my recommendation:
- again: kill the dhcp process or bootcode NODHCP; the cable disconnected is not enough
- go for ndiswrapper (perhaps you achieve something very quick)
- when your wife sleep, make nightshifts for moving to a linux driver (as per current try)
I know the pressure for making running a PC in a family..
Honestly, if your wife is benchmarking the laptop of her girlfriends, which are apple or weandooze, then forget linux: any few issue coming up with linux later (with openoffice.. text or format lost by exchanging files with weandooze..), will be massiv because the benchmark will come up immediatly "it runs at my girlfriend laptop". Girls dont have in my opinion such patience as boys for technical things running differently or a bit unstable. Sorry girls.. (but my wife has much more patience for learning a video-recorder command than me.. here I dont have any second of patience for a stupid engineer wanted me to learn how to use a complicated video setup).