, I was disappointed that my 11z didn’t have the Windows 7 OS pre-installed as advertised on the Dell web site when I ordered it. From what I can remember, Dell stated any machines shipped after Oct 22nd (release date for Windows 7) will have the Windows 7 OS pre-installed. This was for machines that were eligible for the free Win 7 upgrade (which my 11z was), but my machine arrived with Windows Vista installed instead.

As such, I promptly called Dell post-sales customer support to get some answers. When I voiced my complaint to the Dell support rep, he kept telling me that I needed to go to the Dell Windows 7 upgrade web page and register for the upgrade to be sent to me via delivery mail. He never confirmed or denied that my machine should or shouldn’t have had the Windows 7 pre-installed as Dell advertised a few weeks ago. Since there wasn’t much he could do to help me, I hung up and tried to register on the Dell Windows 7 upgrade site as he suggested. Unfortunately, the all-important Service Tag number (located on the bottom of my 11z) wasn’t registered in the Dell database and as such my 11z couldn’t be verified for the upgrade!

So I put in another call to Dell support asking about this issue. When I asked about the Windows 7 OS pre-installed issue again, the support rep stated I was mistaken on what I read on their web site. Now, I might have been mistaken, but most likely not since that was the main reason why I ordered the Dell 11z. I knew that I wanted Windows 7 installed, because I didn’t want the hassle of installing Windows 7 over Vista and then having to reinstall all my applications. I’m kicking myself for not saving a screenshot of that Dell advertisement, but then again there’s not much Dell can do about correcting that issue at this moment. The scuttlebutt on the different user forums is that Dell didn’t have their OEM Win 7 DVDs ready in time, so that is why they didn’t ship their PC and laptops with Win 7 pre-installed. I can certainly believe those rumors, as that would explain why I didn’t get my 11z with Win 7.

As such, my only recourse was to jump through the hoops and order the Win 7 upgrade from Dell’s site. So I registered for the Win 7 upgrade for both my Dell 11z and my son’s  Inspiron 15 (which I bought him two months ago) and now it’s a waiting game. Will it take a few days, a week, two weeks, a month…. to arrive? I don’t know.

What I do know, is that this experience was a bad start in my initial evaluation of my new Dell 11z. Instead of being excited about using and exploring my new netbook, I’m utterly disappointed that I’ll need to wait until the Win 7 DVD arrives from Dell before I can really use it. The reason being, I don’t want to install all my files and applications under the Vista OS and have to reinstall everything again shortly after I install Windows 7. Of course, I could do an in-place installation which would preserve my files an applications, but I’ve always had issues with doing that, and a clean install is really the most trouble-free method of upgrading the OS (in my opinion).

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Update: I registered for the Win 7 Upgrade from Dell this afternoon, and the estimated shipping date is Nov 7th. So it will be about 10 days or so before I can get Win 7 installed on my Dell 11z netbook and really start using it.

 

My Dell 11z has shipped…

I got notice that my Dell 11z has shipped, and I should be receiving it this Weds. In preparation, I already have my neoprene slip cover and external USB Slim CD-ROM drive ready to go. I’m crossing my fingers that it arrives undamaged and free of defects.

Once it arrives, I plan to tweak the Windows 7 OS for better performance, then begin installing my standard suite of applications (e.g., Office 2007, Java, Eclipse IDE, Visual Studio 2005, FireFox, Paint.net, Palm WebOS SDK, Windows Mobile SDK, Safari Browser, Apache Server, Notepad++, and more).

After using the 11z for a bit, I’ll post my initial impressions. I’ll also run some basic battery tests and will present my findings in some upcoming posting.

Back into the Dell Netbook World…

It’s been a long time since I made my last posting on this blog. I had returned my Dell Mini 9 for a few different reasons and left the Netbook world for quite a while. Since then, Dell came out with a Mini 10, 12, and now an 11z.

Recently, I was shopping at my local Costco store and saw the Acer 751h Netbook machine. I ended up buying this 11.6″ screen model and wrote up a review on my general Tech Blog site. After doing more researching on the web, I discovered that the Dell Inspiron 11z might give me more features and functionality than the Acer Netbook that I purchased. As such, I returned the Acer to Costco and ordered the 11z online. It’s due to arrive on Oct 27th, so I’ll certainly post my initial comments and impressions after it arrives.

Now, I have to say that the Acer Netbook is a fine machine, sporting the same 1366 x768 hi-resolution WLED screen as the Dell 11z. It’s a well built Netbook, with just two deficiences when compared to the 11z: (1) The Atom Z520 CPU is a bit slow compared to the Celeron processor in the 11z, (2) The minimal graphics memory in the Acer Netbook is noticable when dragging application windows around on the screen (the background takes a few seconds to refresh). I also wanted a WiFi-N wireless adapter card and built-in Bluetooth (for a wireless mouse). Getting a free upgrade to Windows 7 from Dell was also a good thing. So the Acer Netbook is a great machine for the $290 price from Costco, but I felt paying a bit more for the Dell 11z was worth it.

Even though Dell doesn’t classify the Inspiron 11z as a “Netbook”, we all know it is! So I may be back in the Netbook world again, and this blog site may be more active in a few weeks.

Lessons Learned…

So what have I learned from my brief experience with the Dell Mini 9 Netbook?

I’ve learned that keyboard size and key placement should be a big consideration for touch typists who are looking for a Netbook system. A 10″ system might be the threshold for such users, but you’ll need to test out the Netbook to see first hand.

Also, the screen resolution is a factor for effectively viewing web pages. The current standard of 600 pixels for vertical screen height is too small for viewing modern day web pages. A pixel size of 800 would probably be the minimum (however, most Netbooks don’t go above the 600 pixel threshold).

The Intel Atom CPU seems to do a good job for running applications in Windows XP and Windows 7 Beta OSes. Having 1 GB of RAM seemed sufficient, but 2 GB would be better when running multiple applications simultaneously.

The use of a Solid State Disk (SSD) Drive was a rather pleasant experience, since it allowed for a silent running system. The access speed of a SSD was perfectly acceptable, and having only 16 GB for the OS and files wasn’t a big issue since files could be stored on a SDHC card.

Having the Dell Mini 9 also allowed me to investigate using Windows 7 Beta as a future Operating System. I was pleasantly surprised to find Win7 runs quite well on a Netbook computer, with no issues regarding hardware drivers, etc. It worked out so well, I just might install Win7 on my Latitude D610 laptop just for grins. So, it seems that Win7 can run effectively on low-powered processor with just 1 GB of memory and slower storage drives.

Aside from the Netbook aspects, I also learned a lot about the world of online file syncing and storage which was quite valuable. Microsoft Live Mesh is a wonderful file syncing application with remote desktop connection capability. Other online services such as SkyDrive and Zoho are also useful for online file storage and document management. With these utilities, files can be synced and accessed from multiple PCs and hopefully smartphone devices in the near future.

So I can’t say that the time I’ve invested in learning about Netbooks and waiting for my Dell Mini 9 to arrive was wasted, as I’ve gained knowledge that I can use for my everyday activities.

It might be that later this year or next year that the 10″ or 11″ Netbook models will have everything I need to jump back into the Netbook scene again… but until then good luck to those enjoying their Dell Mini 9s!