What could cause Ubuntu to start loosing devices (12.10, T420)

Question

I recently upgraded Ubuntu on a laptop where it had been running flawlessly for some time.

It's a dualboot setup and all of the devices work fine under windows 7 however the wifi did not work correctly and my USB mouse was not recognized this morning after I plugged it in.

I'm looking in dmesg and /var/log/ and don't even see the wireless (Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 AGN). Does this mean it's just not supported by the kernel I'm running?

If I boot my older kernel from the boot menu wi-fi works fine.

Answer 1

Your wireless device is well-supported. I suspect the driver didn't load automatically for some reason. Let's get it to load:

sudo su
echo iwlwifi >> /etc/modules
modprobe iwlwifi
exit

You should be all set.