RT61 based wifi card missing lights

[uptownben]

I have a Thinkpad X24 with a RT61 based pcmcia wifi card. Up until now I have used Puppylinux 2.17 and all was well. I just installed 3.01 (fresh full install) and after going through the wifi config a few times I realized that I actually DID have connectivity and and IP address and I can access the net but the lights on the card were not showing anything, they remain off. I switched back to my previous install ( switched out the drive ) and the lights come on and the card works normally. I tried other flavors of linux to double check and the card and lights work fine there too. Only under puppylinux 3.01 do I see this happen. Everything works, but no LINK or ACTIVITY lights. Any ideas?