Faulty Wi-Fi?

Background: Acer Aspire ONE AOA150-1777 (8.9", 120GB Hard drive, 1GB RAM). Shipped with Windows XP Home, also running dual-boot with Ubuntu 9.04 Netbook Remix.

I have a problem with my Wi-Fi a couple times where after a reboot or resuming from hibernation the wireless adapter will not detect any wireless networks (otherwise it "appears" to be working fine, i.e. no errors). I can't figure out why this happens, but currently to restore function I boot into Windows, delete the adapter from the device Manager, shut down, then do a cold boot back into windows and it starts working again for both OSes.

I am not sure how to replicate it as it seems to happen at random in Windows and UNR. In addition to that from time to time on certain networks I will randomly get disconnected, or throughput will drop significantly.

In UNR I believe I am using the Ath5k drivers that it installed on its own automatically. In Windows I am using driver version 7.6.0.264 dated 8/20/2008.

The wireless access points are of all different brands, thought the ones with the most trouble are 2Wire, NETGEAR, and what I think is a 802.11-draft-n Linksys (its a public hotspot at my college). The throughput issues I have occur with two identical Buffalo AirStation with DD-WRT firmware.

The 2Wire and NETGEAR are running WPA2 encryption, the Linksys and one of the buffalo routers are unencrypted, and I believe the other Buffalo is either using WEP or WPA (not WPA2).

My personal router is the unencrypted Buffalo one (I live in a very rural area, which makes encryption pointless). I use dial-up internet at home (the wireless network is to share files with my desktop PC and to access the connected printer), however all the other wireless networks have internet access.

I tried to be as detailed as possible, however if you need more information please let me know.

Thanks in advance!

 

I have the same problems, running windows 7.
It seems to be a problem with the Atheros driver and/or windows. Transferring a large file will get the adapter to disconnect. A couple of times - in hotels - no networks were detected, as you describe. My driver is 8.0.0.171 from July. I guess we will have to wait for a better driver.

 

And I just remembered somebody writing that these problems started with the 3310 bios. 3309 was better. I'm on 3310.

 

I haven't checked to see if there were new BIOS releases out in quite a while. CPU-Z is reporting that my BIOS is version "0.3305" dated 05/09/08

 

Turning "off" the Atheros Power Save Mode (from default "maximum") in the Advanced section of Device Manager fixed early problems I had with mine (A150, XP Home)

 

Well, I upgraded to the 3310 BIOS, and poof I made things even worse. Right as the OS GUI is about to show up it turns off with a click. Gonna try rolling back to 3309 if I can get it to boot off of a USB stick. BTW, I flashed it using the included windows flashing utility after disabling all my security software (ClamWin Anti-virus, Windows Defender anti-spyware, PCTools Firewall Plus, PCTools ThreatFire.

The Acer Panam site only lists the 3310 bios, while the acer-euro site lists several of them up to 3309, but not the 3310 BIOS.... I should have learned back when I had my Aspire 5050 series laptop that the Panam site is next to worthless when it comes to support (at least in my experiences).

UPDATE: Was able to recover it with the 3309 BIOS, installed it using DOS booted off of a flash drive.

 

Went down to 3309, but the adapter still disconnects during backup (= transfer of large files). But I found a 8.0.0.219 driver here: http://www.station-drivers.com/page/atheros.htm
It appears to work better, but let's see.