i just got a dell laptop and bought a netgear wireless router. i hooked everything up and followed the installation disk and everything goes fine until the very end, and it says invalid IP address or something like that. i really want it to work! any help?

"I followed the installation disk and everything goes fine until the very end, " What installation disk? The one that came with the router? And, where are you running this installation disk from? Did you connect the router to your cable/DSL Modem? Do you have other computers connected to the router physically? "and it says invalid IP address or something like that" " Something like that isn't very helpful. What is the exact error message? "So won’t you give this man his wings What a shame To have to beg you to see We’re not all the same What a shame" - Shinedown

Your internet account may be tied in with your current nic cards mac address. Hmmm so your desktop works fine but the new equipment errors out. So setup the router to have the same mac address as the on on your main computer. Setup should have an option to clone the mac address. If not you should be able to set it up manually. To get your mac address on you main computer copy paste the info below and call it ip.bat cls ipconfig /all pause If it is an IP problem , be sure that the IP is set to automatic as Internet providers change our IP address from time to time, If you want a click by click setup just do a search for "setup netgear router". Leave the page open so you can pop back and go through the steps one at a time. Hope this of some help. Your ISP is looking for a giver mac address. You should have IP set to obtain automatically. W.L.

Most likely you did not configure your wireless router correctly. You can take a look on this wireless network setup tutorial to give you more ideas on how to bring up your wireless network.