fwiw WPA is the security most would use. One passphrase of 20 charatures is recommended by most to make it virtually unhackable. That security is to keep others out of your router or off your internet connection. Many people screw up writing down passphrases on paper and/or retyping it in. Can't connect complaints usually blaming it on other things are frequently solved by whoops, my passphrase was entered wrong. Copy & Paste passphase is virtually foolproof. But requires a bit of though. Dont push the OK button until you've pasted it onto notepad or something. WEP is ok, but there are programs Johnny Jr next door might use to gain access in a few minutes. One of those four WEP keys is designated the primary key with a bullet or check box... that checked key you would copy/paste into your computer for the passphrase or key. You're not going to be automatically given a key in your home. Maybe at work when login & security is handled off a server. When you do credit cards and other secrets online usually its on a secure web page and those web pages are encryped so mr bad guy & neighbor are not able to see anything except googlygoop.

if the pc has wireless capability built in then all you would need to do is disconnect it from the router by the wire and see if it finds the wireless connection if it has everything it needs (and is enabled) then you should see in the bottom right by the clock where it is trying to connect just like you would on a laptop, you would need to enter your network passphrase into the box that pops up to allow you to connect to your network. I just looked up the specs listed for your p6310 and the networking options for it are as listed Choices: Integrated 10/100 Ethernet, No wireless LAN Modem Premium Wireless-N LAN card Wireless-N LAN card Premium Wireless-N LAN card and Bluetooth(R ) unless you chose the first one that says no wireless then you should have that capability on the pc. I would run a belarc and get all the info specific to your pc you can always print it out and keep it because that info is often needed and having it on hand can come in very handy. That way you know exactly what is in that pc. Belarc If your pc does not have the card for wireless then you can either add a card or get a usb device.

For a $10 difference, I would definitely got for 3 mbps. If you've been on dialup, even 1 mbps will seem phenomenal, but e mbps takes it to a different level. One thing to keep in mind about digital phone service is that if the power goes out, you lose the phone. If you've got a cell phone, it's less of an issue. Personally, if I were going to drop my landline, I'd probably use Skype as my computer based service and use my cell as backup. Skype is free for PC to PC calls, and you can get unlimited in and out bound calls to the US and Canada for a few $ a month. One drawback is that it doesn't do 911. If you already have a router and ethernet cables connecting the computers, it will probably work just fine with the cable modem. You may need to make some configuration changes in the router, but that depends on how the connection with the cable modem works (varies by cable company). It should be fairly easy and either the cable company tech support or the router company tech support should be able to help. The cable company may even include that as part of the installation. In some cases, all they'll do is connect one PC and make sure it works, but they may be willing to connect the router. If not, you'll probably just need to connect the router instead of the PC, but there's a possibility that you'll need to change the IP range that the router assigns. You're probably either using 10.x.x.x or 192.168.x.x. If you're using 10.x.x.x and the cable modem has that as its outbound IP, you'll probably have to configure the router to assign 192.168.x.x (or the other way around if the cable modem and the router are both using 192.168.x.x). Another thing that may require a change is logging in. Some cable modems are designed to log in to the ISP and the login information is in the cable modem. In other cases, it's done by the PC (or other device that connects to it). In that case, you'd need to configure the router to log in. I think that if you and your husband were able to figure out how to configure the router and set up your network at home, you should be able to reconfigure it if necessary. It's only a little more involved.

Problem finally resolved. After being on the phone with 2 different techs who couldn't help and blamed it on the printer, I called the printer company today and they said call the internet provider. I called them and they said nothing was wrong with that. I called the Geek Squad and they offered to come at a high price. So I called Linksys back AGAIN. This new person had me to change some settings in the router online, changed channels and tweaked a couple of other things, took about 3 minutes, tops and now it's printing. I did try to download updates like the post above but my computer wouldn't allow the download, something about not being able to read it??? Anyway, it works now. WHEW!! I was just about to pack it back up and return it.