SMC7004AWBR with WiFi under Linux

Hi,

I have a SMC7004AWBR with I want to use under Linux.

<--- skip this part, the current problem is stated below
I had set this up about one year ago and it worked ok. [I had only the
router the SMC2602W PCI card at this time.] The problems (or rather
Odyssey) started when I updated my operating system to SuSE Linux 8.2 --
the wireless connection didn't work anymore. Since not even connecting
via wired ethernet worked, the SMC7004AWBR was replaced by SMC. wlan
didn't work then therefore I asked the shop to check the two devices and
got a new SMC2602W PCI card. (it still didn't work for me.)
Recently I borrowed a CardBus-PCMCIA card, plugged it in and it worked
with the router but not with the PC. I then bought my own cardbus card:
NETGEAR MA401.
<-----

Ok. What do I have:
SMC7004AWBR: ESSID=paul, WEP=off, MAC control=off, channel=11, current
firmware version 1.96h3 (newest)
SMC2602W: orinoco_plx, ESSID=paul, WEP=off
NETGEAR MA401: (a) orinoco_cs or (b) prism2_cs, ESSID=paul, WEP=off

If I use the ad-hoc mode (which I think I always used during the first
year) I can connect (channel 11) the two cards but not the router.

Using the managed/not-adhoc/infrastructure mode, kwifimanager shows how
both cards try very hard to find any AP but fail.

Any ideas how to debug this?

Tobias


PS: I would think that the wireless card in the router is broken if it
didn't seem to have worked with the borrowed cardbus card. I think it
worked since the wireless-ng driver (which I "discovered" today) has the
default: ESSID="" and infrastructure mode.