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There are three possibilities that I see for weak reception:
- the MiniPCI card itself is defective
- there's a problem with the antenna leads or the antennas themselves
- your Netgear access point is not broadcasting at the power that it should
Most WiFi cards do have two antenna inputs like you have found (main and aux). As far as I know, the main input is not any "better" than the aux input. There's two antennas in order to support the diversity function of the wireless system. By that, it means that the antenna that is receiving the best signal is given priority over the one that is receiving less of a signal. The reception indicator in the wireless utility program doesn't really mean anything; what matters more is the
operable distance that you experience from the access point and the speed of the data transfer. In a home environment, with no cordless phones operating in the 2.4Ghz band and no microwave ovens in use (both can affect 802.11b wireless systems), you should be able to get a reliable connection at least 30' away; line-on-sight, even through a couple of walls. It might help to bring in a second wireless laptop to see how well it works as compared to your T30. That would give you an idea if the problem is with your access point. You might also try using the wireless utility to see if you can "see" any other WiFi systems in your area that are broadcasting on the same channel as you.
To troubleshoot your problem, I'd first be sure that the existing antenna leads are firmly attached to the wireless card. They should be firmly affixed, yet free enough to swivel around in a circle. They do require a bit of force to unsnap from the socket and must be positioned very carefully and pressed down fairly hard for them to be re-attached. If both leads appear to be correctly connected, then I would probably opt to replace the MiniPCI card. It's certainly possible for an antenna lead to be shorted or disconnected, but with two antennas in your laptop, both would have to be acting up and that's less of a chance happening.
I'm not sure if your wireless card is supported by this program, but NetStumbler is a very good tool for looking at wireless connection issues. It will scan the area around you and display the signal strength of each wireless system it can see, tell you the channels they are operating on and report if they are using encryption or not.
ref:
http://www.netstumbler.com/downloads/
edit: Just looked up your system configuration after I posted this and it appears that a 2367-BU5 did not come with built-in wireless
Possibly someone before you has upgraded the system by installing a MiniPCI card?
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. I assumed that you would get the same card as you already have since that would be the easiest swap. The no-1802 hack is also supported with a bootable CD image:
).