which cards ?
what do you mean by "see". Is the wireless signal detected but nothing happens ? if so look at the TCP/IP settings on the laptops before and after success.
makes little sense, to be honest. Normally a windows laptop will detect the wireless signal and ask if you want to connect (esp if non-secure net it hasn't seen before). When you accept that it gets the IP addresses etc. If it doesn't see it you can force it by looking on the Advanced tab of available wireless networks - you may have done this but didn't say. Someimes a disable/enable of the wireless card via Network Connections helps as XP seems to boot up in the wrong order at times.
Phil