Wireless dropout on W2K

I have a Netgear WG511 pcm/cia 802.11g adapter on an old notebook running
Windows 2000 Pro, and a Netgear WGR614v2 switch/router. I've set up WPA and
it seems to run pretty well while it's working. For the last few days, the
signal strength hasn't been very good for some reason, which I plan to work
on.

The real problem/inconvenience, however, is that whenever the connection
drops, I have to log off the Windows network and back on, and often have to
restart the system completely to recover internet and LAN connectivity,
although the adapter picks up the wireless service immediately. After the
dropout, the IP address in Netgear's GUI is blank, as if I'm not getting a
new IP from the DHCP server. Any suggestions? Change in netwok login
setup, maybe?