Today, the Intel wireless NIC I bought for $7.00, a model 5100, arrived. It took me less than 10 minutes to install it and reassemble the laptop.
Upon firing up FreeBSD, the card was almost instantly recognized, the correct drivers were loaded, and upon login, after giving my local router the password, I had internet.
Two weeks of beating my head against a wall, trying to deal with that POS Broadcom card, and the issue is solved.
Thanks for the help and suggestions, folks
Ken Gordon
Reading what you have written well, interesting what you have written, that is, you are already making the new wireless PCI card that replaced it with the broadcom?