presario 2145us problems (battery and 802.11b)

I purchased this laptop last May. I soon discovered that the laptop
seems to produce a lot of interference limiting the effecting
receive/transmit range of the 802.11b mini-PCI card. I literally can't
be more than 40-60 feet from an access point if I don't have a straigh
line of sight to the access point. Has anybody else experienced this?

I am also on my second battery, the laptop seems to be slowly killing
batteries. The first battery only claims 1000mAH as full capacity after
roughly 100 cycles. The second battery they sent me has already lost
900mAH of it's capacity in the 2 months and 25 cycles. Running the
calibration program that Compaq includes only makes things worse causing
the full charge value to drop by several hundred mAH. Once again, has
anybody seen this behavior?

Thanks in advance
Jason