slow intel pro wireless 3945abg

this is driving me nuts. I have a brand new e1505. A lot of internet stuff will seem normal speed but then i'll get some sites that just load oh so slooooow and then i'll try it on a different laptop in my house and they will seem fine. I had some problems with aol instant messenger signing slower than my old laptop, and even problems with starting new conversations and it taking forever to actually post my message (again, no problem on old computer). I'm having a really hard time trying to nail down what might be at fault and why it seems random at times or why one site will seem normal another won't even though both will be fine on other computers

after playing with it some, seems like it's having these problems more on the wifi connection than on a wired connection. I have the intel pro wireless 3945abg wifi and an older dlink 802.11b access point that all our other laptops have functioned on fine

I tried downloading the new driver from the dell support site. Doesn't seem to have helped. Do I need a new access point? What's the deal, I thought it was gonna be a good idea to get this card instead of the dell branded one.