New 1525 laptop, wireless wont connect unless 2 feet from router, but it shows good signal strength

5 week old inspiron 1525

windows XP

Netgear WGT624 router

I had the wireless connection working fine for about 3 weeks, then oneday it just quit.  By the way it works fine with our other laptop.     The Dell uses some other wireless network wizard that shows good strengh from our router, even sees the neighbors wireless. Also sees good strenght from public acces places.  I've tried it on several different connections both secure and not, same problem.   However if I positon the laptop right next to the router it automatically connects and works, once I walk 3-5 feet away its done.  Since its setup to use the network wizard if I click on the windows wireless icon at the lower right it says windows cannot configure this wireless connection.   I tried enabling the WZC service, but i couldnt get it to work?

Any ideas or other info you need to help?   Thanks   CHRIS