I have a G73JW laptop using Ubuntu 12.04. It has an Atheros AR9285 card.
While wifi seems to work fine most of the time, about every hour or two it will loose the connection to the internet. The connection will appear to be connected still to the wireless router, but internet access is gone.
Disconnecting and reconnecting to the access point solves the problem, as does disabling and reenabling the adapter via the hardware keyboard shortcut.
How might this be solved so the connection is stable and doesn't drop?
EDIT: It looks like the network dropping isn't related to DNS as it fails either way:
codyloco@CodyLoco-Ubuntu:~$ dig askubuntu.com @8.8.8.8
; <<>> DiG 9.8.1-P1 <<>> askubuntu.com @8.8.8.8
;; global options: +cmd
;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached
codyloco@CodyLoco-Ubuntu:~$ dig askubuntu.com
; <<>> DiG 9.8.1-P1 <<>> askubuntu.com
;; global options: +cmd
;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached
Again cycling (disabling / enabling) the adapter corrects the issue.
I ran into comparable issues after I updated the configuration of my access point to "
auto channel = ON": it checks the best wifi channel every X hours, and switches to it automatically.You might want to keep an eye on:
http://linuxblog.avserver.info/how-to-fix-wireless-problems-in-ubuntu-1204-precise-pangolin/
I have the same card (on a Sony VAIO VPCEB1Z0E). I started getting those disconnections about 6 months ago - oh, right after upgrading to 11.10. I upgraded to 12.04, and it's hardly helped! Now, I regular find it thinks the device is turned off at the switch - to fix that I have to do
sudo rfkill unblock wifi
Finally, even when things are working - the connection is at things like transfering files via SSH, or forwarded VNC connections.