Suggestions to restore laptop connectivity

My Dell laptop crashed last night. A blue screen flashed in front of me with the message IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL. It told me to re-boot, which I did, and everything seemed ok.
The problem is that now the laptop will not connect to the wireless router. I have a 2nd laptop that is unaffected, so I know it's definitely not the router or the broadband provider.
When I run ipconfig, I am getting "Media Disconnected" for the wireless network connection. I haven't disconnected anything. Ipconfig/renew (as suggested by a poster in a similr recent thread) also does nothing.
The laptop is acknowledging the router's signal, but will not connect to it. I have tried a couple of actions using google, but have failed to sort it out.
Any other suggestions appreciated.

Probably stating the obvious, but have you done standard system checks to see if all hardware/software is working OK?

Caveat said:

Probably stating the obvious, but have you done standard system checks to see if all hardware/software is working OK?

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No I haven't. Not sure either how I would go about this?

if you can see the router in the wireless connections then you may have lost the connection info. connect to router through working laptop, get the wireless connection keys and re-enter them on the LT not working. you would have had to do this at inital set up stage anyway.

Control panel > system > device manager - there are probably a few other tabs of use there too.

Maybe worth trying system restore as well.

just a quick questions is your anti virus up to date. i had a similar problem with my dell laptop. was ongoing for about a week or two tried all the usual things got no joy. brought it to my trusted computer shop in town and straight away they knew the problem. i had downloaded a virus masquerading as an anti virus program. i had my dell for 5 years so it was cheaper to buy a new laptop than to fix up the old one.

gebbel said:

No I haven't. Not sure either how I would go about this?

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Run the Dell hardware diagnostics for a start. They may already be available on your hard disk and accessible by pressing a key (F8?) at boot time. If not then you can download them, burn then to CD and boot off the CD.

Make sure you have the latest drivers, especially the WiFi ones.

delete the profile for that connection in your wireless sites (usually right click on the shell icon beside the clock) Search for the network and reenter key.