I have discovered something I find interesting in this, which does not seem to be directly in reply to anything that has gone before - so it was difficult to place it in the thread. I have deliberately broken the "conversation", but not the thread.
From the router's log: Every time I try (once) to connect to the router from the laptop with wicd, using the Intel card, it makes two attempts to connect and the router ALLOWS both. So why, when it is allowed to connect, does it not do so??? I have checked this out specifically. :-/ Lisi