Worked fine for a year, suddenly it's busted

About 2 days ago my wifi signal kept crapping out. the router is about 20-25 feet away from my computer, but it has not been moved, nor has the computer.

I can pin googles ip, I can ping my modem, I can even ping the router, but the second I open firefox and type in the router IP it doesn't connect. It doesn't connect to anything. The wifi signal is excellent (though that comes and goes) and the router works because a wired computer works fine (tis how I'm posting this). I can't understand why it would crap out randomly and be irreversible.

The IP address has been switched back and forth from Static to Dynamic, the router has been reverted back to the factory settings. The Wi-Fi link on the computer has been part of a network bridge and not... nothing seems to work, and nothing seems to explain why I can ping an ip, but not access it via a web browser.

any help is appreciated.