Well...it wasn't the motherboard, or restriction of devices. As i had previously posted, it all worked just fine when i ran it from a USB stick version of Ubuntu, which, as far as I was concerned, eliminated the motherboard as an issue.
I re-installed windows 7 and all is well, everything works properly with the exception of the wireless status LED. It doesn't always show the correct status of the wireless services when first booted but does toggle off and on correctly later.. That is to be expected and i have no problem living with it.
It must have been something left over, in the registry, from the previous wireless card that had "confused' Windows (not hard to do sometimes). There had not been a lot on the PC as i had only installed Win 7 to the same drive.
I may pick up another card, if i see them for about the same price, and replace the B/G?N card in my HP Mini-110 netbook, at least it is a lot easier to get apart if it won't work.
Thanks anyway