For XP, click start, click run, type  CMD  and press enter.  At the command prompt, type

 

IPCONFIG / ALL

 

 

copy and paste the results here.

alright, you're not getting an IP address from the wireless router. 

 

Is there security on the router?  A common reason this happens is because people have turned on MAC filtering and forget to add the address in of a new card trying to connect.

I can only suggest basic things then:

 

1) try disabling security like MAC filtering and (WEP) encryption on the router.  If it works, you can re-enable

 

2) make sure the router has the latest firmware.

 

3) make sure your card has the latest drivers (If you use XP, this should be them:  ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/network/R151519.EXE

 

Note that either windows or the dell utility can be controlling the wireless connection.  If you are using the windows utility and do not want the dell utility, then download the above file and extract the drivers folder from it using a program like 7zip.  Use device manager and manually update the drivers to that extracted folder.

 

4) If you have XP SP2, try this patch:  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/893357