Debian :: Can Only Access Internet Wireless

Over the past month my windows PC has been playing up, I therefore am using Debian on LiveCD to get used to Linux (before I wipe Windows completly). Ever since I downloaded Debian I havent been able to get the internet (wireless) working, well recently i have, but not for long... After 2 weeks or so of me pratting about, I found out sort of what the problem is, or how i can sort of solve it temporarly. My USB wireless card is Realtek RTL8187 and it recognizes it and works by default, Im sure its nothing to do with that, although KNetworkManager will never connect me, says Failed to decrpy WEP (in dmesg), even tho it's the correct HEX key, so I use Wireless Assistant 0.5.7 which does connect me, with the same key network-manager wont. Other than this I would manually set it and 'dhclient wlan0'.

So, to sort of get internet I will first connect to the network (obviously) and once connected, I will ping google.com, which usually will come back unknown host after a few secs, UNLESS I ping google, and quickly set the access point again, manually. So after i ping google i type "iwconfig wlan0 ap [ACCESSPOINT]" and google will reply, for roughly 3-5 seconds, and it dies again. After a few more frustrated days I decided I will test this to the max, so I simply spammed "iwconfig wlan0 ap [AP]; sleep 3; ect ect (over 50 times) and tried to update aptitude, epic fail. It took 3 attempts and over 20 mins to get 11% on packages (after i deleted the default sources.list and just added ftp server).

I personally think it's to do with the new Mac80211 drivers as the old ieee80211 stack drivers seemed fine for others and on BT3. Yesterday I downloaded Ubuntu to see if it would connect, it also uses Mac80211 drivers, but it DID connect with network-manager, but is very poor and dies after abt 20 secs max. Im not a big fan of Ubuntu but if worst came to worst I would have to install it (because crap net is better than none at all). My Windows PC is on the verge of death so I really could do with solving this.

Also, what older versions of debian, pref LiveCD's (if any) come with the old ieee drivers? If none what other Linux distro's (old or new) use the ieee drivers? (except BT3). Im quite new to linux so please dont mention compiling stuff, as the LiveCD doesnt have make by default. Also please note I can only access internet wireless so I cannot download extra stuff on wired net to see (although i could on Windows).