Acer Aspire 5536 notebook - Wireless connection drops off 5/10 mins.

[andyg8864]

I'm having trouble on my Acer Aspire 5536 wireless connection using an Atheros wireless card automatically configured by Karmic Koala v 9.10. It activates every time after boot (automatically) but drops off after 5 / 10 mins into hibernation and nothing apart from a re-boot gets it to work again.

Am using a WEP protocol on the router but this doesn't seem to stop Vista (dual boot) keeping the connection as long as I need. A real issue for me - as I have been using Linux and Kubuntu for years with no wireless problems (albeit previously used NDISWRAPPER to configure a Windows driver.

Sounds like something simple - any ideas how I can retain a longer connection?

[Zardoz89]

Re: Acer Aspire 5536 notebook - Wireless connection drops off 5/10 mins.

It's drops when you hibernate/suspend the netbook ??
What Artheros wifi it's ?

I have asimilar problem which my Acer Aspire 2920z that have a Artheros AR5001, and it happen even which other older versions of Ubuntu.

[dibl]

Re: Acer Aspire 5536 notebook - Wireless connection drops off 5/10 mins.

Not running Kubuntu on a netbook or laptop at the moment, but with both sidux and elive on netbooks I have better results with wicd as the interface manager. Do this only after making backup copies of your existing /etc/network/interfaces file.

sudo apt-get remove --purge network-manager

or

sudo apt-get remove --purge knemo

and

sudo apt-get install wpasupplicant

sudo apt-get install wicd

then review /etc/network/interfaces and /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf and made sure they are consistent with guidance here:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs

from this Toshiba NB205 netbook, connected to my home TRENDnet wireless router via wicd, the two key files look like this:

dibl@tosh205:~$ cat /etc/network/interfaces
# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).

# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

allow-hotplug eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp

allow-hotplug wlan0
iface wlan0 inet manual
wpa-driver wext
wpa-roam /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
iface default inet dhcp

dibl@tosh205:~$ cat /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
#configuration per sidux manual

ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
update_config=1

network={
key_mgmt=NONE
}

After installing the packages and configuring the two files, you need to reboot so the daemon is loaded. It will always be automatically loaded when you boot.

In wicd, when it finds your desired wireless AP, you will click the tiny arrow, or else "Properties" (depends on the wicd version) and set your PSK or WEP password/passphrase there.

Of course after hibernation or sleep, it will not know where it is or what APs may be nearby, so you will need to "Refresh" in wicd and reconnect.

[andyg8864]

Re: Acer Aspire 5536 notebook - Wireless connection drops off 5/10 mins.

Thanks for the replies. The driver I'm using is "ATH9K" according to "dmesg" enquiry. Just as it happens, so long as I keep the connection busy (i.e. using Internet Radio) it seems to work for a lot longer - that's ever since I installed all the latest updates. May be something to do with "time out" settings perhaps? I will of course try the recommendations if it still causes problems.