[newbe]

I'm a network newbie, so bear with me! Image: http://www.routertech.org/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif I have a Vista laptop for which I want to set up a basic home wireless network in order to be able to use the laptop anywhere in the house without...

I'm a network newbie, so bear with me! I have a Vista laptop for which I want to set up a basic home wireless network in order to be able to use the laptop anywhere in the house without being tied to a wire. On Saturday 1/3 I purchased a D-Link DIR-615. This morning I attempted to set this router up. I used the wizard on the CD that came with the hardware. I could not get a connection to the internet. I called D-Link's technical support. Their tech support leaves much to be desired. Because of the thick accents of both of the people I talked to, I had to repeatedly ask them to repeat what it was they were telling me to do. After an hour and a half on the phone with them, they told me that the router was working fine and they could not help me. I then called my ISP tech support. The first thing they had me check was the MAC ID on the bottom of the router. D-Link tech support had repeatedly had me click on a button that cloned the MAC Address of my PC. My ISP tech support had me do a hard reset on the router and this reset the MAC Address to match the MAC ID on the sticker. Once this was done, I opened my Firefox browser and instantly got a connection. I thanked my ISP tech support guy and hung up. I tried to go a couple of places on the internet and once again couldn't get in. I then noticed that the connection was intermittent. I was online, then offline, then online again. I logged back into the router using the 192.168.**.* address they gave me and went to the status screen there. I saw that the connection there was constantly disconnecting and reconnecting. It is randomly doing this. It will stay connected for just over a minute one time and then will only stay connected for 18 seconds the next time. I also noticed on this screen that the MAC Address is exactly like the MAC ID on the sticker for the internet connection, but below that the MAC Address listed for the LAN settings and the WAN settings is one digit different. I don't know if the MAC Address thing could be causing it to constantly reconnect or if there is some other issue. Any help???

P.S. - My ISP offered to test the modem, but I don't believe it is their equipment, because as long as I plug directly into the modem, I have no internet connectivity issues.