Netgear Wireless Card Problems

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I bought a Netgear Wireless Package that included the router and a PCMCIA Card a while back. both worked flawlessly i could remove the card to put in something else and then put it back in to get the network without any problems. About a month ago I decided to keep the PCMCIA card out of the laptop because it was draining the battery way to fast and at the office I use a wired ethernet so i wasn't really using it any place else but home, and the laptop is at work most of the time. So I took ouit the card and placed it in its case. under my dek at home where it's been until today. Today I wanted to transfer some files from the laptop to my home desktop, so i brought home the laptop and inserted the wireless card in the laptop. And what happens, it freezes. at first i thought it was windows, so I tried rebooting. With the card in, it would not start, as soon as i removed the card it booted up.
Once in windows, i inserted the card again, and it froze. But here is the weird part. Since i was going to reboot anyway, i thought well i'll take the card out now, and reboot. And lo and behold, when i took out the card Windows unfroze, and worked fine. So i've been experimenting, and it seems that now, wile the PCMCIA card is inserted something happens in the laptop and it kind of stalls it. If i remove it Windows comes back and works fine. (NOTE: I don't reboot or anything, I just take out the card from the slot, and Windows comes back). If I press any key when in this frozen state, as soon as i take out the card windows goes ahead and does any action related to the key i pressed whenl frozen. Example: If i press the Window Key, when frozen, as soon as I remove the card the Start menu will pop up. Another thing I've noticed is that whyen I insert the card, the speakers kind of crackle once and then it freezes.

So it's not a windows thing, it something with the Hardware.
I have a Compaq Presario 2100. With a Texas Instruments PCI Cardbus controller. Windows XP PRo, SP2. 256MBRam

Hope someone can help me with this, it's kind of annoying. And the thing that strikes me is that before it worked fine.