Aspire 5920g wireless problem

Hello,

I've got a slight problem and I'm looking for any helpful information on the subject.

I bought an Aspire 5920g about 15 months ago, and it's worked flawlessly, except for the harddrive crashing after about half a year. Now, suddenly, the wireless has started acting up. I installed windows xp about 3 months ago and got it to work pretty well.

Last week, completely out of the blue, the wireless just disconnects and tells me there are no networks to connect to. The light on the wireless-button went out and whenever I pressed it, it just flickered once, but didn't come on. After a reboot, it started working again. Last night, it cut out a few times but reconnected immediately.

This morning, when I switch it on, it just sits there, if I disable the network connection and enable it again, it gets to "Acquiring network address...", and watching the status, the signal stays strong, but the speed keeps dropping, 54Mbps, 48Mbps, 2xMbps, 11Mbps, until it reaches 1.1Mbps, then it stops, still saying "Acquiring network address...", and it just sits there.

If I reboot, it does the same thing. I found some advice on a german forum, saying you should try to remove any power source and hold down the power button 10 seconds, to clear the hardware of any charge, but that didn't do much good.

I'm kind of lost here, everything looks like it's in order, I haven't changed anything that could affect this and it's been working smoothly for so long... I just don't see what it could be.

Hardware failure this soon?

Thanks in advance.

EDIT:

It connected once, after I changed the channel and rebooted the access point, but only at a very reduced rate (11Mbps), which is unacceptable, really. I tried disconnecting it to see if I could get a higher rate if I reconnected it, but alas, it won't reconnect. Also, my sister has a 6920g, which has no problem whatsoever with the same network.

EDIT2:

As I was watching the endless acquiring of a network address, I got curious, tilted the screen a bit and the speed at which it connects fluctuates wildly, depending on where the screen is at. At about 45 degrees open, the signal is very good and the speed stays at 54 Mbps, but if I move it in either direction, it steps down, until it reaches 11Mbps with the screen fully open / closed. Still won't connect no matter what the levels are at. I'm wondering, is the antenna built into the screen? Could the wiring be coming apart? I've carried it around with me, but very little if at all in the last 6 months...