Wireless problems - cannot connect zd1211rw

[Lisi Reisz <lisi.reisz@gmail.com>]

I have a USB wireless card that is a zd1211rw.  It does not seem to function.  
I installed wicd, which said that it could find no wireless networks, then 
remembered that this system appears to have a functioning Network Manager (I 
didn't know that there was such a thing!) and hastily uninstalled wicd.

Help!  What do I do??  I have not much experience of wireless, none of having 
a problem when the relevant module is loaded!

Some hopefullty relevant information:

From hwinfo:

62: None 00.0: 1070a WLAN
  [Created at net.124]
  Unique ID: AYEt.QXn1l67RSa1
  Parent ID: VBUu.9MbtL3lij8A
  SysFS ID: /class/net/wlan0
  SysFS Device Link: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1a.0/usb1/1-1/1-1.5/1-1.5:1.0
  Hardware Class: network interface
  Model: "WLAN network interface"
  Driver: "zd1211rw"
  Driver Modules: "zd1211rw"
  Device File: wlan0
  HW Address: 00:1a:ee:00:b3:e1
  Link detected: no
  Config Status: cfg=new, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown
  Attached to: #42 (WLAN controller)

But:
root@Tux-II:/home/lisi# iwconfig
eth0      no wireless extensions.

eth1      no wireless extensions.

lo        no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11bg  ESSID:off/any
          Mode:Managed  Access Point: Not-Associated   Tx-Power=off
          Retry short limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:on

root@Tux-II:/home/lisi#     


lisi@Tux-II:~$ lsmod | grep zd1211rw
zd1211rw               55918  0
mac80211              492899  1 zd1211rw
cfg80211              440878  2 mac80211,zd1211rw
usbcore               187016  8 
usb_storage,ohci_hcd,ohci_pci,ehci_hcd,ehci_pci,usbhid,zd1211rw,xhci_hcd
lisi@Tux-II:~$

Result of lsmod:
ro62: None 00.0: 1070a WLAN
  [Created at net.124]
  Unique ID: AYEt.QXn1l67RSa1
  Parent ID: VBUu.9MbtL3lij8A
  SysFS ID: /class/net/wlan0
  SysFS Device Link: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1a.0/usb1/1-1/1-1.5/1-1.5:1.0
  Hardware Class: network interface
  Model: "WLAN network interface"
  Driver: "zd1211rw"
  Driver Modules: "zd1211rw"
  Device File: wlan0
  HW Address: 00:1a:ee:00:b3:e1
  Link detected: no
  Config Status: cfg=new, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown
  Attached to: #42 (WLAN controller)

Many thanks,
Lisi