Intel 2100 3a Mini PCI Wireless Card Solution

I own a Dell Inspiron 8600 notebook computer with the Intel 2100 3a Mini PCI wireless card installed. I’ve always had problems with this configuration and dealing will Dell over service issues the past few years has been nothing other than pointless as their service is non-existent… The main problem is that the connection (while “excellent”) just sputters out and doesn’t return until a restart and then sputters out again soon afterwards. So over the past year or so I’ve been using an obtrusive USB-based wireless receiver which works fine except that it’s a pain always sticking out of the machine.

So today I decide that I’ll either find a real solution to the problem or purchase a new Mini PCI card to replace the Intel. I chose to do a total removal and reinstallation using the latest drivers which can be found here. These are EOL (End of Life) drivers in that there will be no future versions. So if these drivers did not work then I really couldn’t expect to ever get this card going again. These are the steps I took to get everything working properly:

1. Disable the wireless antenna.
2. Uninstall drivers and software from both Device Manager and Add/Remove Programs.
3. Shut down the machine.
4. Physically remove the card.
5. Restart the machine.
6. Run the driver install routine.
7. Shut down the machine.
8. Physically install the card along with the antennae.
9. Restart the machine.
10. Have Windows handle the wireless connections (did not install the PROset software- only drivers!)
11. Create a connection profile.

This seems to have actually worked. I’ve tried a number of different solutions over the past few years and I know there are a lot of people out there in the same situation. Hope this helps someone!