hmm;
Barely anything supports XP SP2, they have all moved to SP3
Even my old 98/se still finds connections and the XP/SP2 I did have also worked well.
IMO, changing systems is a brutal, last ditch effort.
(you may need to save to a thumb drive to get it to the dell inspiron b130)
go to the Dell Site and use your Service Tag to find the correct driver; download it.
Google Search for the
broadcom 170c driver, download it
Use the Device MGR to uninstall the network driver for the
broadcom 170c
Now Install the new one on the thumb drive.
Verify the device mgr sees the device and driver.
Reboot.
WIRE a connection to your router, wait 30 seconds and then check the following
start -> run and enter ipconfig /all
there should be several lines of output and the critical values
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.x.B
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.x.A
the value X is typically 0,1,2
A is almost always 1
B will be anything between 2 and 254
With those values you can PING 8.8.8.8, not get timeouts and see tcp timings.
=== NOW THEN== you're ready to look for a WiFi connection
Disconnect the wired connection, enable the wifi
Now
see this topic for details on XP WiFi setup