Old M1617 issue

I have a significantly older M1617 that I got about 2 years ago. It works mostly fine except it overheats a lot, though that is basically remedied by a cooler.

My problem with it is this: wireless.

I noticed after a while that the wireless signals were dropping badly, being 5-10 feet from my router, I was getting 1-2 bars, while another computer next to me was getting max. Even with the other computer out of the room and turned off, still no signal (therefore not that computer interfering or something of that nature). I decided that the wireless card probably died, so instead of grabbing a new one right away, I went and got a USB stick. It sort of worked, but wasn't fantastic, and would drop me offline which wasn't conducive to playing WoW... or would give me absolutely terrible reception, much like the internal.

So I bit the bullet and grabbed a cheap replacement card off eBay. It installed fine, but immediately gave me the same issues as the first card. Terrible signal. I went and grabbed ANOTHER wireless card from another laptop, same deal. 3 different cards, identical results.

Of course, I formatted, but this didn't fix the issue. I ended up just running on a wired connection instead.

Anyone have any ideas what might cause that? Would kind of like to get this laptop working a bit better for random portability.