Netgear router/card connectivity problem

I have a netgear wireless 108g router and pcmcia card for my laptop. When I'm browsing at home I have no problem connecting to the wireless network. I can also go somewhere else and connect to other access points with my laptop, however, when I come home I am unable to connect back to my own. I select the appropriate profile from the list and it seems to connect fine, but there's no actual internet activity. I check the IP address and it gives me a 169*, which I read here and elsewhere is usually a result of something being wrong with the DHCP service. I've tried restarting that, doing ipconfig/release and ipconfig/renew, and nothing seems to restore my connection. I'm running WinXP home with SP1. It takes a system restore to get things working again. Hopefully I'm missing something simple because it's a huge hassle restoring each time I connect to a different network! Anyone had similar problems or have any idea what else to try?