TCP/IP Issues

Greetings to your community.
Have been scouring the net for answers and now it's time to post.

Initial problem was weak or no connection.
PC with xp hard wired to netgear router linked to cable modem.
Shut down firewall, pc, unplug router and modem and rebooted whole sequence.
Ipconfig release/renew didn't work
Laptop works via wireless and hardwired.
Winsockxpfix didn't work.
ip address listed as 169.254.108.129
Windows unable to repair connection.
manually entered new ip and dns address.
Still unable to go online.
Repaired connection with Windows to no avail.
Pinged to ip address, host name,and laptop successfully.
Unable to ping dns server using address from Eschelon.com

Can someone advice the next course of action? Thanks.

Wireless Router Setup

>Initial problem was weak or no connection. PC with xp hard wired to netgear router linked to cable modem.

Ok; step by step.

STEP-ONE
Turn on the Windows Default Firewall
and then shutdown the system.
Then directly connect the modem to the PC and power up.

get a cmd prompt run->cmd /k
and enter ipconfig /all

you should see a line near the bottom like

if so, try nslookup google.com and it returns something like

Your modem-system connection is just FINE and you could use this,
but you want wireless.

Step-TWO
Find your Netgear documentation; you need the user/password AND the
default router address (I show it as Netgear 192.168.0.1)

Disconnect the modem from the system and connect
all with cables.

you can again see if the system has its TCP connection correct with
run->cmd /k ipconfig /all
it should have an address somethink like

if you have an IP address that begins with 169.x.x.x, we're not there yet.
Otherwise, in your browser URL bar, enter 192.168.0.1/ and hit enter
you get the user/password prompt
and now you can setup your WIRELESS parms.
(Find the setting page that allows you to set the SSID)
Change the SSID to your given name, for example
BE SURE to change the password, and save the setting.

For the moment, you can ignore encryption (come back later for last change).

Step-Three

Disconnect the cable from the router to the system.
Enable your Wireless device.
Go to My Computer->Network Places->view network connections
right-click on the wireless and View Available Wireless
look for your SSID, select it and Connect.

You should be connected

Get to this point and we'll go through the encryption stuff ----

Thanks for your quick response.
Had to take a break, this problem is becoming too annoying.
Every time I think I have it narrowed down, something else pops up.
Here's a few examples, pc shows limited or no connection when hard wired to router, and no connection when wired to modem.
Hard wire laptop to modem shows limited to no connection, yesterday there was no problem.
No problem with the laptop connecting wireless.
To eliminate the possibility of a bad network card, I installed a wireless card.
Pc still unable to connect.
Every time I change out the cables, I cycle off computer, unplug router and modem, reset and start over.
With laptop set up wireless, I'm able to reach the non-authoritative response as outlined in step one.
With pc , no dns server is listed .

Thanks again.