Slow speed test on new computer

Brand new Dell Inspiron seems fairly fast internet in but speed tests show 20-25 mps. We get 200-250 on our service, ie. laptop.

Good to have you on the forum waylon. You did not fill out the "specs" section of your forum profile so I do not know if we're working with a laptop or a desktop here. I'm assuming a PC.
I am also assuming you connect wirelessly to your network. Here's a few things you can try.

Make sure both your PC and laptop are connected on the same router band (2.4 or 5 ghz).

Go into Properties of your wireless adapter and turn off ipv6.

Is the location of your new computer further from your router than your laptop? Walls and barriers have to be considered. You may need to add a wifi extender or upgrade to a mesh network to get full benefit in speed.

Go into your power settings and make sure your PC does not enforce a Balanced or Power saver mode on your wireless card. This mode greatly affects your WiFi performance.

Tried your tips, didn't fix. Odd problem that seems to operate fairly fast but download speed test somehow shows wrong. Obviously if I was at 20mps it would be all but inoperable. So I can't know its accurate speed. PC replaced my last Inspiron and is located in the same place and on the same network. It got readings up to 260mps. I will post specs. Thanks for reply.

...Obviously if I was at 20mps it would be all but inoperable...

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On what basis do you make that statement? Downloading webpages will work perfectly with 20Mb/s - in fact, it will still be perfectly acceptable with much lower speeds.

waylon said:

if I was at 20mps it would be all but inoperable.

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I don't have access to superfast internet where I live. My webpages open just fine at 5 Mb/s down and 1 Mb/s up. I stream which for the most part works fine unless the providers network is overloaded (bandwidth sharing) Granted it's a problem uploading large files but I don't do a lot of that. Heck, I operated at 1.5 Mb/s until 2 years ago (no streaming then)

You never did answer my question about the location of your computer in relation to your router. What distance, barriers, etc. Are they on different floors? Also, what method do you use to check your internet speed? Try a different one.
Speedtest.net
Fast.com
speakeasy.net
There are many more.

I confess I was wrong, just recalling past when speed dropped on older PC, probably different cause. I probably have more speed than I need but provider offered at no price increase.
It's probably my fault that I made unclear question. I am satisfied with speed but curious why speed tests show far lower than former similar PC showed, it's exactly in the same location in the house. I'll ask ISP.

Also noticed when looking at Dell forum many people complaining about their SmartByte ware. I turned it off while looking at this issue; made no difference so turned back on, some are uninstalling it. Curious if anyone here had that issue.