Wireless Connection Won't Work Unless Repair

[xxkbxx]

Hey y'all - some of you might recognize me if you've been on here for over 2 years, I was on here a lot before life got freaking busy with college and all. I got into MIT 2 years ago, and it slowly has stolen my soul and freetime!

But, anyways, I've run into a problem with a laptop of mine - I'm fixing up my old IBM T30 to give to my dad for Christmas. It's got a fresh install of XP Pro with SP3, all the drivers installed, all the updates (it's about the n-millionth time I've done this before)

The problem is that the internal wireless card will recognize a network upon start up, try to connect, then get stuck on the "acquiring network address" stage. The network itself if a home linksys connection with WPA, the laptop has the pre shared key stored - so it's not an issue with that.

However, as soon as I right-click and repair the connection it goes through, connects, and is totally fine. Even after hours of internet use it'll stay connected, it's just the initial connect.

If it was my computer it wouldn't bother me, but I don't want to give it to my dad with a caveat - anyone had this happen to them before.

TIA

[CurlingSteve]

Just out of curiosity, what happens if you ...

(1) Disable the Wireless Connection.

(2) Reboot.

(3) Wait a little bit.

(4) Enable the Wireless Connection.

Does it work or hang at "Acquire..." until you repair?

[xxkbxx]

It does the same thing after trying that.

Just for fun I set it up with a static IP, and it worked immediately, but I want to leave it to auto detect since the majority of the time my folks use the laptop it'll be traveling using hotel wifi.