Help with wireless network connection

[4EyedTurd]

Got cable and internet setup at the house but I wasn't home. The guy setup the wifi but never touched the laptop, he left a piece of paper with the network name and password to connect to. Well, so far our phones and tablet connect to it but no luck with the laptop. The laptop can see the network, accepts the password but has problems connecting. Google suggests uninstalling the network adapter and let it reinstall, I tried it and still have the same results. Anybody more computer savy than I care to take a shot?

[stang2be]

Any more info on the service/model of the router and laptop? Could be a newer router that is set up to not be compatible with older 802.11 standards and then an older laptop with a wireless card that doesn't work with the new router/modem? Just a wild guess as a possible option based on the info provided.

[yellowstang]

As stated above, need more info.
Try these suggestions, if you have not.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/15287/windows-why-can-not-get-connected

[LS1Goat]

Is it an older laptop? It's possible the wifi card in the laptop doesn't support the network protocol of the new router. You probably have a 802.11 b/g wireless card and the new router is 802.11 n/ac

[4EyedTurd]

Kinda older, an Inspirion 1440 running Windows 7 still. Router is an Arris DG2470

[4EyedTurd]

I did just about everything in the link yellowstang posted and still have the same results. It looks like the Arris DG2470 has 802.11AC wifi and I can't figure out what my hardware has. Pinged it and it sent 4 packet and 4 returned, round trip times average 5ms.

[UserX]

Check and make sure your router is not set to only allow X number of devices concurrently. You could try disconnecting a phone or tablet and then seeing if the laptop will connect.

[yellowstang]

According to this, it has 802.11 b/g

https://www.cnet.com/products/dell-inspiron-1440-14-p-t4400-windows-7-home-basic-64-bit-2-gb-ram-250-gb-hdd-series/specs/

[lincolnboy]

Some laptop have a switch on the side or in the keyboard to enable WiFi on and off. Check for one, that maybe the issue

[yellowstang]

If this is your router, looks like the laptop is too old, well the Wifi card is.

https://www.arris.com/globalassets/resources/data-sheets/dg2470a_ds.pdf

3x3 Integrated Dual Band Concurrent 2.4GHz 802.11n and 5GHz
802.11ac High Power Radios

I'd either get a newer Wifi card (if it supports it), or maybe get another Wifi router that supports the laptop speed and plug it into this router and use it's wifi connection.
Or, spend some $ and get a whole new laptop!

[FunFordCobra]

when your router cost more than your laptop, time to upgrade.

[4EyedTurd]

Well shit...

[Ratt]

Call Dell Support and ask them if there is a replacement wireless card for N or AC WiFi connectivity. Most Dell laptops use a removable wireless card, which means you might be able to upgrade it. I'd bet money on there being a compatible 802.11n card floating around out there.

If they don't have one or they don't want to help you, PM me the dell Service Tag number and I will see if I can locate a compatible WiFi card.

All that said, you'd probably be better served buying a new laptop with new technology, rather than relying on 5+ year old hardware.

[abecx]

I've noticed that 5 years isn't too old anymore. My macbook pro is going on 5 years and its still fast. Technology seems to have not progressed that much in the last 5 years, unless you have a base model of something from 2011 or older.

[Ratt]

I've noticed that 5 years isn't too old anymore. My macbook pro is going on 5 years and its still fast. Technology seems to have not progressed that much in the last 5 years, unless you have a base model of something from 2011 or older.

In the last five years, laptops have generally gone from HDD to SSD (or other type of flash storage), b/g wireless to at least g/n wireless if not n/ac wireless, a lot have started going fanless, are using much less power, etc. I agree with you that there haven't been any reality-altering advancements in laptop technology, but the content these days is requiring more compute power than ever, and a 5 year old laptop is starting to show its age.

Unless it's a Mac, like you said. My wife's 2012 Macbook Pro came with a shitty 500GB spinning disk, and didn't start getting slow until last year. Swapped it out with a 960GB SSD (which you could still do on that year model, thankfully), and it has been just as fast as it was right out of the box 5 years ago.