Stuck on "acquiring network address"

[Beothuk]

I have a Dell Inspiron 700M which has Windows XP installed on it. The laptop was able to connect to the Linksys wireless router without any problems but from few days, the laptop does not connect to the router. Whenever the laptop is tried to connect to the router, it continuously displays "Acquiring Network address". I am not able to understand why my laptop is Stuck on "acquiring network address" and hence need your help in solving the issue. Any help regarding the topic is more than welcome.

[Spyrus]

Connect the laptop to the router using a LAN cable and see if the same error is faced or not. Take a CAT5 straight cable and connect the cable to the router. Open the network connection wizard and go to the TCP/IP properties. Configure the IP address and the Default Gateway as per the settings provided by the ISP. Save and apply the settings. Restart the computer and check if the internet is available on the laptop.

[Zachary]

The proper working of the operating system is dependent on number of files which are associated to it. The operating system will fail to work if any of its file is not working properly on the system. If you have the installation disk of the operating system, insert it and then boot the system from the disk. Complete the repair installation procedure and then see if the same issue is persistent or not.

[Beothuk]

As suggested, I connected the router to the laptop using the Cat5 cable but still the laptop was not able to connect to the router. The laptop still gives the same error while connecting to the router. Does this mean, the wireless card on the laptop is faulty? Is there any way in which I can check the wireless card on the laptop? Please help.

[Paisley007]

Right click on My computer and then select Properties. Select Device manager from the list which is populated on the right side. Now select Ethernet network adapter and right click on it. Select Uninstall and let the procedure complete. Restart the computer and let the computer detect the network adapter and install the required drivers for the ethernet card. See if the ethernet is working on the computer.

[addie]

Click on Start and select Run. Type CMD and hit enter. Now reset all the WINSOCK entries from the Winsock catalog and reset the ICP/IP stacks. Type "netsh int ip reset" in the command prompt and wait for some time. Hopefully the problem will be solved after reseting all the TCP/IP stacks and the Winsock entries from the computer.

[Beothuk]

Yes reinstalling the operating system on the computer really helped in solving the problem. I suspect that some files which handle the network connection for the operating system were corrupted due to which the laptop was not connecting to the network. Reinstalling the operating system, replaced all the files which were corrupt and hence solved the issue.