Slow pings to router

i have 2 computers, a laptop & a desktop (PC). They both connect to a netgear wireless router - the laptop, without any problems.

The PC was fine for about 2 years. However, it recently had a netgear wireless card die - loads of BSODs, etc. So, i replaced the wireless card with a Linksys card. Worked OK, solved the problem and gave a stable connection for a while.

Now though, i have problems connecting to the wireless router from the PC. can still connect fine from the laptop, so i don't think there are any hardware issues with the router, etc. I changed the channel of the router from 6 to 11 - and it has improved the performance somewhat (i can now at least connect from the PC) - but i am still suffering very slow pings to the router.

Laptop pings (from the same room) sit at around 3ms
However, the PC pings can fluctuate to over 2000ms, but usually sit around 300ms...

Does anyone have any suggestions for a cause (and solution) to the problem?

Help is appreciated!

BTW - i have tried a firmware upgrade, but it seems as if i'm on the latest...

thanks

Humm, something not right here, try pinging the wireless card directly from the PC and see if you get a <1ms response. Then try a trace route to the router and see how many hops you are taking. Do you have AOL on that machine? sometimes AOL will assign a machine a different IP/gateway etc. Are you getting DHCP from the router? I have had configuration differences cause weird things between APs and clients that can usually be fixed by reconfiguring the router and client devices. also are there any nearby interferences? like microwave ovens, other wireless devices etc...?