Wireless Adapter D-Link DWA-131 Version A1 on Ubuntu 12.04

Question

Objective

Get wireless internet working on my Dell 8200 Dimension desktop (purchased 2002) using a D-Link DWA-131 Wireless N Nano Adpater (rev.A1) [Realtek RTL8192SU] (with ID from lsusb as 07d1:3303).

Computer Setup

I just installed Windows XP Home Edition on the C: drive, and afterwards installed Ubuntu 12.04 alongside it (so I can choose from booting what OS I want). I do have an ethernet port in the back. I'm hoping these are the essential specs.

Trouble-shooting Steps

After installing Ubuntu, I inserted the wireless adapter into the front USB port of the computer and it seemed to have worked properly right away because I was able to go to the upper-right hand corner of the display and choose my wireless network. After inputting the password I thought I was all set. I opened up Firefox and it said that I had no internet access. I opened up a terminal and typed

ping 8.8.8.8

in which I received

From 192.168.1.105 icmp_seq=1 Destination Host Unreachable

From this, I thought perhaps I needed to install the drivers and/or test the adapter in Windows. I restarted my computer into Windows and I installed the D-Link drivers via CD and followed their instructions for setup. I am able to successfully connect to the internet and ping 8.8.8.8.

From this returned to the Ubuntu 12.04 system by restarting the computer. I try to ping 8.8.8.8 again and receive the same results. I followed the steps outlined at this website to configure my network settings to use a public DHS (this solved my problem once before so I thought I'd try it for this...if you haven't realized it yet, I do stuff without necessarily understanding what it is I'm doing). Needless to say, changing my network settings did not help so I changed them back.

I've looked at the following posts and have comments as to why they did not solve my problem.

• D-Link Wireless N Nano USB adapter DWA-131 with Ubuntu 13.10 - despite it being for Ubuntu 13.10 (I'm on 12.04 and afraid to upgrade as my hardware may not handle it) I looked at this post. The link in the only answer takes you to another website which is where I learned about the lsusb command. This website helps if you have the B1 version (recall I have the A1 version).
• How to install a wireless adapter D-Link DWA-131? - not only is this for a different OS (14 instead of 12.04 which I have on my system, and again afraid of maxing out my hardware's capability), it is also for the DWA-131 with the E version on it. So unless some says I should do this, I'm skipping this for now.
• D-Link DWA-130 rev E1 RTL8191SU hard time connecting - this looked the most promising so I tried it. I was downloaded the zip file onto a USB drive and copied it over to my Dell 8200 desktop. I followed the instructions and no errors occured during everything that was done. However, nothing changed. I'm still unable to connect to the internet, even though I can connect to my router.

Lastly, this is the connection information:

Question(s)

Why can I connect to my router/network, but not get the internet in Ubuntu 12.04 while using the D-Link DWA-131 (version A1) with the RealTek RTL8192SU chipset?

Do any of these things play into it? My wireless mode is set to Infrastructure instead of Ad-hoc in the Wireless tab of the Network Connections. My security is WPA & WPA2. Is it possible for me to upgrade the firmware on the adapter?

Results From Community Comments

When I ping my router, ping -c3 192.168.1.1, I get 100% packet loss. When I ping my computer next to me ping -c3 192.168.1.106 I also get 100% packet loss (I didn't know I could ping myself at 192.168.1.106 which was successful, though I don't think that's very notable).

Here is the paste link for the output received when dmesg | grep -e wlan -e r87 is typed in the terminal. I don't have much clue as to what I'm looking at but that is a warning about the module being from the staging directory (no clue what module its talking about) and a message about my USB ports being slow (remember this is before USB 2.0 I believe).

As far as what I see on the Windows side, I found an interesting correlation. Earlier when I booted up into Windows, my adapter was connected to my monitor (thus data was traveling through the adapter, monitor, USB cable, down into my CPU) and I wasn't receiving internet in Windows. I disconnected it and plugged it directly to the CPU (though in the front USB ports) and once the computer recognized it, I had internet again. I had thought I made a careless mistake by moving the adapter up to the monitor, when I shut down and restarted in Ubuntu, I still did not have internet. That's when I performed those commands in the terminal above. When switching back to Windows by shutting down and restarting in to Windows, I ran into the same problem again where I had no internet. I disconnected the adapter from the front of the computer and plugged it right back into the same slot and once the computer recognized it, I had internet again! I'm wondering if there is a connection here?

In Windows, I can ping 8.8.8.8 with 0% loss. I can also ping my DNS at 71.10.216.1 with 0% loss. When I type ipconfig /all in the command prompt, I'm shown the same address for the DNS Server, Default Gateway, Subnet Mask, and IP Address. My name server is eau.wi.charter.com, but I'm sure how to see this in Ubuntu and with a quick search, didn't find an answer either, but with the addresses matching and I being able to ping it, I figured this was unimportant. Perhaps I'm wrong.

I shutdown the Windows OS and restarted in Ubuntu to see if I unplugged the wireless adapter and plugged it back in if I would get the same results as I saw in Windows. When I plugged it back in, it that the connection had been established but then my screen flashed and it went to a black screen with white words (kind of like the terminal or command prompt). The last two lines stated:

Kernel panic - not syncing: Fatal excepption in interrupt

drm_kms_helper: panic occured, switching back to text console

Actually, here is the screen I get:

From here my Caps Lock and Scroll Lock keys blink together on my keyboard and I can't do anything except to turn off the computer.

There's Hope!

So I tried this again to see if I would get the same result (re-plugging in adapter causing computer to 'panic').

I disconnected the wireless adapter, waited about ten seconds, and plugged it back in. The computer recognized the adapter and connected to my router automatically. This time my computer did not 'panic' and I was able to open a terminal and ping 8.8.8.8 with very little to no data loss!

However, as soon as I open up Firefox and try to search for something, my internet drops out. I unplug the adapter, plug it back in, and I am able to ping 71.10.216.1 again and again. I open up Firefox, type in my search and immediately try to ping the same address again and I immediately get back errors. It's connecting, but then as soon as load a new page, it seems to disconnect.