Wireless Inspiron Not Connecting to Internet

[mandoman]

I have a Dell Inspiron N5030 laptop, duo-core Processors T4500 @ 2.3GHz, and have Mint Mate 17 installed.

We had a power outage a week ago, and it took me that whole week to figure out that I couldn't connect with the Internet through my router with any computers but the desktop upstairs, because it was the first one I booted up after rebooting the router. It seems that when I booted it up, Mint didn't see any other computers on the network, and started using the actual ip address, rather than the masque ip address. After I figured that out, I was able to get both my desktops up, and my Dell Latitude that is loaded with Win XP, to connect with the network, and Internet. It seems that the Inspiron had done the same thing that the desktop had done, and so it wouldn't connect at all. I simply re-installed Mint Mate 17, and it was cruising again. I thought. This morning I went to boot up the Inspiron, and during the boot up it gave my the heart sinking "Trying To Set Up Network Connection", or something like that. Sure enough, when it finished figuring out it couldn't connect, it allowed me to log in, and it really couldn't connect. I am totally baffled. I have tried ifconfig, iwconfig, making sure the settings were correct in both Administrative, and Preference Network settings, but nothing helps. I made sure that it was still working on the alias default ip 129.168.0.0, and that wasn't a problem. I still doesn't SEE the network, even though it will show it when queried in the Command Line, as the default ip, and route. Then, to make things even more weird, I noticed that it was displaying the outside temperature using the panel app I had installed, and configured, but still no Internet, and no recognition of my Network at all.

Do I have to re-install again? If it didn't help the first time, why would it be different the next? When I looked up the problem on the Internet, using my desktop, it showed there was a bug report about wireless computers using the SPA-SPA2 secure connection. It even gave the solution, but I couldn't find anything in NetworkManager that looked anything like what said needed to be corrected.

I'm stuck. If anyone knows how to help me with this, I would sure appreciated it. Thanks.

[mandoman]

UPDATE!! I was able to connect by following the instructions of this wireless guru named xaos52, at this link: http://crunchbang.org/forums/viewtopic.php?id=17869.
I have no idea why it worked, but I'm definitely saving his instructions. Hopefully it's a permanent fix.