My company is a huge believer in Dell products and our entire office is decked out in almost everything Dell related. They’re so much easier to work with and customizing a PC to what you need is just a genius thing. I rarely have a gripe about anything of theirs but recently we purchased a few new desktop computers for new employees and I was hit with a very interesting issue….the computer just stopped connecting to the network.

If you have a Dell Vostro 220s Slim Tower and it all the sudden stopped connecting to the network, this might be worth reading.

How to fix Dell Vostro 220s Slim Tower Network Connection

The symptom would be the computer was connected just fine one day, then the next it cannot get a connection. Almost like your ISP is not working or maybe a bad cable or even worse, a bad NIC (network interface card) chip. Cards are easy to replace, but when it’s a chip built into the system board, you’re screwed. But this might help you get past all of these pain in the ass issues.

Step 1: Open DEVICE MANAGER

Vista Users:

• Click START button to load your menu
• Right-click on COMPUTER button and select PROPERTIES
• In the computer properties window, you should see a left side column with menu options, click DEVICE MANAGER

XP Users:

• Click START
• Right-click on MY COMPUTER and select PROPERTIES
• In My Computer properties window, click the HARDWARE tab
• In the Hardware tab, click the button labeled DEVICE MANAGER

STEP 2 – View Network Adapters

To do this, find the listing labeled “Network Adapters” and click the little “+” sign to the left. It will look like this:

STEP 3 – Update Driver

Right-Click on your Adapter (if more than one, pick the first one listed) and select “update driver software” or “update driver”

Then tell the wizard you want to “Browse my computer for drivers”

Then on the next screen, look for the option that says “Let me pick from a list of device drivers”

Final Step – Pick Alternate Driver
This is where you need to pay attention. In the several situations I’ve had, there are two identical drivers listed for my network adapter. When you get to the list, it will initially highlight the driver you are currently using, as seen in the screenshot below. As you can see, directly underneath the one highlighted, there is a 2nd IDENTICAL (word for word, number for number) device driver listed. YOU MUST MAKE SURE IT IS EXACTLY THE SAME!

If they are identical, select the un-highlighted one, or the “other one”. Then press NEXT and it will update your network adapter with the 2nd device driver software.

Once it’s completed, close out the wizard and restart your computer. If you have this same situation, especially if you have the same network adapter as shown above, it should connect when you reboot. If you do not have identical drivers, then there’s a chance you’re dealing with one of the other issues I mentioned in the beginning.

Hope this helps someone! I stumbled across it and it’s repaired 5 different computers in my office. All 5 were Dell Vostro 220s Slim Tower running windows Vista Business edition.