Right, a new one for the saga

Since having to AGAIN reformat the laptop a week or so ago (must stop fucking with the registry ) I have been having issues with it, that initially I put down to the laptop - thinking somehow the install of XP Pro (SP2) didn't take too well... Now I am not so sure...

First, it sometimes takes a long time to connect to my wireless network - at home. Out and about when I look for unsecured wifi it generally does fine. At home it used to be very quick to connect. I leave it on standby, and it used to be connected to the network between the time I open the lid (which wakes it up) and the desktop comes up on screen. Now it can take ages, just saying "AQUIRING NETWORK ADDRESS" or some shit....

Now and again, it tells me it is connected but has limited or no connectivity

Often it just drops the connection and reverts back to aquiring the network address for several seconds (usually less than 30, but sometimes a good min or two)

And the other night refused point blank to find my network, just saying no networks available!

And all of the above is with it reporting 4 out of 5 or 5 out of 5 bars and VERY GOOD to EXCELLENT signal strength!

Earlier in the week it refused to boot up past the blue WELCOME screen and I had to sys restore, then wireless refused to work (untill I uninstalled it and reinstalled the driver, and then it took several mins to find and connect to my network)

Yet out and about, it seems to be fine? It struggled to lock onto a network yesterday, but the signal strength was very low there so understandable....

I'm just not sure if this is a computer issue or an issue with my router?

Something that could also be related is I used to be able to access any PC's shared folder and My Documents folder on my network - which is to other PC's. Now I can access one of them fine, but my Main PC (which is the one I like to access the most) won't let me in - just says NETWORK PATH NOT FOUND when I click on it from MY NETWORK PLACES on my laptop. Oddly, it also does this from the other PC when trying to access the Main PC, but the other two (media PC and laptop) can access each other fine, and the Main PC can access both of them aswell....

Any idea's before I go nuts, bin everything and replace with an iMac, Mac Mini, MacBook and Airport Extreme?