I have a Dell 2350 Broadband Router that supports the wireless network in my house. It was manufactured March 2005 and I likely bought it in 2005. I used the bar code tag on the Dell site lookup and it said the router was out of warranty.

The problem is that the router suddenly stopped working yesterday evening. The power is on and the "Internet" lamp is on and flashing, but the "Wireless" lamp is not on. Our Dell laptop, also about three years old, cannot connect to the Internet using that router, even though the laptop detects that network (and several others nearby).

I know I have an Internet connection because I have a ten-year-old Compaq desktop cabled to the cable modem and to the router(which is how I looked at the Dell site and other forums). When the desktop is actively connected to the Internet, the router's LAN1 lamp is lit.

I've tried pushing the router's Reset button, and unplugging and re-plugging the Power cord, twice each, with no change in results.

Is there a fix to this router? Or is it past its useful life and must be replaced?

Thanks,
David

Hi David,
A couple things came to mind when reading your post. It could be that the router is dieing. You did mention you can see the wireless router and others in the area, what if any error message do you get when you try to use your connection?

Also with my old routers I know they overheat sometimes (my prob bad location, dust, etc) what I have found works sometimes is unplugging it and leaving it unplugged for several minutes to let it cool down. Also dust is a big pain, have you checked to see if that might be an issue?

Hope that gives you at least a couple things to check.

Thank you for the quick response!

No, dust isn't a problem, but I will double-check when I get home today to make sure. It seems that if it were dust, then the unit wouldn't work at all, but you never can tell.

As for the error message -- the message is "unable to connect" with the wireless network. I'm sorry, I'm not at my home right now, so I don't have the exact message. This is received after selecting a wireless network name from the list of networks detected. Of course, my own network is listed as the default, and the box "automatically detect settings" is checked under Internet Options, Connections, LAN Settings.

But the icon in the tray at the bottom of the desktop indicates there is no connection, and clicking on the balloon there initiates the steps to establishing the connection. Following those steps normally would lead to re-establishing the connection. In the past, I've had problems with the IP address disappearing from the IP config display, and I've had to click the "repair the IP address" button a few times. Eventually it would work.

But this time, it's not connecting to the network at all, because it appears the wireless router isn't broadcasting the signal. Purely guesswork on my part.

David,
Guess work isn't all bad.

Another suggestion when you get home is to try connecting the laptop to the cable that you were using with the 10year old compaq. Be sure the laptop is off when you connect it to the cable (ethernet cat5 I assume) and then bot the laptop up and see if it gets a connection.

I understand you won't be able to check anything untill you get home and are able to check those things out. In the mean time I will also do some research on your router model since I don't own that model I would like to be sure I know the setup and config of the default settings before I advise on any other actions.

Good luck and please feel free to post back when you get a chance.

Thanks again very much for the assistance and encouragement! Your suggestion to connect the laptop directly to the router is very good -- I confess it didn't occur to me at all -- and I'll try that when I get home.

I left the desktop Compaq downloading the manual for the Dell 2350 router when I left for work this morning. I'm hoping there's some help in there.

I'll post again after I try these ideas. Thanks again!

David

OK, I cabled my laptop to the router and access the Internet just fine, as I anticipated. So the router isn't broken.

I realized then there is one piece of information I didn't provide earlier -- two nights before I began experiencing these problems, I had pushed the Reset button on the router. I did it because I thought I would interrupt my disobedient son's session on the Internet. I have since learned 1) that pressing the Reset button on the router will return it to its factory settings and 2) the computer in my son's room uses an external wireless device to access the Internet, a Linksys Wireless-G 2.4GHz USB network adaptor, which has been, he claims, connecting to a wireless network called LINKSYS. My son is not computer-proficient beyond using Facebook and downloading music, so I doubt this.

So now my problem is setting up a network. It was a former coworker who did this for me the first time, and he's gone. I do not have a CD for this router. I've tried following the directions which appear after clicking on the balloon message "Wireless Network Connection - The connection has limited or no connectivity. You might not be able to access the Internet..." etc. I have tried re-setting up the profile for the wireless network, and while the laptop detects the wireless network signal, it continues to have "limited or no connectivity". What do I do?