Wireless Network - Complications with Compatability

Here's the situation:
I had a wired networking using a Linksys 4 port cable/dsl router.
I got tired of people tripping over wires to my notebook, so I bought a Linksys wireless router/access point combo. I have 2 desktops wired to the router in it, and they work fine... after a bit of fighting with Linksys.
The notebooks:
2 HPs running Windows XP Home
1 Compaq running Windows XP Home
1 Dell running Windows ME

The network cards:
4 WPC11 ver 3.0 Linksys network cards
For the examples, they are cards 1, 2, 3 and 4
Card 1 works in the Dell.
Card 1 works in the Compaq
Card 1 does not work in the HPs
All cards work in the dell and compaq, but NOTHING works in the HPs.
Originally, once the network was up, the HP would not even recognize a card in it. I reinstalled the drivers and got it to recognize and connect to the network, but it won't draw an IP. When I set a static IP the router does not recognize that static IP

Current setup:
Card 1 in the dell
Card 2 in the compaq
Cards 3 and 4 in the HPs
Cards 1 and 2 are working fine, in fact I am using #1 to send this message. Cards 3 and 4 are recognized on the networking when on DHCP, and they have internal IPs, but on the HPs, it doesn't show them as having IPs. On my router DHCP client page, the 2 wired computers and all 4 laptops have IPs ranging from 192.168.1.100 to 192.168.1.107 (1 wired computer has 2 IPs for windows and linux running together, but thats working fine)
The 2 wired computers show as having IPs
The dell and compaq laptops show as having IPs
The HPs say they cannot renew IPs.

I spent at least 4 hours on the phone with 4 diff tech support people, and they tried everything imaginable, most of which I had already tried.
Linksys's message to me: It is HPs fault, we have tried everything and it must be HPs fault
I spent 45 min in a chat session with HP (they didn't have a toll free tech support # that I could find) and the man was rude to me, ignored me, told me I was wrong, told me I was stupid, and then stopped responding.
HP's message to me: It is Linksys's problem, it is not our computers because I have proven that the computer works fine and that it is simply with the network card. We can't make everyone happy so good bye.

The main question I wanted answered was: Is there a known problem with the Linksys WPC11 3.0 network card and the HP Pavillion laptop?
Answers I got:
Linksys: We don't know it's not our job, it's HP's.
HP: We don't know it's not our job, its Linksys's.

Brilliant, isn't it?

There was no listing of any problems on the HP website, and after research I decided on the Linksys.

Any ideas as to how to get my computers to talk to each other? It's like a family dispute! "I recognize your existence but I dont want to talk to you"
Well... I'm off to talk to HP sales about what kind of wireless cards work with Linksys routers and HP computers...
Thanks for your help