[geeks] Usual or Unusual? More wireless Q's

[velociraptor]

So, I have the Linksys WRT54GS, WUSB54G for the desktop,
and WPC54GS for the laptop.  I figured the WUSB54G would
be more versatile going forward, since the wireless for the desktop
is a "temporary" thing while I am living at the current place.

The WPC54GS is pretty stable at 110/125, so long as I keep it
in certain areas of my room; if I move around it tends to fluctuate
a lot but will usually stay at least at 54.

The WUSB54G is all over the place though; I expected the rate
to be lower, given the USB interface, but didn't think that I would
be having this sort of problem.  I have a a week or so to do more
tweaking before I'd have to return it to the store.  Signal strength
is strong, so I figure that antennas are a later resort.

There is no driver more recent than the one that came with the device.
I have not tried using the Linksys connection tool instead of XP's;
I attempted to use it with the PCMCIA card, and it didn't work, so
I figured it would not be any better for the USB device.

I have the AP set up to be G-only, with static IPs for these two
boxes (port forwarding for games), with WPA-PSK TKI (I think I
got those anacronyms right :-).  Due to some stuff I read about
XP (remember, game box and running Checkpoint VPN), I turned
changed the SSID to be broadcast (XP connects to broadcast
SSIDs, even if not preferred, before connecting to non-broadcasted:
<http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;811427>).
There is another broadcast SSID that shows up periodically, so I
figured it would not be that big of a deal with WPA.  I haven't yet
turned on MAC filtering--I'll do that later after sorting out the USB
issue.

Any suggestions for non-obvious things I should be looking at?
Cluebats appreciated. :-)

TIA--
=Nadine=