Network newb, need help

I just moved to suburbia hell and had to change up all my network stuff once again. So when I got here, a friend setup everything for me (or so I thought). The network here works perfectly fine with the 2 laptops on it, they connect whenever they are turned on no problem.

Mine is a diff story, when I search for all the networks in range, it wants to connect to the ones that I cant connect to. The network here has no security or network key, I just made it the preferred network to connect to and I checked everything I thought I needed to. I have a wireless card in my box and it takes forever (sometimes not at all) to connect. Can anyone suggest anything? I really want it to NOT connect to the neighbors stuff...can someone help me fix this and get these two components talking plz?

-Bark-

are you using windows xp or vista?

Windows Xp

the easiest way would be to wire to the router.

we have to guess at the devices being ALL wireless, two seem to work ok and
the thrid is marginal.

brand names, make/model numbers would help here.

If your wireless router is a different vendor than your problem system,
be sure to update the router firmware and the system adapter driver.