I have just installed a wireless network in my house. everything is fantastic except that: when I plug in my jetflash 256mb USB drive, it cuts off the wireless on my desktop. when this happens, neither works. If I plug in the drive and then the USB wireless network adapter (linksys WUSB54G), the USB drive still works, but the network won't pick anything up. This is a real pain. I use my USB drive alot and don't want to have to screw around disconnecting and reconnecting to the network to use it. has anybody else had this problem? I think I'll either get a new USB drive, (I've been considering getting a bigger one anyways) or return the USB network adapter and get a PCI one. any thoughts?

Try using a different USB port. Each USB controller has two ports. You may be using the other port one the controller that hosts your wireless. If you have more than two USB ports, try a different one. One surefire way that should cure that problem is to get an add in USB controller card.

I have used all USB ports. It always yields the same result. I want to avoid putting in an extra card because I only have 1 pci slot left.

Check your IRQ assignments. Your system may have configured too many devices to use the same IRQ. The onboard hardware is difficult to reassign but there are ways to get the add in cards to use different IRQ assignments. Look at this in device manager. Select> Computer> Properties> Interrupt requests. This will list what is using which IRQs. If you wish to attempt change, there are basically two ways to do this. The first way is to move the add in PCI cards around. Each MBoard will have a default IRQ assignment for each slot. Some slots share. By moving you may be able to force the use of an unused IRQ. The second way is to assign IRQ in the BIOS. When doing this, keep in mind that there are more hardware devices than IRQs. Therefore is you assign an IRQ to a PCI slot you effectively remove that IRQ from the pool of shared resources. This can be useful, to a degree. Many BIOSes allow assignment for the AGP slot. I can't say for sure if this is even for problem. USB 2.0 drivers are intregal in WinXP so you should be using the XP drivers. With USB 1.1 I am not sure if that is the case. Some MBoards have a mix of USB 2.0 & 1.1 controllers. Maybe removing all USB controllers & hubs may sort things out on a re-install.