Been using linux for about 10 years now, mostly as a server. Wanted to set it up on my laptop (Toshiba Satellite 2805-S202) in a feeble attempt to become a Linux 'power user' using Linux as my desktop

This is the first time I have asked a question on a forum... I believe in giving before taking, so I have always just googled my problems away in the past since I haven't contributed answers. But this one has me stumped.

In an attempt to keep this short I will first detail where I am at now.

The card itself is recognized with ndiswrapper, and iwconfig shows the settings (54g speed, etc.) and the card as recognized. The lights on the card are both on, but very dim. I have made sure that RadioOn is set to 1. In fact when I reload the driver with ndiswrapper, it shows 'forcing radio|1' so I know it is feeding the instruction. wlan0 shows up under ifconfig and i can configure it. But it seems the radio never turns 'on'.

What I have done:
using latest Knoppix distro (if I can get the card going I will switch to Gentoo)
had to upgrade ndiswrapper per the FAQ to .12 to work with mn720
also had to upgrade the kernel so I could get the source to build the ndis module
using mn720-ankh driver

What I have found:
Initially the card would not 'start up'. dmesg kept showing that IRQ 0 would not re-map no matter what I disabled/enabled via kernel settings for apic, pcmcia, etc. I finally got the IRQ to map when I switched the Controller Mode in the BIOS to Cardbus/16-bit (the pcmcia setting). FWIW, when I did this the pcmcia chipste was recognized as a different name (was Toshiba ToPIC100 or similar, is now Toshiba 95-b).

Help? If debug is needed please also give me the flags desired so I can get the right info. Thanks!