I have read before about users having this concern. When you say large how big do you mean? Is this an ISP e-mail account or an on-line you are using? Both tend to have account limits imposed. How long of a "send" period are you speaking of? Some accounts will time out. Do you have any other applications configured to be actively sharing bandwidth while you are trying to send the e-mail? Have you tried compressing the file into a .zip format and then sending it? DA

Mike and Raven, Thanks for the suggestions. I tried everything and just got more frustrated. I was about to call a traveling guru to come to my house and pick up the PC, but I decided to wait because today my DSL provider was sending a tech to update my modem so I can try faster DSL for 3 months, and then decide if I want to do the upgrade and pay for it. Well, the very nice young man who brought the new modem fiddled with my PC for 5 minutes and got the keyboard working again. I don't really understand what he did, but I am certain he is a genius. As for my laptop, it often goes for 6 months without being turned on and then, when I do turn it on it needs hours to update everything available. It doesn't imediately recognize my home network, but if I wait for the prompts it makes me choose which network I want. So, I am choosing my network each time I boot up, but at least it works. My sweet little laptop is AOK and my Kindle works fine so I am quite satisfied. Nancy

It is definitely a matter for the professional..I wouldn't know where to start. I just read that a lot of people have had the same problem with these Dell lap tops. It's something that happened when they were manufactured. Two things were installed by mistake...forget what it was as I'm not mechanically inclined. I just wonder if it will eventually not show the screen display at all if not fixed. Thanks so much for your help Zep and Mike. :)

Hi Seattlemike, I looked at the specs for your printer and it appears to connect via USB or parellel to your desktop as a standard setup. It does have an optional network adapter/print server. Does the printer have this optional feature (does it have a port for the ethernet cable?). Are you currently having issues with the desktop staying online? I'm trying to ascertain why the tech wants you to go wireless when you have the router a few inches from the desktop. Ideally, you would connect the modem to the router, then the desktop to the router via ethernet cable, the laptop connects to the router via wireless and then there's the printer. If it has only USB or parellel connection, you will have to connect it to the desktop, then share it on the network to enable printing from the laptop (the desktop must be online and active for this to work). If it has the optional ethernet port/print server then it also can be connected to the router and given a static (assigned) IP address. In every case, you will need to connect the printer directly to the laptop in order to install the driver, then disconnect from the laptop and place the printer in it's permanent position. After all of the physical connections are made, you'll need to syncronize the network. This entails powering off everything (usually requires electrical power to be disconnected, some items do have on/off switches) and bringing them online in a specific order. Starting with the modem, plug it into power and watch the lights until the 'online' light becomes stable. Next will be the router, plug it into electrical power and wait 2 minutes for the router to obtain it's IP address from the modem. Now turn on the printer and computers, order is not important here. Everything should be online at this point. Please make sure that you utilize wireless security on the router to protect your network especially since you will have to enable file and printer sharing on the desktop in order to allow printing from the laptop, leaving your desktop wide open to intrusion. The router has several options, WEP, WPA, WPA2 and WPA-PSK/WPA2-PSK. You will need to see which of those options that your laptop's wireless adapter utilizes. I'm sure that I've missed something, please ask. Other helpers will also add pertinent details that I may have overlooked. Pam