Wifi Disconection on ubuntu 16.04 with a dell inspiron 15 laptop

ok so i m running ubuntu 16.04 on a dell inspiron 15. the wifi disconnects every now and again (not due to signal strength as other devices are fine) i feel the issue may be in that the driver being used is an alternative driver.

specifically the hardware is Broadcom corparation: BCM43142 802.11b/g/n (wireless 1704 802.11 + bt4.0)

the driver being used is: broadcom 802.11 linex STA wireless driver source from bcmwl-kernel-source (proprietary)

has anyone got any suggestions to fix/improve this?

also as a second possible idea maybe it could be to do with the power being supplied to the wireless adaptor/card has anyone got any ideas on how to increase this.... as that is a partial fix in a windows environment...

first time asking a question so sorry if a bit rambled/imprecise..

blue skies, saul

Solution 1:

According to the Debian wiki you need to install broadcom-sta-dkms

First remove bcmwl-kernel-source

sudo apt-get purge --remove bcmwl-kernel-source

Now install broadcom-sta-dkms

sudo apt-get install broadcom-sta-dkms

Unload the conflict modules

sudo modprobe -r b44 b43 b43legacy ssb brcmsmac bcma

Load the wl module

sudo modprobe wl

Reboot your computer and try again. If it didn't work try going back to bcmwl-kernel-source.

Source: https://wiki.debian.org/wl

Drivers for broadcom-sta-dkms:

Broadcom STA is a binary-only device driver to support the following IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n wireless network cards: BCM4311-, BCM4312-, BCM4313-, BCM4321-, BCM4322-, BCM43142-, BCM43224-, BCM43225-, BCM43227-, BCM43228-, BCM4331-, BCM4360-, and BCM4352-based hardware.