MacBook Pro Wi-Fi card stops working until I reboot

Hi,

I have a 2010 15" MacBook Pro running 10.9.3 and for the past week I have been having issues with Wi-Fi. Sometimes (I can't find what causes it to stop working), it will stop working completely. What happens, in details, is:

-Wifi and Internet works
-Internet stops working, all page loadings hang
-I shut off the Wi-Fi and when I try to turn it back on it looks like this


So what I do is I delete Wi-Fi from my network connections, apply changes and then re-add it and it sometimes fixes it for a few minutes. Sometimes it then stops working. Sometimes my whole system becomes unresponsive and I have to reboot. I even got a kernel panic.

Otherwise I reboot and hope it works after I reboot, because it doesn't consistently fix the problem, sometimes my Wi-Fi acts as if it was functional, but it doesn't detect ANY network (and I am well within reach of my Wi-Fi network). That's how it looks:


What I tried so far:
-Resetting PRAM
-Repairing permissions
-Deleting all locations
-Deleting all network preferences (by deleting the SystemConfiguration folder (I think that was the name, but I'm not sure, it's been a few days, but it did reset everything))
-Reinstalling OS X (the soft way, I did not format, only went in recovery to reinstall)

WHAT CAN I DO? It's the most frustrating problem I've experienced with my computer so far and I hope I won't have to pay 600$ for a new motherboard because I don't have that money right now...

Is there something else I can do that I did not try?

Thanks!

TheIguana said:

Sounds like either the antenna connections have come loose or your airport card is on the way out. Thankfully it is a separate board from the logic board so it doesn't require the replacement of the entire logic board. iFixit lists the following part: Mid 2010 MBP 15" AirPort Card.

You can either take it to Apple and get them to fix it - out of warranty it will probably cost ~$150 or you can do it yourself by tracking down one of those cards.

Click to expand...

I'll verify the connections and I may buy a new Airport card...

Thanks a lot!