I have the realtek 8180 wireless card. The problem started recently since I moved house meaning I am now on a new wireless hub. The wireless worked up until the switch. The ipad connects abd is online so does this very itouch as I am typing this but my machine fails to establish a connection. My machine sends packets but recieves none so sonething is blocking incoming activity but i cannot figure out what. All firewalls and spyware is disabled. I tried to give all the info needed but if I am missing something don't hesitate to ask many thanks

Remove Realtek wireless network adapter and upgrade to an Intel adapter. Check you tube on how to do the upgrade its very easy. The card is right under the keyboard.

try updating the drivers for it from there website. if that doesnt work pick up a linksys 20 dollar usb wifig dongle. that will definably improve it. glad i can help let me know if i helped you tho

It is possible, however what is more likely:
The DHCP for the router is turned off and so none of the ports are distributing IP addresses.

If you mean to your home network you could use either a router or a hub. With a hub you can connect a cable to access the internet. With a wireless router you can use a wireless card in the laptop as well and use the laptop anywhere in the house.

When to moved into the penthouse, there are more walls between the wireless router and the laptop in the bedroom. The walls are probably reinforced concrete walls which will stop or weaken the radio waves penetrating into different rooms. When you lived in a house this was not a problem.
The only way to solve this problem is to move the wireless router near an opening such as a door and move the laptop as close as possible to the wireless router to get a better signal strength.
The outer way is to install a wireless repeater or connect a long network cable to the router and the laptop.

Please let me know which Windows you are using and I wil gladly help you

HPC

Try the laptop and the PCMCIA cards at an internet cafe. IF they don't work there as well, I recommend you throw the cards away or give them away and buy your self some new ones.

Go to the Device manager and bring up the properties to the realtek 8185 device. There is a tab called Power Management. Click on this tab. There is a checked checkbox that says Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power. Uncheck this box. This should stop the random disconnects.

works on Vista or not? If it does up grade the other PC to Vista as well .....ME is outdated and soon if not already updates will no longer be provided by microsoft. Most likely ME does not support that NIC.

Is this a new device? A lot of newer wireless adaptors come with drivers for NTFS based operating systems such as windows 2k or XP. Windows 98 runs on FAT32. I don't know if this will work. I suggest you upgrade your OS.