rans6:
In all my years of working with Linux I don't think I've ever met up with someone having as many problems with a Linux distro as you have!!!!! And it is extremely rare to see a Linux distro crash either itself or the system hardware.
Disabling the wired network card to get the wireless one working seems odd.
Perhaps you might want to try a different distro: one which may not give you all the headaches you've been experiencing? (Mandriva Linux comes to mind. I run it myself and it works "out of the box" as well as supporting most modern hardware)