It’s the drivers stupid
I spent a good 2 hours on the phone, with Dell tech support. All my other computers were connecting to the internet just fine, but the new and still shiny M170 was not. Instead of getting the typical 4 Mbps, I was getting an embarrassing 250 kbps. It was 1998 all over again, and how am I supposed to read email at that speed?
The Dell dude was very nice and patient. At least he took me seriously (and maybe he shouldn’t have) and didn’t give me the canned answers “Sir, make sure you reboot 3 times…and oh, your monitor needs to be clean!”. Instead we jumped right to uninstalling drivers, connecting to other peoples’ networks, planning a trip to Startbucks to see how the connection was there (just in case it was my router) and all that good stuff.
In the end nothing worked. Then I decided to stop being lazy and search the Intel site for new drivers. I found some new and recent stuff (always nice), installed it and now it’s more like it:
I like this speed test because it has prettier graphics, and the numbers it gives me are better than all the other speed tools out there. I’m vain like that.