WiFi Tether Problems (Rooted)

[tvandyck7]

I am rooted with running 2.0.3 from SMUpdate. I was trying to use WiFi tether tonight and could never get it to work with my laptop. My laptop has built in wireless and works well. I could not even get it to detect the Android Tether except for once for a few seconds. It showed up and I clicked on it to link up and it would not connect. Then it disappeared again. This is one of the reasons I rooted in the first place. I really want it to work.
What am I doing wrong?

Also, on a completely different topic, I have been running at 800mhz since rooting. I noticed my phone getting very warm after a lot of use tonight so I went back down to 550mhz. At 550mhz, my phone is considerably slower and scrolling webpages is a choppy nightmare. I took it all the way up to 1ghz and it smoothed out and then locked up. Now I am back down to 800mhz and I scrolls well but again gets hot after a bit of use. The thing is that at 800mhz, it runs like it did before rooting at 550mhz. Should I just go back to stock and forget about it or am I missing something here as well? Rooting doesn't seem to have benefited me very much.