hi,
curious problem u got...

i dont think its a problem of the hardware. other people run their card in a dbox2 oder in a dreambox. these, especially the dbox2 have much less performance than a pc hardware. also detecting the card shouldn't make any trouble with your hardware.
my hardware spec is a lot higher. intel dual core 2ghz overclocked to 2,66 with 2gb ram. will switch too other hardware soon which is stronger again, but still in setting it up. (again debian 5.0.3)

as a wrote before maybe thats a prob of the smargo u got. i had similar problems with the older smargo version too that detecting the card was not possible. or it was detected but mpcs said unsupported card system. without touching the smargo or the card restarting mpcs a few times (mostly 2-4) solved the problem. with the new smargo version (see argolis.com for design) i haven't recognized the problem.

maybe u can also set your smargo to auto recognize the card mhz and so on. or try fixing the mhz with the smargo software. nds has 3.57mhz i think. but recheck that again!!!

i also read that there are fake smargo's around. maybe also that is your problem.

u have any possibilities to check your card in a dreambox directly? maybe your card makes problems.

best ways in my opinion, or what i would do...
- post configs and total log outputs here
- check card in other reader. best would be not in smargo.
- if card runs in a dreambox. check card with smargo in the dreambox or some other box
- also i would try reading the card on linux server or some other hardware with other cardserver such as newcs, mpcs or oscam.

i think all other ways won't make too much sense. u have to try in some other setup. after u reinstalled i don't think its a software problem of your linux system.

most easiest way is probably setting up a newcs or mpcs and try with them.

good luck..