Change the boot order in you bios, be sure to select and or make it boot from the harddrive first.

open terminal enter

sudo apt-get --reinstall install b43-fwcutter firmware-b43-installer firmware-b43legacy-installer

will probably solve your wireless issue.

And power management is handled automatically by TLP, there is nothing to configure.

restart

Hi Will,I use Unetbootin to create my Live USBs,the files are already downloaded onto my computer,if as you say that the MD5 is correct then it is the computer which has the problem in my opinion,I have had the same boot screens you describe so what I do is a hard shutdown, (hold off button until puter shuts down) I then change the USB stick to another usb port on the machine, I use F12 for boot sequence, when the first blue screen comes up,I toggle down to "start the installer" or "live installer" or whatever you see on your screen, as most times,I have found the "default" will not boot the machine, (these are old machines I must say though)There are of course some Distros that will not boot a particular machine as well but I have found LXLE to be the most adequate for the old machines that I work on, I have noticed also that Linux will not let a machine get as hot as a Windows Box either and will shut it down quite unceremoniously too, lol "Black Screen of death" :)

live cd/dvd will always take a long time to boot opposed to an actual install. 12.4.5 should run just fine once installed the the actual hard drive even with the limited specs.