Comment 50 for bug 414560

What I have observed with this package linux-backports-modules-2.6.28-15-generic is as follows:

system (am64) driver used: rt73usb
front-end: wicd-client (wicd 1.6.2.2-1)
encryption: WPA-TKIP

disconnection comes almost predictably at 18mins, 38min, 58 mins of every hour. Disconnection usually lasts for 5-10 secs and then it will reconnect again. Wicd-client still indicates connection during the absence of signal. Name resolution totally fails rendering everything associated with internet silent.

What I have found is that when I disable NTP daemon in the background it will rid of this problem to a large extent. Except for temporarily disconnection at 18 min at every hour, it seems much better than before. The 18 min disconnection has to do with cron.hourly setting which tells the system to run cron scripts at 17min though I have found no proof so far (there are no existing scripts in cron.daily to execute at 17 min).

I say "almost predictably" because 4 out of 5 times it will disrupt any realtime online video I am watching. Sometimes the video will come back after the 5-10 sec disruption but almost everytime the video will freeze and lose with broadcast server completely.

All symptoms disappear if I resort to wired connection via eth0 instead of wireless modules.