Ubuntu disconnects me from the Internet

[thepyronaut]

Basically, as soon as I start using something that creates a lot of connections (like say, a torrent), Ubuntu's wireless connection dies. At this point I stay connected to my router, but I can't access any websites, ping anything, or even access my router. If I try to disconnect then reconnect to my router, the connection eventually times out while trying Ubuntu tries to obtain an IP address.

I bought a new router, installed dd-wrt on it. I upgraded to the Intrepid beta. Nothing works. Large HTTP downloads don't seem to have any effect, just lots of connections. It does have some correlation to Ubuntu, since this problem doesn't occur on Windows XP using the same computer.

I really don't know what to do anymore. Can anyone help me?

EDIT: Here's some predictable hardware info you might want to know:

$ sudo lshw -c network
*-network:0
description: Wireless interface
physical id: 1
logical name: wlan0
serial: 00:15:af:08:fe:67
capabilities: ethernet physical wireless
configuration: broadcast=yes ip=192.168.1.123 multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bg
*-network:1 DISABLED
description: Ethernet interface
physical id: 2
logical name: pan0
serial: 3e:94:09:51:24:2c
capabilities: ethernet physical
configuration: broadcast=yes driver=bridge driverversion=2.3 firmware=N/A link=yes multicast=yes


$ iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

wmaster0 no wireless extensions.

wlan0 IEEE 802.11bg ESSID:"linksys"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.462 GHz Access Point: 00:21:29:A5:AE:1B
Bit Rate=54 Mb/s Tx-Power=27 dBm
Retry min limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr=2352 B
Power Management:off
Link Quality=15/100 Signal level:65/65
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

pan0 no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

eth1 no wireless extensions.


$ ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:18:f3:f9:c7:cc
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
Interrupt:22 Base address:0xa000

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:82 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:82 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:4100 (4.1 KB) TX bytes:4100 (4.1 KB)

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:15:af:08:fe:67
inet addr:192.168.1.123 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::215:afff:fe08:fe67/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:57391 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:40129 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:66538402 (66.5 MB) TX bytes:4339784 (4.3 MB)

wmaster0 Link encap:UNSPEC HWaddr 00-15-AF-08-FE-67-65-36-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

[thepyronaut]

Well, I believe I've fixed the problem using ndiswrapper. I tried using ndiswrapper before, but it said the hardware wasn't available. Some guesswork using lsmod lead me to believe the "ASUS WiFi-AP Solo" used some realtek driver, the one for RTL8187. So I went to the realtek website, downloaded several potential drivers, and found one who's hardware was present.

There are no apparent problems anymore. In fact the amount and strength of networks that the network manager detects has improved as well.

Somebody needs to fix the RTL8187 driver.