TrueMobile 1300 Wireless network adapter malfunctioning

I have an Inspiron 8500 with the TrueMobile 1300 Wirelss network card and it has worked without any problems since I purchased the computer seven months ago. Then, yesterday, it started malfunctioning. If I enable the wireless network connection it works for about two minutes then it quits working. That is, I loose the connection to my local network. When I display my network connections it lists the device as enabled, however, I cannot connect to any other network devices or access the internet. Also, when this occurs, any attempt to disable the device fails and you get the error message "program is no longer responding". So, I then end the task with the Program Manager and then the device becomes disabled. However, afterwards when I shut my computer down, it hangs on the final blue screen forever and would never shut down unless I press the power button for 5 seconds to manually power-off.

Also, FWIW, my Automatic Windows Update loaded a windows update yesterday morning and I am wondering if that update broke the TrueMobile 1300 device. This has happened in the past where Microsoft Windows Updates have messed up the wireless card and so I am wondering if that may be the cause.

Has anybody else observed this phenonoma and/or does anybody have any advice as to how I can get my wireless connection to work again?

Thanks,

Gordon