What did I do wrong?

Hard to say based on the information provided, but for starters, reboot your router and laptop. Make sure any firewalls on the router or laptop are set to allow them to talk to each other. Assuming you're using DHCP, make sure it's enabled on the router and set on your laptop. Do you know how to ping? Can you ping the router?

I don't have any firewalls installed on the router itself. I've pinged the router and my desktop IP addresses and gotten nothing. I've turned off the firewall on the laptop. I can't ping the laptop from the desktop or the desktop from the laptop.

At this point I'm inclined to reset the router and go back to having an unencrypted network, but... argh.

Assuming you're on a Windows platform: from a command prompt (start > run > cmd), what does "ipconfig /all" (without the quotes) tell you?

Okay, I got the connection to the laptop back by turning off the WEP.

::sigh::

Gives me a whole bunch of data. What do I need to look at?

Hmm, that would seem to indicate the problem is with WEP itself. Are you sure your HEX/ASCII settings and key lengths are the same on the router and laptop?

They were, I thought.

ARgh.

This has taken ALL evening, and I'm back in the same place I started in.

Fun, isn't it? Wish I could be more help. Maybe some googling would give you some insight into what's wrong. Kudos for trying to secure your wireless.

t sigh

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