system freeze as soon as a WIFI connection is made

[alko]

I am attempting to install Mint 13 Cinnamon on a desktop with the following hardware

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 Dual Core 4200+
Motherboard: Gigabyte M57SLI S4
Hard Disk: WD5000AADS
Video card: ATI 2400 PRO
Wireless NIC: TPI WM 751nd

I am using a DVD burnt from the Mint 13 Cinnamon 64 bit ISO.
The system boots OK
As soon as I connect to my WIFI network the system freezes.
The only way I have found to unfreeze it is power off.
The WIFI connection is manual as I am not broadcasting the SSID.

The system does identify other WIFI networks and the NIC seems to be working OK.