[SWLUG] Problem with USB wifi adaptor

[Colin Law]

On 10 August 2013 01:22, Hugh Mayfield <hugh.mayfield at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> I'm fairly new to this group - hi to all!  I haven't been to a meeting yet
> (I want to but money is an issue, I'm very poor and buying drinks at pub
> prices is usually a problem).  I do occasionally hang around on the IRC
> channel.
>
> I wonder if people can help with a little problem I'm having with my new USB
> wifi adaptor.  It's a Netgear WNA3100M.  I connected it to a spare USB port
> and it just worked under Ubuntu 12.04.  However, after about 5-10 minutes of
> happy Internet use, the wifi connection stops working.  The connection
> utility repeatedly asks for confirmation of the wifi network password, and
> then after 3 or 4 goes it says "wireless network now disconnected."  A
> reboot fixes the problem.
>
> Ubuntu reports that the driver in use is rtl8192cu.

Usually such problems are hardware related in some way.
Check /var/log/syslog and dmesg when it fails to see if there is
anything of interest there.
Is the PC close to the wifi base station?  Have you got any other wifi
devices connected?  Ideally it would be good to try another adaptor
but if you have not got one then that is obviously a problem.  I
presume that the fact that you say it worked ok under Ubuntu 12.04
means that you have upgraded or changed to a different distribution.
If so did the problem start happening /immediately/ that you upgraded?
 Even if it did then it is still possible that it is just coincidence.
 The trickiest problems to solve are often those where evidence
suggests the fault lies in one direction, but either there are two
issues or it is just coincidence.

Colin