Why Doesn't My Laptop Recognize My Network When its Within Range!????

Come to think of it, there is a possibility it may be a range problem. I read an article that said if your wireless router is positioned upstairs and you are trying to get access downstairs, the signal is most likely bouncing out of the upstairs bedroom down the stairs and into the living room. I had always thought if I put it on the upstairs floor, it would go right through the floor/ceiling, but maybe I was wrong. The only problem is that it WAS working much better in the past, it has recently been more flaky, but it was never PERFECT before either, 20% of the time. After connecting the poor working laptop directly to the router with an ethernet cable (hard wired), then opening up Firefox, then disconnecting the hard line, it seemed to kick the wireless connection back into gear... at least while it was upstairs. Then I took it back downstairs and restarted it, and no connection once more. Tomorrow I'm going to try two things to further test what is going on.
1) Bring the laptop that works most of the time to the same position downstairs and see if it connects or not when restarted.
2) Reposition the router as close to the upstairs portion of the stairwell as my power outlet will let me go and see if that helps
This will at least tell me if it is a signal issue, which I would have originally been very suprised to hear, but after reading about the signal going down the stairwell instead of the floor, sounds more probable.

Hopefully my results will help some of you with the same question as I'm sure many of us have this problem. In the meantime, any advice would sure help!

Worst comes to worst, I'll have to fish an ethernet cable or two down my wall... I'm sure theres a how-to guide somewhere on the internet for that.

I am still wondering one thing though: When it used to work (20% of the time), it would ALWAYS get an "excellent" signal strength and all bars would be green. I was downloading at up to 200Kbps. If it is indeed a signal issue, why would it either be super fast perfect connection, or no connection at all? Anybody who can answer that gets a cookie! I'm thinking maybe it has to do with the very basic wireless adapter card on my laptop pinging BACK to my router. Maybe it can download fast but not upload fast. hmmm.. anybody know anything about that...

OK, tried the other laptop in the exact same location, and it works flawlessly. Just for fun, I tried to see how far the signal went. Every square inch of my home and patio gets a Very Good or Excellent signal. I was actually able to walk 15-20 yards away from my house in each direction before the signal was lost. But I noticed it steadily decreased in strength the further I walked away, as it should. So I've determined that it is absolutely NOT a range issue. Its some kind of connection issue.

Now I'm very confused. Someone please help!

problem solved
updated the drivers AGAIN but this time I selected Version 1.0