Slow Internet Speed 7 YO Dell Inspiron

Thanks for your help.

We have a 7 year old Dell Inspiron which has been dis-infected recently with the help of "what the tech".

I'd appreciate a little help confirming if the internet speed is running optimally given the hardware and software we're using.

Our home has 100Mbs speed, but the Dell never exceeds 15Mbs as tested on speedtest.net.

When I test our newer laptop we frequently get over 90Mbs, but it has a dual band network card.

So I'd also like to look into upgrading the card on the Dell.

I hope you find this a good starting explanation.

Best regards,

Joel

sounds like the dell has an old 802.11b type wireless card, a wireless g would give about 54Mbs and an n or newer ac type i'd expect you to get the full speed your internet connection is capable of.

more info on wifi standards :-

http://compnetworking.about.com/cs/wireless80211/a/aa80211standard.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11

now as to replacing the wifi card inside the laptop you may find it cheaper/easier to just disable the built in wifi and add an external usb type like these :-  http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Description=wireless%20n%20usb%20adapter&Submit=ENE

Thanks for the reply and solutions.

Do you think we should confirm if the current wireless card is running at it's capacity?

Could you provide any instructions on how to check that?

JB

first things we need too know is the operating system then we'd need to know the hardware details of your wifi card to say the problem is due to the type/age of the inbuilt wifi card.