6.0 light wireless problem

[ComputerLitterateNoob]

WICD does not detect any networks, WPA-GUI can see networks but when I connect through there it will not obtain an IP, if I use WPA-GUI that far then use vlwifi I get an IP and am connected to the internet.  However, if I try to use the connection at all, gslapt and Firefox are all I have tried, after roughly 2 min my connection is dropped and I cannot re-connect without rebooting.
I am using a Gigafast 802.11B PCMCIA card WF721-AEX on a tangent model 979 laptop with a pentium 2 266, and 185MB ram.  While using my 5.9 live cd there are no problemswith the wireless

[hata_ph]

pls post your lspci and lsmod...

[ComputerLitterateNoob]

It's going to be a little while before I can do that, developed a hd issue and am reinstalling now to see if that fixes it

[hata_ph]

All the best...

[ComputerLitterateNoob]

ok after re-install wicd is now working and appears to show the problem.  the status at the bottom of the window shows the signal strength below 10 and fluctuating badly which could easily hit zero, even though everything else shows a strength of 50