I have a dual-boot of Windows 7 and Ubuntu 11.10 on my MSI X350.
During the installation process and some time after the wireless worked just fine and I used the internet connection to install updates and everything.
(I think) because of the distance to the router I sometimes had to reconnect manually (click on the wireless button in the syslink and then click on my wifi network), but that was ok.
The problem is that one time I could not reconnect so I shut the wifi off and on again to try another reconnect, but since then I wasn't able to reconnect to the wifi and now I cannot even switch on the wifi anymore (it seems permanently disabled or something). Under Win7 however, everything works fine (wifi connection and internet, as before).
tl;dr : My wifi used to work under Win7 and Ub11.10 and then stopped working under Ub11.10.
Info/Hardware(hopefully it's readable, because I had to save the logs and open them again under Win7 and the formation was lost):
iwconfig
lo
no wireless extensions.eth0
no wireless extensions.wlan0
IEEE 802.11bgn ESSID:off/any
Mode:Managed Access Point: Not-Associated Tx-Power=0 dBm
Retry long limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off Power Management:off
sudo lshw -C network
*-network
- description: Ethernet interface
- product: RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller
- vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
- physical id: 0
- bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0
- logical name: eth0
- version: 02
- serial: 40:61:86:bc:1e:f6
- size: 10Mbit/s
- capacity: 1Gbit/s
- width: 64 bits
- clock: 33MHz
- capabilities: pm msi pciexpress msix vpd bus_master cap_list rom ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
- configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=r8169 driverversion=2.3LK-NAPI duplex=half firmware=N/A latency=0 link=no multicast=yes port=MII speed=10Mbit/s
- resources: irq:42 ioport:e800(size=256) memory:feaff000-feafffff memory:fdff0000-fdffffff memory:feac0000-feadffff
*-network DISABLED
- description: Wireless interface
- product: RT3090 Wireless 802.11n 1T/1R PCIe
- vendor: Ralink corp.
- physical id: 0
- bus info: pci@0000:03:00.0
- logical name: wlan0
- version: 00
- serial: 6c:62:6d:1a:3a:dd
- width: 32 bits
- clock: 33MHz
- capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
- configuration: broadcast=yes driver=rt2800pci driverversion=3.0.0-13-generic firmware=0.34 latency=0 link=no multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bgn
- resources: irq:19 memory:febf0000-febfffff
sudo lspci -nn
- 00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Memory Controller Hub [8086:2a40] (rev 07)
- 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:2a42] (rev 07)
- 00:02.1 Display controller [0380]: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:2a43] (rev 07)
- 00:1a.0 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 [8086:2937] (rev 03)
- 00:1a.1 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 [8086:2938] (rev 03)
- 00:1a.7 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 [8086:293c] (rev 03)
- 00:1b.0 Audio device [0403]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Controller [8086:293e] (rev 03)
- 00:1c.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 1 [8086:2940] (rev 03)
- 00:1c.3 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 4 [8086:2946] (rev 03)
- 00:1d.0 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 [8086:2934] (rev 03)
- 00:1d.1 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 [8086:2935] (rev 03)
- 00:1d.2 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 [8086:2936] (rev 03)
- 00:1d.7 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 [8086:293a] (rev 03)
- 00:1e.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge [8086:2448] (rev 93)
- 00:1f.0 ISA bridge [0601]: Intel Corporation ICH9M-E LPC Interface Controller [8086:2917] (rev 03)
- 00:1f.2 SATA controller [0106]: Intel Corporation ICH9M/M-E SATA AHCI Controller [8086:2929] (rev 03)
- 00:1f.3 SMBus [0c05]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) SMBus Controller [8086:2930] (rev 03)
- 02:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller [10ec:8168] (rev 02)
- 03:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Ralink corp. RT3090 Wireless 802.11n 1T/1R PCIe [1814:3090]
rfkill list all
0: phy0: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no
rfkill list all
to your question.