Can you stop the network adaptor from going to sleep?

[bilyo]

I have a Lenovo G550 running the latest updated version of PCLOS and the Gnome desktop.  It has a Broadcom ‎BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY network adaptor.  As is typical, when i close the lid without shutting down, the computer goes into sleep (suspend) mode.  When this happens, it appears that the adaptor also goes to sleep and looses the wireless connection.  It takes, what seems like, a long time (+- 60 seconds) for it to re-connect.  Interestingly,  the situation improves with the power plugged in, but not consistently. Is there a way to make just the adaptor not go to sleep and to maintain the connection?  If so, what are the ramifications of doing this on power usage?
Thanks

[lightning slinger]

If you have it set to 'Suspend' when you close the lid, it puts most of the computer to sleep and that includes the wireless card and network manager. Although 60 seconds does seem a  long time for the wireless to reconnect, my Gnome 2010.07 laptop gets the wireless back up in 20 seconds.
You might want to try altering the setting in Power Management to 'Blank Screen' instead of 'Suspend' remembering the display laps up most of the battery power. That will keep the wireless card awake!!

[bilyo]

lightning slinger,
I'll try that. 
I had the slow re-connect problem a while back and thought I had it solved when I set a reserved IP address in the wireless router. Once I did that, re-connect time was consistently about 10 seconds.  Then I got a bluetooth mouse with a USB dongle.  After installing that, re-connects have gone back to about 60 seconds most of the time.  I'm told that there are sometimes conflicts between bluetooth and wireless.  Its a minor annoyance.  But, I would sure like to fix it.  I'll let you know if the power management setting works.
Thanks

[bilyo]

lightning slinger,
Yes.  As you said, setting the power management to just turn off the screen works in-so-far as retaining the wifi connection.  However, even with it also set to spin down the HD, there appears to be quite a power consumption penalty.  This is OK if the laptop is plugged in but, it drains the battery significantly more quickly than in suspend mode.
Do you know?  With the HD set to "spin down", does that mean that the heads are parked so that it is OK to move it around while in that mode?
Thanks

[lightning slinger]

Do you know?  With the HD set to "spin down", does that mean that the heads are parked so that it is OK to move it around while in that mode?
Thanks

Now that I am not sure, AFAIK spin down and head parking are different things, and there seems to be conflicting opinions as to whether it is better to spin down or not. Of course one thing is sure the more of the laptop you put to sleep the greater saving on battery consumption but the longer it will take to wake everything up again. I guess only the user can answer that on his or her needs!

[bilyo]

Just to be on the safe side, I have returned to "suspend" when the lid is closed.  I'll just suffer with the slow re-connect until I find something that works better.
Thanks for the help