Just looked and I see that NetworkManager runs at niceness level 0. I wonder if NM should be a little less nice.
Does it help if you add nice -5 to /etc/init/network-manager.conf (say, on the line after "respawn") and then do sudo restart network-manager ? ** Changed in: network-manager (Ubuntu) Status: New => Incomplete -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/879173 Title: Wi-Fi connectivity interrupted by CPU high load; once load is reduced NM reconnects -- ath5k To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/network-manager/+bug/879173/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs