My laptop when wired to the home network router cannot renew the IP address. It was stays in that mode of "acquiring network address". When the 'repair' is initiated, all I get is the message. It will connect to a wireless network readily however. Please someone school me.

when moving from wireless to wired, it helps to DISABLE the wireless adaptor,
which forces the system to look for another :)

But some laptops can run with both active, like my HP V series and DELL C600 and D610 can. You can disable the wireless first like jobeard as described as a good measure. Also check your Router DHCP Client Table to make sure it can see your laptop and there isn't any conflict with IP adresses.

But some laptops can run with both active, like my HP V series and DELL C600 and D610 can. yep, some can -- like my Toshiba MX35-s161 :-)
But getting it out of the way removes one possibility of the problem matrix.

Yeah that can be done... :)