I'm not sure what kind it is, it doesn't use a propriety driver, it runs out of the box. In 10.04 it worked fine, in 10.10 it'll work, but randomly lose connection, though it won't state it, then it'll work again, and then stop working, very on-and-off behavior.
The laptop is an HP Pavilion dv6.
Sounds like a problem I had with my Dell laptop, and according to the HP web site it is mostly a Intel based 802.11 ABGN wireless card which my Dell had.
My Dell laptop had a problem with it losing connection with a wireless access point using 802.11n. This problem is a known issue with the iwlagn driver, and the best workaround is to disable 802.11n on the card. To disable 802.11n on this card create/edit your /etc/modprobe.d/options.conf file:
sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/options.conf
And add the following to it:
options iwlagn 11n_disable=1 11n_disable50=1
Alternatively, have you considered using an alternative wifi manager? I myself had some problems with nm-applet, but I installed wicd from the repositories, and the problems just disappeared.
You can get wicd with sudo apt-get install wicd-gtk, and then restart X.
It's an outside chance but have you considered whether external factors may have changed? It might be worth rechecking: signal strength; sources of interference; alternative channel number.
