Linux users of Sony Z1 series

Hi guys,
With Mandrake Linux 10.0 and ndiswrapper module for wireless Intel 2200 chip 
I experience a delay of about 1 min when the boot sequence sniffs the 
environment for a wireless network and does not find it (e.g. it does not 
exist or wireless chip is powered off). Quite annoying waiting if you know 
that there is no wireless network and eth0 is already up. Anyone knows how to 
make the machine recognise that the chip is powered off and no need to try 
wlan0 up (or at least to decrease the response wait time)? Does ipw2200 
module if you use it has the same type of behaviour compared to the good-old 
ndiswrapper I described?
Thanks!
PS. Nicolas, is it your experience with tweaking ML10.1 that made you put 
everything in big bold on
http://sauvy.ined.fr/~brouard/sony/#h-4 ? ;-)
Was it worth upgrading from 10.0?