I can't believe the lame responses to the fixes for the wireless issue, it's not a driver problem, it's not a firewall or anti-virus issue. The problem is that the wireless adapter that Dell is using in the 17R is a piece of junk. It doesn't matter if you roll the driver back to an older version or install an updated driver it still doesn't work reliably. It also doesn't matter what router you're trying to connect to or what type of security you're connecting to, wpa, wep, tkip the wireless adapter is junk. It's obvious that there is an inherent flaw in the adapter if there are thousands of users experiencing the same problem. I have two 17R's and both experience the same problem and it doesn't matter if the 17R connects to a secured or unsecured network. The wireless adapter will always dump the connection and you are forced to to do a wireless adapter reset. Only fix is to use a usb wireless adapter or run an ethernet cable which defeats being wireless. There is another fix that I didn't mention above, buy another brand of laptop.
hello, i have had my inspiron 17r since this christmas. its obviously still in great condition as it is not even a year old yet. however, after about a month of having my computer i noticed something that it did that was very annoying. the wifi connection is randomly lost for about 2 minutes and then re connects. during that time i cannot load any pages or anything. when it first started doing this, it would only happen about once every 2 hours, but it progressively got worse and worse to the point that i cannot even access the internet with it anymore. i boot it up and it has no connection then connects to wifi for 5 seconds and then loses it again. heres the deal though, this only happens with my computer out of all of my family's computers. i have a very good wifi connection because the connection says "good" whenever it does connect, and this problem never happened with my last computer which was a toshiba. i know for a fact it isn't a problem with my home wifi because i have brought my computer on a trip across the country before and it still happened. i have gotten help from a dell worker before and he gave me a link to update some drivers of which i cant remember. this helped the problem a little for maybe a week or two and then it started doing it again. please help me this is ridiculous how this happens considering how new and expensive the computer was
Dell Inspiron 17r keeps losing wifi connection