Cannot Change MAC and still use conection

I have had a very negative general experience with my built in BCM4312. Recently I encountered a common problem which I have been unable to solve despite fairly thorough research: I cannot figure out how to change my MAC Address and browse the Internet or make use of the connection in any way. Most attempts result in a 'to many open files' error, regardless of number of open files or user's file open restrictions.

A thread lived on for about 2 years here for the same reason but was closed with no real answer. Here is the link, it will likely help:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1014355

any help would be appreciated, this issue has been around for far too long for a distro so heavily used.

Currently using Ubuntu 11.10