Laptop wireless connection good ~ cannot access Internet

I have a wireless router set up at home with two desktop computers hooked up and working fine. For the past year I have been bringing my work laptop home periodically and have always been able to immediately access the internet through the same wireless set up.

For some reason today, I am unable to access the internet through the router. The desktops still work great, my connection shows to be excellent but the internet cannot obtain a valid IP address.

I restarted the router and nothing changes.

I ran ipconfig/release:

for the wireless car: connection-specific DNS Suffix: [nothing] autoconfig IP address: 169.254.131.152 submet mask: 255.255.00 default gateway: [nothing]

I then ran ipconfi/release:

for the wireless card: I got an error : "unable to contact your DHCP server. request timed out"

I tried to reset the profile for the wireless connection on the laptop and that didn't work, either. It is set to obtain addresses automatically.

I've been working on this all day and have got no work done so any help at all would be absolutely welcomed.

Thanks,

Wendi

First and foremeost, return to the basics. Restart your cable/DSL modem, then restart the wireless router and finally reboot your laptop. Oftentimes, rebooting all devices solves the issue. If not, attach a cat5 cable to your laptop and see if you can access your network and the internet. If so, detach the cat5 cable and, if your notebook has an off/on button for the wireless card inside, turn the wireless card off. Wait about

10 seconds and turn it back on. See if you can access your network and the internet. If not, check to see if your network shows up in the detected wlans section of your wireless client's configuration utility. If so, try to connect to it from there. If that fails, go to the command prompt (START, RUN, CMD then press enter) and check to see if the laptop is receiving a valid IP address like you did before. If you receive the 269.254.....then something's not configured right. If you have encryption enabled, disable it and see if you can access the network and the internet. If so, and you should, type in a new encryption key in the router and make sure that you type that SAME encryption key in the laptop's menu. If none of these tips solve your problem, let us know and we'll go from there. Furthermore, provide the make and model number of your Wireless router and the laptop or laptop's wireless device. Also provide the OS info and whether or not you're using WZC utility to manage your wireless client or third party utility. If third party, provide that info, as well.

---------- Just Me, D