NTL Broadband / Belkin Wireless Router Problems

hopefully someone can help me with this problem, apologies in advance because I am not exactly a genius when it comes to computers !! Bought a new dell laptop at the weekend and a Belkin 54G Wireless Router, tried to connect it to my NTL broadband modem but I still cannot connect to the internet.

The laptop is picking up the wireless network from the router it just doesnt seem to be connecting with the modem. The broadband modem was always connected to my desktop through the usb cable, unplugged this and wired it all up through the router using the ethernet cable and now there is no internet access on either my desktop or laptop.

Anyone any suggestions on what the problem might be or who I can contact to sort it out.....NTL, Belkin or Dell?

make sure the LAN port of the Wireless Router is set to DHCP.
This means it will pick up an address automatically off the NTL Modem.

KS

Check the control panels for the broadband and wireless routers and post details of the configuration for each device and its ports. For example are both acting as DHCP servers, what are the TCP/IP settings for the broadband router, for the wireless router's "WAN" port (connected to the broadband router), for the wireless router's LAN side etc. Also check the TCP/IP details of any clients connected to the wireless router. Start -> Run -> cmd.exe and then type ipconfig /all. Preferably get wired networking working first and only then try the wireless.

I have a D-Link DI-524 connected to UTV's Creative Blaster ADSL router and found it easiest to leave the latter as 192.168.1.1 acting as a DHCP server and the D-Link WAN port as a DHCP client getting its details from the Creative Blaster, and then the D-Link's LAN connection set to 192.168.0.1 with it also acting as a DHCP server to wired and wireless clients connected to it. I'm not sure if this setup (having two separate networks - 192.168.1.* and 192.168.0.* and two DHCP servers) is less efficient than having everything on one subnet (e.g. Creative = 192.168.1.1, only Creative acting as DHCP server, D-Link WAN on DHCP, D-Link LAN on 192.168.1.2 static allocation etc.) but I know that it works and any time I try to fiddle with things (like last night when I did a firmware upgrade of the D-Link) I manage to break it and end up reverting to this setup!

The thing to remember with NTL modems is that they lock on to the first ethernet device that it detects when it's powered up. So, if you have the NTL modem attached directly to your PC via ethernet and then plug it into your laptop or router, you need to power down the modem for about 30 seconds before rebooting.

thanks for the replies folks, eventually got through to NTL, apparantly its a problem with the strength of the signal to the modem, a usb connection will pick it up but it is not strong enough for an ethernet connecction so they are sending someone out to fix it.