A Bridge (Win 10) To Far?

Fisher Mann · 24 Jul 2017

I took my 10 yr. old much used and software bloated Dell 1720 Inspiron and gave it a clean install of Vista, then loaded a "new" and unused copy Win 7 and upgraded it including drivers. Next I found the download page for the 10 day trial of Win 10 and installed that.
While the Win 10 worked fine on the old lappy I could not connect to the internet no matter how much I tried different drivers and WiFi set ups. It would not even recognize that networks were available. I know
WiFi cards that work with Win 10 are out there but whether they would fit and work in the Inspiron may be a different story. I successfully rolled back to Win 7 but this issue of the inaccessibility of WiFi continues to bug me because I would like to get the Inspiron up and running on Win 10...(4 gb memory, (3.6 usable) plus high end for it's age Nvidia graphics card)
Any suggestions would be appreciated.

bro67 · 24 Jul 2017

Just find out what chipset your wifi uses and download them. As for bloated, it does not stop the machine from running if the hard drive has programs on it. It is the speed of the bus and the CPU/GPU that can dog you down.

I have three Intel Core 2 Duo systems running Windows 10 just fine.

Caledon Ken · 24 Jul 2017

Hi Fisher Mann

First check out exact card you have and whether you can access it. Instructional videos are available to take apart just about any laptop. My older Dell (D630 with XP Sticker) has the wireless card under keyboard. Not to bad to get at, yours may be different.

You can then select a card, I went Intel with AC band. Now most of the new cards are what they call "Half Height" and your old card will be full height.

Not an issue, you can buy and adapter on ebay (or your choice) that is full height and it allows you to install a half height. Less than $5 US.

The risks. Not all the card capabilities may be usable, like number of antennas. I also find that with my card I have to use a driver from February 2014 even though new drivers are available. Not sure why but I assume it is the way the chipset interacts with it and of course Win 10 wants to use very modern protocols.

You likely will find a similar issue meaning the biggest job you will have is finding just the right driver.

Very doable, just persistence.

Ken

Fisher Mann · 24 Jul 2017

Thanks for the input will give it a go.

strollin · 24 Jul 2017

Another possibility is to get a USB wifi dongle. They can be had for very little money and actually work quite well.

Fisher Mann · 24 Jul 2017

strollin said:

Another possibility is to get a USB wifi dongle. They can be had for very little money and actually work quite well.

I can honestly say I knew about them but never thought about using one in my situation. thanks!

Samuria · 24 Jul 2017

If you goto Dells site put in your tag number and see if they have drivers for your card

Fisher Mann · 11 Aug 2017

Samuria said:

If you goto Dells site put in your tag number and see if they have drivers for your card

I did do that and had updated all my drivers in advance of the download.

I retried a trial version of 10 again. The install was quite slow and took about 3 hours from start to finish. This time the WIFI was there and could connect to the internet but was screamingly slow. Spent hours researching things and finally found I needed to register/load IPv4 through the Command Prompt. Works quite well now!!

Will mark as Solved!

Fisher Mann · 12 Aug 2017

I was able to get an even much faster browsing experience, albeit weaker signal, by logging into my router directly instead of going through my Netgear 300 extender. I had just read where people had WiFi issues after upgrading to Win 10 and using an extender. Probably some sort of unfixable driver issue with Win 10 seeing the extender worked with Win 7. The extender works perfectly fine with my Win 10 HP machine.