Wierd Internet Problem

It says that my internet is connected, my IP address is working and everything else is also.  But it still won't let me connect to my internet. Last week it was working than it suddenly stopped.  At first it couldn't recognize my IP addresss, but I fixed that last night by myself after a long waste of time. Last night I called Dell and after a good 30 minutes to an hour on the phone the guy said that he don't know what the problem was dealing with my IP address.  The IP started with 169.xxx....and...but anyways thats not the problem anymore.  This I know for a fact, at my icon screen there is something that isn't comming up anymore.  The little computer that says I'm connected.  I don't know how to get that up, I think thats the problem though.  It trys to connect to my yahoo so I know that its trying to work but it just isnt.  Can anybody help me to get my internet to start working again????