My new DSL router was connecting with my Slack 10 Laptop until last night when I specified the MAC address of my wireless card. My router connected with my laptop after I specified a MAC address, till I stepped out of the room while it was streaming audio. While I was out my laptop went into a suspend mode and dropped the DSL internet connection. Now my router won't re-connect with my laptop even though I disabled all encryption and MAC addresses and re-booted my laptop. My card still works-it connects to my neighbors wireless instead of mine.

Is my router broken on the wireless side? The wired DSL on the router still works.

Have you tried resetting the router to factory defaults? (My Linksys has an option in the setup)

-OR-

Reset the router - either power cycle it, or hit the reset button.

Well, my router is working now-didn't do anything. The network guy at work told me the problem-my router is DHCP, and the DHCP leases expire every 7 days on my router (the factory default is 1 day and I changed it to 7 days which could be problematic he says). Now my router probably "thought" that a lease for that IP slot is used up by MAC address xxxx-so it wouldn't let another pc with the same MAC addy log in till the DHCP slot expired. Last night must have been the 7 day expiration because now I have another IP. I also need to play around with my pc's suspend power feature because it disconnects from the internet while streaming audio when I haven't touched the keys for a while.

This is a new power problem that I didn't have before assigning a MAC addy. Anybody know the connection between a MAC address on a NIC and power on a pc?

There shouldn't be a connection between the MAC address and power unless you are spoofing the MAC address, in which case you'll loose the spoofed MAC when the power goes off and the card will revert to it's original one.