I'm assuming since you have cable internet that its not PPPoE, if you need a username and password to get on the internet this wont' exactly work for you so please let us know.

First, plug in your router to your cable modem and connect your computer wirelessly to your router (since you said that way it links to your router and thats how you want to use it anyway).

powercycle everything, and then open up your web browser and type 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1 into your address bar. One of these should bring up a loggin box.

try the username admin and the password password all lowercase. It should get you a netgear page.

Under basic settings (which you should be in all ready) Make sure the dot under "Does your Internet Connection require a login" is in "No".

Make sure there is a dot in "Get Dynamically from ISP" for "Internet Ip Address" and "Get Automatically from ISP" for "Domain Name Server (DNS) address".

Click Apply, then after the router saves the settings, click on Maintenance, and select Router Status, then click on the connection status button.

Click Release, then after that's finished click on Renew. You might want to copy down any of the information it shows here or any thing that happens while you do this because it would be relevent in further troubleshooting.

If your router gets an ip address in the above process, then you should be able to get online. If not. then try the following:

Go to Internet Options (in Control Panel or click tools in IE), connections tab, click on Lan settings, and make sure there are no checkmarks in that page.

Hit Windows key + R to bring up a run prompt. type in "cmd" and click OK. On the command prompt type "ipconfig" and press enter. whatever information it prints up on the screen copy that and post it back here.