Strange wireless problem

[hovh03]

The laptop wireless used to work in Ubuntu 11.4. Then it started to have spotty Internet connection issues. I upgraded to 11.11. The same problem. I switched to Windows, same problem. It sometimes works for few hours, then stops, sometimes much sooner. So I thought it's the internal wireless hardware problem. I then bought a USB wireless key and used it. Exactly the same problem. Wired connection has no issue whatsoever. So what's the deal here? Is it hacked somehow to the hardware level but only wireless is affected (I don't really know, just throw that out).

One thing I may suspect is that somehow the wireless overworks, and heat up, so that's why after a while, it fails. Or maybe the memory of the driver gets corrupted, and that's why it fails. And since it happens both in Windows and Linux, and both hardware, maybe it's hacked in the BIOS or master boot record level. I really don't know. I ask here to see what's going on before resetting them (which can also mean reformatting all).

[hovh03]

by the way, I also suspected if my wireless network was compromised. But other laptops don't have any issue. I also reset the router, changed to much longer/random password, and change firewall to highest settings. I even use another wireless router without much luck. So probably not this problem.

[hovh03]

so what do you think the problem is? Is there any step for me to troubleshoot this? The problem is that it works sometimes, not that it fails completely. What would you do to resolve this?