wireless wont pick up any wireless networks

I have a 600m with a Intel 2100 wireless minipci card. It just refuses to detect any wireless networks. I did however notice a strange thing right before it died. WinXP said that it connected to a wireless network with a gibberish (weird ascii characters) SSID. And after that it just stopped connecting. I have tried uninstalling, reinstalling drivers, Updated the drivers, replaced with another intel 2100 card and it still doesnt work. I upgraded my windows to SP2 and it worked for a while but recently stopped again. Anyone know why this is happening?