Dlink wireless router (DL-634M) and windows XP

My woreless connection is not working. To send this email I have attached the cable from the router to the PC and am now online. If I disconnect the cable...it will stop working and say not connected. I am running windows xp and McAfee Security. I have configured the connection as open with encryptions disabled. What's weird is I havent changed anything in a long time but the connection stopped working Friday and now I'm attached to the cable. The only thing that has changed on my PC in a while is a renewal to McAfee which I think I updated on Thursday night...don't know if that could have anything to do with it.

I do not claim to understand the configuration or how these things work together but I tried some simple stuff.

• I disabled McAfee's firewall protection to see if that made a difference....it did not.
• Cabled directly in to our WildBlue router...works fine.
• Rebooted the wireless router with both the wildblue cable and the PC cable connected, only works while PC cable is connected
• Rebooted PC with cable connected to dlink...worked for a few minutes after disconnecting the cable but would not send an outgoing email and then disconnected. I only got back on after reconnecting the cable (again from the dlink router to the pc)

Any ideas?? I am too frustrated.