poor wireless sensitivity after installation of fc5 on an ibm x40 laptop

Hello,

I have just installed Fedora core 5 on my ibm x40 laptop, replacing
Fedora core 4.  My problem is that the wireless on my laptop now
appears to be much less sensitive than it was before, both for
connecting to the network and for interacting with it after a
connection is established.

I am using the Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 2200BG (rev
05).  Here is the firmware I placed in /lib/firmware:

ipw2200-bss.fw         ipw-2.3-boot.fw           ipw-2.4-bss.fw
ipw2200-ibss.fw        ipw-2.3-bss.fw            ipw-2.4-bss_ucode.fw
ipw2200-sniffer.fw     ipw-2.3-bss_ucode.fw      ipw-2.4-ibss.fw
ipw-2.2-boot.fw        ipw-2.3-ibss.fw           ipw-2.4-ibss_ucode.fw
ipw-2.2-bss.fw         ipw-2.3-ibss_ucode.fw     ipw-2.4-sniffer.fw
ipw-2.2-bss_ucode.fw   ipw-2.3-sniffer.fw        ipw-2.4-sniffer_ucode.fw
ipw-2.2-ibss.fw        ipw-2.3-sniffer_ucode.fw
ipw-2.2-ibss_ucode.fw  ipw-2.4-boot.fw

Any suggestions?  Has anyone had similar experiences?

Thanks,
David