thank you much. here is more info

first off, the gateway is in my home. friends came over they all could log on as only as i told them the password.
2ndly, the problem started after i installed a new hard drive and win xp. more than likely gateway is not the gremlin.
3rdly, i plugged in ethernet cable to gateway, pinged 192.168.0.1, came back all good no packet lost.
4th, i am not sure about this - on another laptop, from start -> settings -> network connections, i see two items: local area connection; and wireless network connection. but on my problematic laptop, there is no local area connection. what does this tell me?

thanks