Problems with Linux Distro's on VMware on Acer Aspier One w/Windows 8

Thanks for any assistance anyone can offer me... and I also apologize if this is the wrong location for this post

I recently purchased an Acer Aspire One 725-0884 with Windows 8 loaded on it... I need to run various Linux Distro's on it with Vmware Workstation 9 (ubuntu, red hat cent os, etc)... The virtual machines all seem boot fine but they'll intermittently acquire an IP address if a wireless adapter is the network connection. Most times the virtual guest O/S'es will not receive an IP address... But if i continually monkey around with the VMware settings, I can occasionally get the virtual guest O/S to be assigned one.

I've tried both bridged and NAT network settings, and both function about the same and operate intermittently... I've also tried both the internal wireless NIC, and an ALFA networks awus036h USB NIC adapter and received the same results.... The problem does not occur when I plug this into an Ethernet cable

I've gone through the error logs of the guest O/S'ed and see where acquiring the NIC adapter failed... but it's not offering much more info than just saying they failed so it wasn't that much help

If anyone can offer any advice on how to correct this I would much appreciate it... Thanks!