Lately my laptop says the wirless is not connected but it actually is. Why?

Question

It's a Dell Latitude running XP. Right clicking to "View Available Wireless Networks" shows it connected but says its not; it also offers a "disconnect" button rather than a "connect" button, again showing that it really is connected but the bar icon is red-x'd and the pop-up says Not connected. I don't get it . . . Never happened like this until about a week ago. . . .

Answer 1

Try going to your start bar (Lower left corner) and go up to run. Then type in the box: cmd. That should bring up a DOS command prompt. Then type in ipconfig /release..... wait a few seconds....then type ipconfig /renew. Then try your Internet browser.