kernel- 2.4.22/2.6.4
distro- Slack 9
card- dlink dwl 650revM
computer- pIII dell lattitude ls, HS500 (highly linux compatible, mostly 440 chips)

ive got many issues, with a realtek 8180 chipset D-link DWL650 rev M
wireless pcmcia card. The reason im not posting this directly to the
wireless networking forum is because im having another issue that i can
remember having figured out once before, without having the wireless
card to deal with. I also have a question.

first problem: realteks linux drivers for 2.4 kernel seem to load, although
they have crashed me more crashes in the last two days than i have seen
in the rest of my yearlong linux life, thats not quite the issue though it may
be related.

insmod rtl8180_24x.o (no complaints)
ifconfig wlan0 192.168.1.10 (no complaints)
iwpriv wlan0 enable (leds start blinking)
iwconfig wlan0 (essid from linksys router registers)
tcpdump (watching wlan0, local wireless traffic becomes visible)
ping 192.168.1.1 (the router, network unreachable)
route -n (192.168.1.0 gw * nm 255.255.255.0 dev wlan0)
(lo gw * nm * dev lo)

thats where the problem is, im sure.

route del 192.168.1.0 (no such process)
route del 192.168.1.0 dev wlan0 (no such process)
route del 192.168.1.0 gw 0.0.0.0 dev wlan0 (no such process)
route del default (no such process)
route del default gw 0.0.0.0 dev wlan0 (no such process)
route del default dev wlan0 (no such process)
route del localnet (no such process)
route del localnet gw 0.0.0.0 (no such process)
route del localnet gw 0.0.0.0 dev wlan0 (no such process)

of course, where im failing here is that if i were to manually set the
routing table, i probably would have used that route anyway

then just for good measure, even though i cant ping the router, i set it up
as the default gateway

route add default gw 192.168.1.1 (no complaints)
route -n (like before, but append 0.0.0.0, gw 192.168.1.1, nm 0.0.0.0, dev wlan0)(it also hangs for a moment while by box arps the network three
times)

ive had this same stupid broken undeletable routing table problem before,
i just cant remember what the solution was

right now im not plugging any ethernet cables into the laptop, and the
settings in rc.inet1 are for DHCP, which is working fine for the windows
machines on the network.

ohyeah BTW, are all these crashes causing damage?
(im imagining a buffer overrun on a sensitive circuit causing uninhibitited
electricity to fry something, or less likely data is being moved to where it
shouldnt be)
it mostly crashes when i try to disable the driver, though there is another
crash that i havent isolated yet.

anyway, not in the traditional style of LQ im going to go and find the solution before anyone can respond (if only it were always that easy)
thanks!