I need computer help in a big way

I'm switching my office & my work out room, so I've had my PC disconnected from the WIRED router for a few days. I went to radio shack & bought an ethernet cable that is long enough to run into the new room the PC will be in. We have 3 other computers in the house hooked up to that router, they were all working fine.
I just ran the new ethernet cable, hooked it all up to the router & the pc & it wouldn't work-PC can't validate IP I do one million troubleshooting steps none work. Now I come down stairs because my head is ready to explode to find that my laptop(hooked up to the same wired router) can't get a router connection. W T H did I do???
I tried "resetting" the cable modem & the laptop...and nothing. I'm online right now through my neighbors really weak x-box wireless router but I need to figure out how to get my whole network to run again. I don't even have the crappy radio shack wire plugged in the router anymore, why is everything screwed up???
Help if you can

Re: I need computer help in a big way

Well, when you reboot the cable modem, you have to down the router too. Power up the cable modem first, wait for it to full establish connectivity, THEN boot up the router.

Also, if you disconnected everything, make sure the cable modem is plugged into the WAN port, not one of the LAN ports.

ETA: After the all the rebooting, release and renew your IP address.

Message edited 2/26/2007 2:51:15 PM.