Bad wireless performance from Intel 3165 WiFi card

I solved my internet speed problem. So if anyone with a dell laptop has this problem again, this thread may help.

I googled around slow internet speed on dell laptop and found this community forum dated a year ago.

https://www.dell.com/community/Networking-Internet-Bluetooth/Beware-of-SmartByte/td-p/6130892

The culprit is a application named SmartByte  which comes preloaded on all dell laptops. This program limits bandwidth causing massive speed cuts.

The best solution is to either disable it in the services tab or Uninstall it via Control panel.

Hi Aaron

My name is Andre Da Costa; an Independent Consultant, Windows Insider MVP and Windows & Devices for IT MVP. I'm here to help you with your problem.

Click Start

Type: cmd

Right click CMD

Click Run as administrator

At the command prompt, type each command then hit Enter:

ipconfig /flushdns

ipconfig /registerdns

ipconfig /release

ipconfig /renew

NETSH winsock reset catalog

NETSH int ipv4 reset reset.log

NETSH int ipv6 reset reset.log

Hit Enter

Exit the prompt then restart

Disable Energy Efficient Ethernet in "Client for Microsoft Networks"

Press Windows key + X

Click Device Manager, expand Network Adapters, right-click the adapter > Properties > Power Management, and then clear the Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power check box.

If you don't have that option, see other ways to disable it:

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/exchange/20...

If the network connection is slow or lagging, check if Windows 10 is downloading Windows Update or the Microsoft Store is downloading updates. These can sometimes affect the performance your network connection.

Press Windows key + X

Click Command Prompt (Admin)

Type the following commands, pressing Enter after each command:

netsh int ip reset reset.txt



netsh winsock reset



netsh advfirewall reset

• There appears to be some congestion on your home network that is preventing you from successfully accessing the other machine. This can depend on the time of the day you might be attempting to remotely connect to the other machine. Remember, you share your bandwidth with other computers in neighbourhood, so there might be throttling especially with multiple machines.

Also, you sharing bandwidth with several machines on the network, so, maybe what you want to do is take some of those machines off the network. Pressing Windows key + A > toggle on Airplane mode can do this.

Also, make sure no one else is actually connecting to your network, you can do this by securing your router:

https://www.groovypost.com/howto/secure-wi-fi-r...

• Your router might be out of date, needs to be updated with a new firmware or replaced.

There might be interference from other devices within your environment or if you are connecting to the other machine remotely, you might actually be too far away from the router.

You can try restarting both the router and modem or consider replacing it all together since it might be the bottleneck.

• The software running on all devices might need updating or are running older outdated versions of Windows 10. Make sure they each updated to the latest versions.

Click Start > Settings > Update & security > Windows Update > Check for updates

Download and install any pending updates

Restart your computer

Go to the following page then click 'Update Now'

https://www.microsoft.com/software-download/win...

Other potential causes might be beyond control, such as your neighbour performing high bandwidth activities like downloading a lot of large content.

There is a BIOS Update available for your Dell from May 2019:

https://downloads.dell.com/FOLDER05416717M/1/In...

If you have not applied it yet, I would do so.

Which version of Windows 10 is currently installed? See how to verify:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wik...

Install the following WLAN driver from July 2019

https://downloads.dell.com/FOLDER05736979M/4/In...

I also find it highly unlikely that the speed is because of neighborhood congestion/router issues etc. Because I performed the same test on my iPad. Such a large speed difference cannot occur within just 2 minutes. Again my internet is not shared. It’s private.

My network itself isn’t congested. Very few users are on the network(this is my home network). And the network itself is 5GHZ. All other networks in the area are 2.4GHZ. Hence no channel congestion. 

No windows update was being performed nor any application update.

 I find this slowdown happening any time of the day. I have tried with another computer but it gave around 70mbps. I agree that I don’t get the full 100mbps speed but I guess it’s just because of my router being 802.11n. But on my laptop I expect to get at least 50+mbps whereas I just get 5-8mbps even during in the night with no live users. I can’t even watch 720p videos because of constant buffering, in spite of there being no other users besides me. I don’t expect Youtube themselves to have network congestion because I’m able to stream 4K on my Xbox even in the afternoon with the most amount of users online( in the local area )