Roger Mills wrote:

Unless you're frequently moving your PCs (laptops?) around, I'd go for a
wired solution every time. It's far more reliable and far more secure. [If
wireless is flakey out of the box, think what it will be like when you
introduce decent encryption!]

I completely disagree.
WiFi normally works perfectly well.
There is something wrong with the setup in the OP's case.
I'd try re-setting the PCI cards, moving the antennae, etc.
If that didn't work I'd assume there was something wrong
with the WiFi cards, and try another make, maybe USB.

--
Timothy Murphy
e-mail: gayleard /at/ eircom.net
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s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland