Not sure about the problem 1. I have the oposite problem of not being able to acquire data at rates greater than 10kS/s on a very similar laptop.
As to problem 2, just as a stab in the dark, relative to your PCMCIA slot, where is the power supply input for the laptop located. During testing, we discovered that unplugging the laptop power supply greatly reduced the noise content in our sampled data. Try this and see if it makes any difference. If it does, let me know by replying.
Allan