Going from wireless to ethernet - won't work, help!

[cbxlimited]

My roomie moved out over the weekend... she got her laptop (Dell Inspiron B120) while she lived here and it always worked off the wireless network. I was going to set up a router at her new place, but I CANNOT get her computer to recognize an ethernet cord to connect to the internet to set up the router. What do I need to do to get it to connect? I had the ethernet cord hooked from the modem into the laptop, and I tried everything I could think of (turning off the wireless receiver, etc) and then called Charter for everything they could think of (resetting the network card, etc.) and didn't get anywhere... Suggestion? Solutions?



THANK YOU!!!!