What are you using to manage Wireless connections on the Acer? I had a similar issue with Ubuntu a while ago and with Mint recently. I replaced the default manager with another. I think it was simply titled "network manager". I don't have access to the machine now to confirm. I'll hunt it down to verify if you can't find the package.<div>
<br></div><div><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 6:58 PM, John-Thomas Richards <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:jtr@jrichards.org">jtr@jrichards.org</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<div class="im">On Thu, Apr 08, 2010 at 06:41:38PM -0400, Michael Mol wrote:<br>
> On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 6:19 PM, John-Thomas Richards <<a href="mailto:jtr@jrichards.org">jtr@jrichards.org</a>> wrote:<br>
> > I bought an Acer Aspire One for my wife. It came with Win7 Starter<br>
> > Edition. W7SE is a dog. I installed Ubuntu (full, not Netbook Remix)<br>
> > on it. It is much snappier than Win7. However, wifi does not work as<br>
> > well under Ubuntu as it does under Win7. Win7 shows signal strength<br>
> > around 85% and Ubuntu (NetworkManager) shows it around 42%. Googling<br>
> > has revealed that these figures may not be accurate. I am inclined to<br>
> > trust them since Win7 never experiences loss of network connectivity<br>
> > whereas Ubuntu experiences frequent drops.<br>
><br>
> The actual "quality" measurement isn't so simple as a percentage; the<br>
> driver itself will be reporting a signal strength in dB and a noise<br>
> strength in dB. Your actual connection quality depends on your<br>
> signal-to-noise ratio. That "percentage" is going to be some<br>
> calculation based on those two numbers. If you drop into an xterm and<br>
> run 'iwconfig (interface)', what does it say?<br>
<br>
</div>root@djr-laptop:~# iwconfig wlan0<br>
wlan0 IEEE 802.11bgn ESSID:"boston_celtics"<br>
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.462 GHz Access Point: 00:18:39:B6:9B:2E<br>
Bit Rate=54 Mb/s Tx-Power=20 dBm<br>
Retry long limit:7 RTS thr:-Off Fragment thr:-Off<br>
Encryption key:ECF6-C681-FC<br>
Power Management:-Off<br>
Link Quality=26/70 Signal level=-84 dBm<br>
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0<br>
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0<br>
<div class="im"><br>
> > I disabled power management<br>
> > on the wifi card (thinking that perhaps Ubuntu is mistakenly reducing<br>
> > the power to it in an effort to save power). This does not eliminate<br>
> > the loss of connectivity. I am not sure what else to do, but no matter<br>
> > what, I cannot tell my wife to just boot into Windows. Any ideas?<br>
><br>
> Watch /var/messages and /var/syslog. There's likely something interesting there.<br>
<br>
</div>It just lost connection again. dmesg shows multiple entries of this:<br>
<br>
[ 1927.216729] ath9k: DMA failed to stop in 10 ms AR_CR=0x00000024 AR_DIAG_SW=0x40000020<br>
<div class="im"><br>
> It's also possible that the Aspire One generates more EMI when running<br>
> Ubuntu's drivers and policies than when running Windows' drivers and<br>
> policies, based on configuration of the device. It may actually *help*<br>
> to be more aggressive on power policies for things like your hard disk<br>
> and CPU speed.<br>
<br>
</div>How could Ubuntu's drivers and policies result in more EMI?<br>
<font color="#888888">--<br>
john-thomas<br>
------<br>
A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called<br>
the games and amusements of mankind.<br>
Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)<br>
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