I have a brand new Dell Inspiron 1210 Mini 12 netbook with XP and a wireless 802.11g mini-card.  It performs great, with one glaring exception. All wireless download activity is unacceptably slow.  So the Internet is a clunker. It performs fine on uploads.  And both the download and upload internet directions are OK when it's attached to an ethernet cable and wireless is not being used.

I cannot obtain better than 200kbps on any wireless download speed test. And usually I get far less than that, down to 75kbps. Upload test results are quite acceptable, in the 300-375kbps range.

Here is what I have tried so far:

- I replaced the factory IE 6 browser. I installed both IE 7 and Firefox 3 (using a USB drive, since software downloads time out).  I get the same result on all browsers.

- I de-installed McAffee, so that's gone.  I have turned off phishing protection, XP's virus protection, and even turned off the XP firewall for these tests.  So it's not them.  The machine has, at the moment, no virus protection or other firewall installed on it which could be slowing it down.  

- I took it to other wireless sites.  On wireless at a hotel, the download again stayed low..  So it's not my home wireless router. 

- I checked the network settings.  I own a faithful old Gateway laptop also running XP.  It runs fine on my home wireless.  So I compared all of the Dell Mini's various networking and TCP/IP settings and dialog boxes with those of the Gateway.  All the settings are the same on both machines. The only difference is that the Dell Mini has a newer Broadcom 802.11g network driver file.  The older Gateway is using BCMWL5.SYS version 3.100.64.0 from 2005.  The Dell Mini is using BCMWL5.SYS version 4.170.77.3 from 2008.

- I googled for BCMWL5.SYS driver problems. I could not find any relevant ones. I have no BCOD.

- I tried it on an ethernet cable. It works fine whenever it is not on wireless.  At home, on an Ethernet cable, it jumps to 1500-1700kbps for downloads, and 300-400kbps for uploads. In a hotel, plugged into what was labeled as a T1 cable, it jumped to over 6000kbps in both directions.  

- I googled for similar Inspiron 1210 wireless problems.  None found.

 

- I turned off the kids' machine and their XBOXes.  Same results.

My home wireless router is an old Linksys BEFW1154 v.4 connected to telco ADSL (which is slow DSL). Using it, both laptops achieve similar 300-375kbps in upload speed tests.  For download, the Gateway jumps to about 1600kbps, but the Dell Mini 12 never exceeds 100-200kbps. 

It's about ten times slower than normal on download. That is the problem.

Is this a Dell warranty issue on the 802.11g mini-card?  Or is there a software explanation I am missing?

Thank you very much for any help.