Why Is My Dell Inspiron Laptop Wi-Fi Internet So Slow? (Solved)

The Dell Inspiron laptop WiFi adapter is good enough to provide you with a fast internet connection, so why do many Dell Inspiron users report extremely slow WiFi speed?

Your Dell Inspiron laptop WiFi is slow due to a pre-installed application called SmartByte. This software, designed to reserve bandwidth to prioritize video streaming, has left countless users with a crawling internet speed.

It is a common issue, and Dell acknowledged it on its official website. You can fix it by either reconfiguring SmartByte to run correctly, simply turning it off, or uninstalling it from your Dell Inspiron.

In this article, I will show you how you can reconfigure, disable or uninstall SmartByte.

How to Reconfigure Smartbyte

The first solution involves reconfiguring Smartbyte to unlock your maximum internet speed by manually setting bandwidth.

To complete this step is essential that you know your maximum download speed. You can find this information in your Internet Plan or by asking your ISP.

To reconfigure Smartbyte:

1. Click on the Windows Search Bar (the one right next to the Start button) and type Smartbyte to locate the application.
2. When the result shows up, click on the Smartbyte entry to launch it.
3. With Smartbyte open, click on the gear icon in the upper right corner to open Advanced Settings.
4. In Advanced Settings, click on the option Manually Set Bandwidth.
5. Input your Internet Service Provided maximum download speed on the left box. (This will automatically toggle off Dynamic Bandwidth, ignore it)

After finishing this step, try to use a tool like Speed.io to see if your Internet speed is fast again. If this step doesn’t work, try to disable or remove Smartbyte.

How to Disable Smartbyte

If you don’t want to remove Smartbyte, you can still disable it to prevent it from running on Windows startup, but it will keep Smartbyte installed on your PC.

To disable Smartbyte:

1. Press Ctrl + Shift + Esc to open the Task Manager.
2. Navigate to the Startup tab.
3. Find the Smartbyte application and click on the Disable button in the bottom-right corner of the task manager window.

If you won’t need Smartbyte and want to free up disk space, try uninstalling Smartbyte.

How to Uninstall Smartbyte

Uninstall is not essential software for Windows, so I recommend you uninstall it to free disk space and RAM from your PC.

Here is how you can uninstall SmartByte:

1. Right-click on the Start button (the one with the Windows logo) on the bottom-left corner of your screen
2. Select Apps and Features from the menu that will open.
3. Find the Smartbyte application in the list, click on it and then click on the Uninstall button.

If you want to uninstall multiple programs at once, it is possible to do it with a third-party program.

If removing SmartByte didn’t work, try to update your network drivers.

Update your Network Drivers

Drivers are responsible for the communication between your hardware (for example, your network card) and your Operational System (Windows), so an outdated or faulty network driver will naturally affect the performance of your Internet.

There are two ways to update your network drivers: Downloading the latest driver from Windows Device Manager. Second, by utilizing a driver updater.

Since Windows commonly doesn’t deliver the latest driver (by saying that your drivers are already updated), I will show you how to do it with a Driver Updater:

1. Download Driver Booster and install it on your PC.
2. Open Driver Booster and click Scan.
   
3. When the scan is finished, click on the Update button next to Network adapters.
   You can also click on Update Now in the upper-right corner to update all of your outdated drivers at once.
4. Restart your PC after the updating is done.

(If you have a Wi-Fi 6 network adapter and your Wi-Fi keeps disconnecting, I’ve written an article on how to fix Intel WiFi 6 AX201 keeps disconnecting.)

Conclusion

The main solution to fix slow WiFi on Dell Inspiron laptops is to uninstall the SmartByte application, which works for 90% of the users. Even though you can reconfigure or disable it, the better solution is to uninstall it as it is not particularly helpful software.

If it doesn’t work, the first solution is to try to update your network drivers. You can also try to update your Windows to the latest version.

You can also run the steps in my article on WiFi issues: how to fix WiFi disconnecting on Windows 11.