Since this is my first time here, you know I can't be sure of this is the right spot for this but...

Dell Inspiron 1564
Distro in title.
I did all the updates after installing fresh.
My problem continues.

Basically, anywhere from 5 minutes to a couple hours, Mint crashes to kernel panic. (See pic)
Only occasionally, it crashes and just locks up with going to text.

http://i.imgur.com/SYNkCd2h.jpg

If you need a log file, you gotta help me find what you need. I have no idea where any relevant info would be in syslog.

At the top of your screen I see a message "...wlc_dotxstatus...".
By googling it I found https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=1223933
A solution is indicated. This is just an idea. Not sure this is your issue.

Thanks.

It seems this may be related to my issue.
I now think it's either the broadcom drivers or a kernel issue.

I suppose now is a good time to mention that I was using ubuntu before this.
The reason I gave up on it was the same freakin' thing. Updates rendered wireless drivers useless and I started getting frequent kernel panics.

I was dual booting at the time, the grub menu allowed me to choose from a number of kernel versions to boot with. One of the older versions didn't have the kernel panics. (I eventually had to give up on ubuntu entirely because of horrible video issues that seemed to come out of nowhere. That and the fact that I could never get the wireless drivers to work properly. (they would vanish at complete random, or so it seemed.)

So my question is now.

Can/how can I run mint with an older kernel?
Isn't mint very similar to ubuntu? Could that be why I'm experiencing the same issues?
If the answer is yes, that doesn't make sense to me. I was running Mint just fine until I tried to switch to KDE desktop. The switch went fine, but then it decided to dissasemble itself a couple days later while I tried to watch a video.
Lastly, could it simply be the wireless drivers? If so, is the only option trial an error as to what version to use?
From the link you posted, I searched around a bit more and found others with similar broadcom issues. Some say it's the kernel and some say it's the drivers. Some say that the bug has been fixed in later kernel versions and others say it remains. Doesn't leave me with much hope, heh.

Also, I know that knowledgeable people hate phrases like "it broke" and "at random," their responses are univerally "you broke it" and "it doesn't just break." I understand, but since I've no idea what I did that could cause such chaos, I'll just say "it broke."

Yes. If you have more than one kernel loaded, the newest one is listed first (with the recovery console second). Then, there is a sub-menu labeled "Previous Linux Versions" (or wording similar). This is where the previous kernels live.Yes. Most variants of Linux Mint are based on Ubuntu. As for the networking card not working, I've run into the same problem, and in my case at least, it's the hardware itself being difficult at the present. Not easily correctable, even for a technician. At least one (like me) more used to working with desktop hardware, versus a laptop, which I'm using now. Your best bet is to simply uninstall the newer kernel(s) that don't work, and staying with the one that does, IMO.

I'd also try to reinstall the Broadcom drivers (see Package Manager) and see if that fixes the problem. Sometimes it will.