[driverloader] Inconsistent Speeds and Timeouts

[Jeff]

My wireless connection seems to be going to sleep when the computer is
not in use, even if it is transferring files.

I'm using debian unstable, kernel 2.6.2; I've tried with and without
ACPI and I'm having the same problems.  Also very inconsistent speeds. 
Here's my pinging my wireless router:

64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=23 ttl=64 time=51.8 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=24 ttl=64 time=44.2 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=25 ttl=64 time=388.5 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=26 ttl=64 time=88.6 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=28 ttl=64 time=1393.5 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=29 ttl=64 time=417.9 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=30 ttl=64 time=795.6 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=31 ttl=64 time=65.1 ms

It used to be about 1.1ms consistently.  My signal to noise ratio hasn't
really changed.

My syslog is full of this:

Feb 22 07:40:56 ptl-63-164-63-44 kernel: eth0: New link status:
Connected (0001)Feb 22 07:42:55 ptl-63-164-63-44 kernel: NETDEV
WATCHDOG: eth0: transmit timed out
Feb 22 07:43:27 ptl-63-164-63-44 last message repeated 6 times
Feb 22 07:44:31 ptl-63-164-63-44 last message repeated 13 times
Feb 22 07:45:31 ptl-63-164-63-44 last message repeated 13 times
Feb 22 07:45:53 ptl-63-164-63-44 kernel: eth0: New link status:
Disconnected (0002)

The only change I made is upgrading to 1.63, which ran fine for a few
days.  I did an apt-get upgrade, but I'm not sure what packages could
affect this.

Any ideas would be appreciated.


-- 
Jeff <jm_cct at shaw.ca>