help for nvice with wireless network please

i have bought and installed a linksys wireless router on my main pc and this connects fine to the net via an ntl cable modem box.
i have xp home edition fully updated on this pc

i have installed a wireless card in the kids pc upstairs which has xp pro and has not been updated. yet despite running the xp network setup on both pc`s i can`t connect to the net on the kids pc.

having said that the pc upstairs is recognising the router as it indicates that the linksys network signal strength is excellent, i can also connect to an unknown network identified as apple- i presume it to be a neighbours as the strengthis low

i am now in the process of getting a migrane and need earplugs so i can`t hear the moaning.

all help gratefully appreciated

kids pc set to get a dhcp address from the router? you set the router to provide dhcp? This is covered in the manual.

XP updates have nothing to do with physical access. Should work out of the box.

suggest you check firewall settings - each PC with a firewall may need to be set to accept IP address of other PCs - u also are supposed to run Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) Wizard on XP PCs to allow a single internet connection to be shared ( I couldn't get it to work so each PC on my peer-to-peer LAN dials direct).

If you click Start->Run and type cmd in the text field, then click OK, you are presented with a command prompt. This is your friend...

Type ipconfig and press Enter. Please report what output you get from this command. It will help determining how much, if any, of your network settings are wrong.

If you get something like this:

IP-adress . . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.10
Netmask . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Gateway . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.1

try typing Ping followed by the Gateway ip-adress and the hit Enter. In my case, that would be Ping 192.168.0.1

A good result would be three rows of text starting with "Reply from 192.168.0.1:"

Let us know how this works out.

This has actually happened to me at one point or another, why and make sure you don't have the IP or the subnet staticly set, just make sure they're set for DHCP, cause that could set it all out of whack also.