SimplyMEPIS -- Wireless -- rt61 -- no IRQ -- device 0000:00:0.6.0

As I am new to Linux (and thus Mepis) I would appreciate your input on this.

Intro:

I have tested 3 LiveCD's (Knoppix, Ubuntu, SimplyMepis) on two different Laptops (IBM Thinkpad and Medion).
All worked fine, including wireless networking.
I decided to go for Mepis, as it seemed to be known for a better (detection & drivers) hardware support.
So did I buy a Packard Bell low budget Easynote R1931 laptop and was going to install Mepis,
but first in test mode with the LiveCD.

Core:

To reduce the number of errors during boot (still from SimplyMepis LiveCD)
I gathered from googling around to boot with "pnpbios=off" and "pci=biosirq".
Errors left:
"cannot allocate resource region 0 of device 0000:00:06.0"
"no IRQ known for pin A of device 0000:00:06.0"

The output of iwconfig shows rt61 on ra0:
However I can not make iwconfig see my essid: it returns "segmentation error".
All further iwconfig commands make the terminal session hang (and other applications).

This all seems to indicate the the IRQ is the real problem. Am I right ?
What is there to do Mepis wise ?
Or should I get another laptop ?

More:
The touchpad cannot be set (I want the tap off: faaaaaar too sensitive).
The 1280 x 800 display is not detected / set(table): distorted images & fonts.
Power settings and warnings are not set.
But then, nothing is pefect ... ; - ) and those problems can be tackled later, I assume..

Thank you sofar for at least reading this, and tx in advance for your input !

Ronald.