Comment 28 for bug 996205

One additional point of interest. When the wireless crashes, running `ifconfig` produces this:

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:26:9e:9d:f8:d7
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
          RX packets:2082346173504030 errors:12494089925926065 dropped:4164700936942650 overruns:2082350468471325 frame:10411743752422035
          TX packets:2082350468471325 errors:8329401873885300 dropped:0 overruns:2082350468471325 carrier:4164700936942650
          collisions:10411752342356625 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:2082346173504030 (2.0 PB) TX bytes:2082350468471325 (2.0 PB)
          Interrupt:45

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:159010 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:159010 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:11368725 (11.3 MB) TX bytes:11368725 (11.3 MB)

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:22:fb:cb:37:f8
          inet6 addr: fe80::222:fbff:fecb:37f8/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
          RX packets:190 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:132 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:38377 (38.3 KB) TX bytes:27509 (27.5 KB)

Note the bizarrely high number of packets showing on the eth0 interface, which has never been used on this laptop with Ubuntu 12.04. When wireless is working, `ifconfig` shows:

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:26:9e:9d:f8:d7
          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:46

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:1079 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:1079 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:104152 (104.1 KB) TX bytes:104152 (104.1 KB)

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:22:fb:cb:37:f8
          inet addr:192.168.1.11 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::222:fbff:fecb:37f8/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
          RX packets:105615 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:58852 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:147673588 (147.6 MB) TX bytes:5854028 (5.8 MB)

Why is that?