IPAddress conflit

I have read over many of the posts on the forums and have either done everything that was suggested or they didn't apply to my case.
I have had my computer at home from college about... 7 weeks now. When I first got home the computer was not responding to the wireless internet, even when the "connection" was established. After 3 or 4 days with the computer off, I turned it back on, messed with all the settings, restarted it and it worked... I doubt anything I did really effected it but I was happy it was working.... Now my computer has gone back to this non working state. I know the internet is good b/c there is a home computer hooked up to it (this one) and its working fine. The wireless port is also blinking like it should be and has been reset. The only thing that comes to mind that was "different" was the power in the house did blink on and off for half a second the other night during a small storm... could that cause all this trouble?
I have tried all the ipconfig /release and /renew things and some really long address one that ended in .txt that was supposed to reset some settings and nothing has worked. I can never repair the connection and I've also tried entering in IP address manually. I still get the DHCH? has timed out error after trying to renew the connection. Is there anything else I can do or is just turning the computer off for 4 days the best option? lol
thanks