HELP!!! my wireless doesn't work at all!!

i have a problem with my wireless network
i'll specify all the things i've done, so if somebody can please tell me what i have done wrong i would appreciate it

this is what i have - a PC with a normal (wire) ethernet card, and i've just installed also a wireless ethernet card (Level One WNC-0301 PCI 802.11g/b) - it's a wireless card with an antenna.
i also have a laptop with a wireless network card.
i installed both on the PC and the laptop the latest drivers.
the windows firewall is off (on both the PC and the laptop) and my sygate personal firewall is set to give free access to all network cards. (the laptop has no other firewall)
i followed the windows wizard to set the connection (using the USB drive, i installed the network, and there were no problems during the installation) and now both the PC and the laptop has the same profile on the Preffered networks.
both the PC and the laptop detect OTHER wireless connections. but i they won't detect each other, like i have to create a server or something so it will detect it.
the icon of the utility of the wireless card in my pc shows no connections
also one of the leds on the PC's wireless card is blinking and according to the manual it says there's a data transfer (??).
the Windows Zero config is set to automatic and running on both computers.

there's a setup option in that utility of the pc wireless card, (to set ad-hoc or infrastructure) but i can't go on with that setup because it asks me to choose a network from the ones it finds, and my laptop is not listed there.

sorry in advance if somebody already asked this question, but i searched everywhere and i haven't found anything and i'm spending all day on this thing.
anybody can help me out?

thanks.

To make your two computers connect to each other wirelessly without a router you need to set up an ad hoc wireless network.
This is a nice little tutorial explaining how to do it.
Making the Wireless Home Network Connection in Windows XP Without a Router