Wifi and Ethernet connectivity problems after upgrading to 12.04

I upgraded recently to ubuntu 12.04 from 11.10, and since then I haven't been able to connect to Internet, neither using wifi, nor using ethernet. I've been reading many posts, but not finding a solution in any. My laptop is a 64-bit HP-G61, my wifi card a Atheros AR9285 and my ethernet card a Realtek RTL 8101E/RTL8102E. Before I upgraded everything worked fine. I have tried to perform a manual network configuration using the terminal, but it didn't work. Has anyone an idea of how can I fix the problem? Is it possible to switch back to the old working 11.10? Thank you very much in advance, I attach the output of some commands

toni@toni-HP-G61-Notebook-PC:~/Documents$ ifconfig
    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:2880 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
              TX packets:2880 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
              collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
              RX bytes:202958 (202.9 KB)  TX bytes:202958 (202.9 KB)


wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 90:4c:e5:58:b4:59  
          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)

wlan0:avahi Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 90:4c:e5:58:b4:59  
          inet addr:169.254.8.172  Bcast:169.254.255.255  Mask:255.255.0.0
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1

toni@toni-HP-G61-Notebook-PC:~/Documents$ iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11bgn  ESSID:"WLAN_A514"  
          Mode:Managed  Access Point: Not-Associated   Tx-Power=14 dBm   
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:off

toni@toni-HP-G61-Notebook-PC:~/Documents$ rfkill list
0: phy0: Wireless LAN
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: no
1: hp-wifi: Wireless LAN
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: no

toni@toni-HP-G61-Notebook-PC:~/Documents$ sudo lshw -C network
[sudo] password for toni: 
  *-network               
       description: Wireless interface
       product: AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express)
       vendor: Atheros Communications Inc.
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0
       logical name: wlan0
       version: 01
       serial: 90:4c:e5:58:b4:59
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=ath9k driverversion=3.2.0-27-generic firmware=N/A latency=0 link=no multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bgn
       resources: irq:16 memory:d6000000-d600ffff
  *-network UNCLAIMED
       description: Ethernet controller
       product: RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller
       vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:03:00.0
       version: 02
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress msix vpd bus_master cap_list
       configuration: latency=0
       resources: ioport:2000(size=256) memory:d4010000-d4010fff memory:d4000000-d400ffff memory:d4020000-d402ffff

toni@toni-HP-G61-Notebook-PC:~/Documents$ cat /etc/modprobe.d/ath9k.conf 
options ath9k nohwcrypt=1

toni@toni-HP-G61-Notebook-PC:~/Documents$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Memory Controller Hub (rev 07)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset PCI Express Graphics Port (rev 07)
00:1a.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 03)
00:1a.1 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 03)
00:1a.7 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.3 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #6 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev 93)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation ICH9M LPC Interface Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801IBM/IEM (ICH9M/ICH9M-E) 4 port SATA Controller [AHCI mode] (rev 03)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.6 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) Thermal Subsystem (rev 03)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation G98M [GeForce G 103M] (rev a1)
02:00.0 Network controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) (rev 01)
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller (rev 02)

toni@toni-HP-G61-Notebook-PC:~/Documents$ nm-tool

** (process:4012): WARNING **: Could not initialize NMClient /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager: The name org.freedesktop.NetworkManager was not provided by any .service files

NetworkManager Tool

State: unknown


** (process:4012): WARNING **: error: could not connect to NetworkManager

toni@toni-HP-G61-Notebook-PC:~/Documents$ cat /etc/network/interfaces
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback


auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet dhcp


iface eth0 inet static
address 192.168.1.10
netmask 255.255.255.0
network 192.168.1.0
broadcast 192.168.1.255
gateway 192.168.1.1

Here is a relevant thread with the solution at Ubuntu forums.

In short: blacklist the incompatible module by editing

/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-network

and adding the following line:

r8169.ko

Then find or build a valid r8101 driver/module, either from the Realtek website or from here

Copy and install the new module to:

/lib/modules/3.2.0-23-generic-pae/kernel/drivers/net/ethernet/realtek/

Then enter:

sudo depmod -a
sudo modprobe r8101

You may need to fix the missing MAC address and restart the network manager. Use a unique (preferrably the original) MAC address instead of < MYMAC > below.

sudo service network-manager stop
sudo ifconfig eth0 down 
sudo ifconfig eth0 hw ether < MYMAC >
sudo ifconfig eth0 up
sudo service network-manager start