losing wifi

I use my netbook as my main access to the internet. It is left on pretty much 24/7 which is fine, apart from every night when i leave the netbook on when i wake up wifi has disconnected itself. When I try to reconnect I just get the spinning reconnecting icon and nothing happens. Usually I have to restart the computer to reconnect again.

This only seems to happen in ubuntu and only on my netbook.

Any ideas as to what's causing this?

 

I haven't had this problem on a D150. I have it set to require password when wakened from sleep, and by the time I have authenticated, the WiFi connection is established. What kernel are you using? I have no WiFi issues with kernel 2.6.30.

 

I am using kernel 2.6.30.2 - and switched to WICD rather than the standard network manager as that failed more often.

I have not power saving turned on at all so in theory i should always be connected

 

I'm experiencing this as well. I started using wicd, but I'm not sure if that helped much. Just now I switched to a different kernel, so I'm hoping that works.

 

Okay, I may have found a solution. It doesn't make any sense and it's a pain to have to do, but it's a solution.

I first had the problem at work. Thinking it was my work's wireless router, I unplugged it(the router) for about a minute and then plugged it in again. Then I tried to reconnect to the network with my Aspire One and it worked flawlessly.

My Aspire One's wireless connection then failed while at home(stuck at validating as before). I spent a few days without a connection until I returned back to work, where it worked again perfectly. Just now, while at home, I unplugged my router for about a minute and then plugged it back in. For whatever reason, my Aspire One was able to connect at home.

 

I've had a few problems with the AAO110 and Atheros wireless. Sometimes it seemed to work, then suddenly it would disappear (and it wasn't because someone flicked the wireless switch). Other times it would freeze on large file transfers across the network, or just transfer very slowly so that watching a video across the network was jerky at times.

My final solution was just to replace the wireless card with another brand. I had a Broadcom from a Dell laptop lying around and put that in instead...it works flawlessly. I've also ordered a few Intel abg wireless cards from eBay (they go for about $10) which I intend to use in a few other AOA110 units. They are standard mini-pci-express cards, so it is easy to swap them out. You have to take the screws off the bottom of the case (including the two underneath the back footpads, and the three in the battery compartment), then pop the keyboard up, and then take out the screws under the keyboard. Then you can easily access the wireless card.

Sometimes with Linux it is easier to replace the hardware than to fight with drivers and configurations.

 

Almost all WiFi is powered either by Broadcom or Intel chips. So it follows that if you can identify the chip on the board, you can then download a driver for the respective chip from the maker, and cut out the middle man so to speak.
Years ago had the same problems with Xga video chips, the makers drivers were rock solid, and some of the "suppliers" drivers were far less so.

 

This is still a regular occurance. Pretty ridiculous really. I shouldn't have to take my laptop apart to find out what chipset my wifi has to find a driver that may or not work 100% without quitting in the night.

 

I've had problems with wireless cutting out for no apparent reason with Ubuntu 9.10 development, but it usually reconnects on its own. Haven't seen that with Fedora Rawhide. Perhaps related to the version of gcc used to compile the kernel????