Wireless Link Drops, won't reconnect unless I re-boot.

I have a new Inspiron (Vista w/ SP1) with internal PCI 80211G card.  It can see my verizon in-home wireless network but can't connect.  I therefore loaded my old Linksys USB G network adapter and it both sees and connects.  So far, so good.  But the network drops often, and more often when the PC is brought back up from sleep mode.  In that case, I must re-boot to get connectivity by the Linksys.  I spoke with Dell support, but they want me to re-format to factory settings.  I can't seem to get them to understand that the Inspiron connects fine with the Linksys, but the internal card won't connect.  Also the PC drops the internet after the system goes into sleep/suspend mode.  The PC can't reconnect when PC comes back up (firewall?  McAfee 30 day trial sw?).  I therefore must re-boot, and then everything is fine until it drops again.  Then, I have to re-boot.  I had the linksys on an old dell that I replaced, and it all worked fine under XP.  If that network dropped, the system re-connected itself with no problem.  Anyone have similar issue?