[Ipg-smz] My three year old Dell Inspiron 13 5000 laptop runs great - but is it too old?

[David Needle]

As always - IPG to the rescue! Thanks Tom, Swap, Tara and Todd. Though the
truth is Todd wasn't very helpful at all.

(Having recently FINALLY met Todd in person, I hope we are at the stage
where he can handle my not-at-all-serious jibes!)




On Wed, May 29, 2019 at 5:08 PM Tom Henderson <thenderson at extremelabs.com>
wrote:

> Tara's suggestion is good, and so is Swap's.
>
> There are two versions of 802.11n, one for 2.4GHz, and the other for 5GHz.
> That your machine wouldn't support "n-5GHz" is mysterious. It might be
> turned off in the BIOS. And the 5GHz has less penetration in some
> circumstances. This has nothing to do with "5G" which can barely be found
> in its most primitive form, anywhere on the planet. The tech you describe
> seems unskilled, unless I'm missing something.
>
> Like they suggest down thread-- get a cheap dongle.
>
> And to answer your question, no, your machine is just fine. An 802.11ac
> dongle is cheap and will work on your machine. Make sure it has drivers for
> Windows (most all do). If you have a USB-C port on your machine, use that,
> as under some circumstances, it will be faster than a slower USB port.
>
> Tom (early liaison to the IEEE 802.11 committee)
>
>
> On 5/29/19 7:53 PM, David Needle wrote:
>
> Yes, "only" supports 802.11n
>
> On Wed, May 29, 2019 at 4:51 PM Swapnil “Swap” Bhartiya <
> arnieswap at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> They should support 2.4Ghz too. 5Ghz won’t be detected by older chips. I
>> am sure you are NOT confusing 5G network with 5Ghz wifi…
>>
>> Also if you can, check which network your wifi chip detects :  If it
>> says that the adapter supports 802.11a and 802.11g and 802.11n network
>> modes, it means that the computer has 2.4 GHz and 5GHz network capability.
>>   If it says 802.11n 802.11g and 802.11b network modes, it means the
>> computer has 2.4GHz network capability only.
>>
>>
>> https://www.drivereasy.com/knowledge/computer-not-see-5ghz-wifi-sees-2-4ghz-windows/
>>
>> Swap
>>
>> On May 29, 2019, at 7:44 PM, Todd R. Weiss <toddrweiss at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> That's  ridiculous.
>> If it isn't backward compatible then that is ridiculous system
>> configuration.
>> There will be plenty of non 5G equipment around for a long time.
>> I don't buy that excuse.
>>
>> :)
>>
>> Todd R. Weiss
>> Technology Journalist
>> TechManTalking
>> toddrweiss at gmail.com
>> O 717-806-5932
>> M 717-413-9630
>>
>> Publicist
>> Harmonious Wail
>> Gypsy Jazz with Style
>> www.wail.com
>> 717-413-9630
>> toddrweiss at gmail.com
>>
>> On Wed, May 29, 2019, 7:33 PM Swapnil “Swap” Bhartiya <
>> arnieswap at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Yes. If your wifi chip doesn’t support 5Ghz, it won’t work. We have some
>>> older lappies and they can only detect 2.4GHz.
>>>
>>> > On May 29, 2019, at 7:30 PM, David Needle <davidneedle at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > I ask this because of an incident in the press room at Salesforce's
>>> TrailheaDX conference today. They had a special WiFi password for the room,
>>> but it didn't work for me. A tech came over, but couldn't get it to work,
>>> even after also trying several other "secret" WiFi logins.
>>> >
>>> > His explanation was that they had probably set it up for 5G and my
>>> notebook didn't support that.
>>> >
>>> > No idea if that's a plausible explanation. No one else seemed to have
>>> a problem connecting. As it turned out, there was another WiFi code
>>> available to all attendees that worked perfectly fine throughout the
>>> Moscone Center so it turned out not to be an issue.
>>> >
>>> > Is there another explanation? Is this issue likely to come again
>>> anytime soon?
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > --
>>> > Ipg-smz mailing list
>>> > Ipg-smz at netpress.org
>>> > http://netpress.org/mailman/listinfo/ipg-smz_netpress.org
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Ipg-smz mailing list
>>> Ipg-smz at netpress.org
>>> http://netpress.org/mailman/listinfo/ipg-smz_netpress.org
>>>
>> --
>> Ipg-smz mailing list
>> Ipg-smz at netpress.org
>> http://netpress.org/mailman/listinfo/ipg-smz_netpress.org
>>
>>
>> --
>> Ipg-smz mailing list
>> Ipg-smz at netpress.org
>> http://netpress.org/mailman/listinfo/ipg-smz_netpress.org
>>
>
> --
> Tom Henderson
> ExtremeLabs, Inc.
> +1 317 250 4646
> Twitter: @extremelabs
> Skype: extremelabsinc
>
> --
> Ipg-smz mailing list
> Ipg-smz at netpress.org
> http://netpress.org/mailman/listinfo/ipg-smz_netpress.org
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://netpress.org/pipermail/ipg-smz_netpress.org/attachments/20190529/78127a67/attachment.html>