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Bios Wifi power management
E7440 & E7240 have this bios option:
Power Management->Wireless Radio control->Control WLAN Radio
Enabling this option powers the wifi card on/off when a wired connection is not present / present.
But, it also powers off the wifi card when the laptop lid is closed. This causes issues in our environment.
Given that the behavior is not documented, it seems like a bug. It'd sure help us out if the feature worked as advertised. Could this be addressed in a future bios release?
N7U
615 Posts
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March 4th, 2014 18:00
Hi Delluser991
I think we can resolve this problem pretty quickly. In Power Options (accessible from control panel OR by right clicking the battery icon in your system tray.) you can set behavior for "what happens when I close the lid" select "do nothing" This allows the LED backlight to turn off when you close the lid but does nothing else to the system ...so it behaves as if the lid were still open.
If this answer was helpful please remember to hit the YES button and if you need further assistance don't hesitate to contact:
dellUser991
5 Posts
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March 5th, 2014 12:00
Thanks for the response. Our machines are already set to do nothing on lid close. To clarify:
When "Control WLAN Radio" is disabled, a machine has wifi connectivity with the lid closed. With "Control WLAN Radio" enabled, the same machine powers off the wifi card when the lid is closed.
Hard to imagine this is due to anything other than the bios setting.
dellUser991
5 Posts
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April 8th, 2014 15:00
In can anyone else stumbles across this issue, Dell's response to me on this was:
"Working as intended."
N7U
615 Posts
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April 8th, 2014 22:00
Agreed.
So I guess after your most recent post about Dell's reply.....
eawtan
1 Message
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May 8th, 2014 07:00
I just got the E7440 and was trying to get the wifi enabled with lid closed, but I want the system to disable wifi when I have a live RJ45 connection. Currently I will have to live with either:
- wifi enabled with lid closed, but wifi will not be disabled when RJ45 is alive
- wifi disabled with lid closed, and wifi will be disabled when RJ45 is alive.
How can I get the best of both worlds ie: wifi enabled with lid closed unless RJ45 is alive.
Thanks,
N7U
615 Posts
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May 8th, 2014 11:00
Eawtan,
The only way I' ve ever done that in the past is to go into network settings and manually change the current connection to the ehternet adapter vs the wifi adapter. The fastest was to do this is to simply right click on your wifi signal and disconnect your wifi connection. (you don't have to change the automatically sign in setting) From there it will find network connection on the ethernet adapter and use it. You may have to help windows identify the network by choosing "Home, Work, or Public" network.
If purely for the sake of convenience you want the ethernet connection to automatically disconnect the wifi, you may be able to script it but I am unaware of a method for this in network settings or task scheduler or administrative tools
dellUser991
5 Posts
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May 8th, 2014 12:00
It depends on what kind of card you have (Intel or Dell/Qualcomm), but both brands come with management software that allows you to do this.
Research "wireless adapter switching".
For example, for Intel:
http://www.intel.com/support/wireless/wlan/sb/CS-028815.htm
For Dell, it's easier; get the full driver & software download from support.dell.com, and do a full install. The setting is just a check box within the app.
The issue from an enterprise perspective is that the Dell software cannot be deployed with this setting enabled, it must be manually checked. That doesn't work when you have hundreds or thousands of machines to deploy (get on the ball Dell).
dewnut123
11 Posts
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February 11th, 2015 08:00
Any updates to this issue? I current have a support request into Dell for the same problem. We've done extensive testing with many different port replicator REVS and BIOS levels, we cannot seem to find a definitive answer to the problem.
One thing to note, we tried uninstalling Symantec Endpoint Protection on one of our machines, It appears to have fixed the issue (no longer able to dual home - as it should be with the BIOS set for "Control WLAN radio..." Re-installing SEP causes the issue to return. WE then moved that machine into a SEP group which applies nothing more than A/V (network intrusion is disabled, etc...). The issue is still present.
This is a tough issue to nail down the root cause, I am still investigating SEP as the culprit.
dellUser991
5 Posts
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February 11th, 2015 12:00
Yes, our initial issue (wifi disabling on lid close) was fixed in the bios release A10.
dewnut123
11 Posts
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February 11th, 2015 13:00
We are at A13.
paulormp
2 Posts
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June 9th, 2015 06:00
Does anyone have an update on this issue? When the laptop is docked with the lid closed the Wireless Radio control simply doesn't work: it keeps both wired and wireless alive, when it should keep only wired. That's very annoying. If it's docked with the lid open then it works normally.
ethany
28 Posts
0
July 2nd, 2015 20:00
Hi Magento tutorial for beginners
I think we can resolve this problem pretty quickly. In Power Options (accessible from control panel OR by right clicking the battery icon in your system tray.) you can set behavior for "what happens when I close the lid" select "do nothing" This allows the LED backlight to turn off when you close the lid but does nothing else to the system ...so it behaves as if the lid were still open.
I am agree with this opinion!
paulormp
2 Posts
0
July 3rd, 2015 07:00
Unfortunately this setting is already set like this. Something happens when you close the lid, even if you tell Windows to "do nothing". :(