So here's what I got... Acer Aspire 5734z-4512. Works fabulous! Have a dual-boot setup since I do all my work in the Windows partition, but I constantly use Linux for various things. Trick is... I've been using Ubuntu 10.10 for about a month now (replaced 10.04, but now running an install of Fedora 14) and just last night, my WiFi stopped working (only in Linux). Here's the list of symptoms:

-When I right-click the network icon on top right, shows both "Enable Networking" and "Enable Wireless" as checked.

-ifconfig shows my "wlan0" entry:
Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 70:F1:A1:8F:51:A6
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

-iwconfig shows:
lo no wireless extensions
eth0 no wireless extensions
wlan0 IEEE 802.11bgn Mode:Managed Access Point: Not-Associated
Tx-Power=20 dBm
Retry long limit:7 TRS thrff Fragment thrff
Power Management: off

-My "WiFi" button on my laptop is "off;" no orange "on" LED present.

-When I press the WiFi button, it will turn on for 3-5 seconds, and then turn off again.

-When I press Func+F3 to turn on WiFi, same thing, turns on for 3-5 seconds, then turns off.

-I've unchecked and then re-checked the "Enable Wireless," no change.

-Rebooted Laptop back into Fedora 14, no change.

-Booted into Windows 7 partition, Wifi works instantly (well... as "instantly" as Windows loads it).

-Started happening when I was still using Ubuntu 10.10 as of last night, continues today after a fresh install of both 10.10 and Fedora 14 (meaning, there's been no actual changes made, no updates, no downloads, nada, between the two distributions).

-Booted to LiveCD of Fedora 14, same Wifi issue persists (wifi will turn on for 3-5 seconds when I hit the button, but doesn't stay on, unable to connect to anything; wlan0 still showing in ifconfig and iwconfig).

Now, I'm not a super Linux rookie... but please, if you offer help.. walk me through what you can! I sincerely appreciate it!! I'd love to get this resolved.

Thanks all!!

Welcome to LQ!
Were there any system changes, like an update? The other thing to start doing is going through the log files (usually in /var/log) to see if your wireless card or driver are leaving any clues. You might also try looking in the dmesg output, particularly after you've used the Func+F3 to toggle wifi.

Also, knowing what chipset and driver you're using could help a lot.

That that it's tremendously helpful... but I reverted back to a Ubuntu 10.04.1 install, clean slate, and not having any issues at all with WiFi. I'm really not sure what the heck happened... but I do know that I didn't have any downloads, updates, driver upgrades, etc. Nothing changed. So... beats the heck outta me!

Thanks for the guidance though!