What do you mean by ports? Channels maybe? Tried changing the channel from the default of "1" to "2" to see if it was an interference issue. No dice. It doesn't matter now. We replaced the laptop with an Acer Aspire One with WinXP. It saw and logged into the wireless network without an issue. XP will be familiar to MIL and will run any app she wants. The Acer has more memory, more storage, better expandability, better quality, and was the same price. I'm in the process of cleaning off the junk and configuring it for best performance and usability in such a small form factor.
Chris