Orinoco gold / Netgear wg602 suddenly weak signal

I recently installed Netgear WG602 WAP on my network and my laptop has a
built in Broadcom W-G, and I have an Orinoco Gold b/g PCMCIA card. A couple
of days ago, I could go anywhere in my house and have a strong signal.
Today, I am sitting within 12 feet (4 meters) of the WAP and both wireless
cards report the signal as being weak. I lose connection occasionally and
cannot complete large downloads from any of the desktops on my network. I
don't think I've made any changes to the router or to the operation
properties of the WAP. I changed the channel twice after thinking it could
be interferance from a nearby phone or similar device. I have 64 bit WEP
enabled but no mac filtering or other WAP security.

Where should I begin looking for the problem?

Throw away the Netgear, I did (well I returned it ;-), it just didn't work.
Regards,
Martin