Dell Inspiron 3880 super slow wifi and ethernet speed

Have you tried a different Ethernet cable?  Preferably a Cat6 cable for higher speeds.

I honestly am not sure what my ethernet cable is rated, but it's being used for a different PC with no issues (123mbps in a speed test I just did).

Something running and accessing the internet can slow things down.  Sounds like it might have happened when the 3 programs were installed.  Look at what's in startup as that may give you a clue.

Thanks fireberd.  When my kid is off the computer later I'll just start in with that.  Dell support took control of my computer two different times and messed with all of that and nothing changed.  I might need to just start deleting these programs one at a time and see if anything changes (frustrating... never had this issue with a PC before).

@atlantamoi  What CPU is installed in this PC? If it's an i3, that might explain at least some of the slow performance, especially since it's impacting both WiFi and Ethernet speeds.

What type of WiFi card is installed? Is it a "b/g/n" or an "ac" card? And are you connecting on 2.4 or 5 GHz WiFi?

How did you remove McAfee?  Did you use their McAfee Removal Tool? But if you're going to reinstall Windows again, don't install McAfee at all. Just use Windows Security (aka: Windows Defender) that's built into Win 10 and free.

Ethernet cable is typically marked with its rating so have a look along the cable to see what you have. If the router supports QoS (Quality of Service), is it giving higher priority to other devices on your network so this PC is down the list and getting low priority from the router?

PC is an i5.  We reinstalled Windows 10 last night and back to blazing fast speeds (122mbps).  My son added a couple of his games back and it's normal for now.  The only program we didn't add back is something he had before called "OP Auto Clicker".  No clue if that caused problems before.  So, for McAfee, is it bad to use the PC add/remove to uninstall?  That's what I did last time.  This time I just turned it all off and made sure that all of the Windows security settings were on.  I did not uninstall yet.  McAfee automatically installed when Windows was being reinstalled.

@atlantamoi  - Glad the clean install got it working properly...

If McAfee got reinstalled, you must be using a Dell image. If this happens again -hopefully not- download the latest Win 10 ISO file directly from Microsoft (free), follow their instructions to create a bootable USB stick, and do a clean install without all the stuff Dell includes.

The Windows uninstaller misses a bunch of McAfee files so McAfee recommends you use their own uninstaller for a clean(er) removal. Just register your McAfee install at their site first, so you can reinstall it again, if wanted, for free for the remaining balance of the subscription Dell included with your PC. If you don't register first, you will have to pay for a new McAfee subscription if you want to install it again.

Don't know anything about OP Auto Clicker, but you may want to image the boot drive now that everything is working properly, before installing that app again.

You can use Macrium Reflect (free) and save the image on an external HDD. Also use Macrium to create the bootable USB stick you'd need to move the image from the external HDD back onto the internal drive.  This way, if things go amiss, Macrium can have it back to the last working image you created, with all your apps already installed, in just a few min vs hours for a clean OS install.

RoHe, that is a bunch of very useful information.  Thank you for your time.  I don't care at all about having McAfee, but didn't know it would be helpful to use their uninstall.  Good to know.

I had the same problem and although I only have 8 Gigs of RAM I was able to speed up all actions to be instantaneous including very slow browser response. I would type a word and it would not show in the browser search field for several seconds and was very slow. Here's what I did:

- Most important update BIOS to 1.9.0 from Dell support site (This post dated April 3, 2022)
- also updated following drivers:
         - Dell-Mobile-Connect-Driver_RV7HM_WIN_4.1_A00
         - Dell-SmartByte-Application_P4KWR_WIN_3.1.995_A00_01
         - Dell-SupportAssist-OS-Recovery-Plugin-for-Dell-Update_KN3R3_WIN_5.5.1.16143_A00
         - Intel-3165-7265-8260-8265-Wi-Fi-driver_FNPYY_WIN_22.100.0.3_A16
         - Intel-Management-Engine-Interface-Driver_WN66W_WIN_2141.15.0.2511_A00
         - Intel-Rapid-Storage-Technology-Driver_KW2XT_WIN64_17.11.0.1000_A05_01

HAPPY COMPUTING!

Secondly I assigned 16 gigs of virtual memory to enhance the 8 gigs of hard ram

Then I deleted all temporary files especially temp internet files