HP 6000T net connection question

Need some help/advice. Not sure if this is hardware or software related. Recently set up wireless at home. Have an intermittent connection issue and plan to replace the router. However, the desktop pc isn't bothered all that much by the signal drop, it just reacquires and goes on. The laptop (6000T running XP pro) freezes up. Must close, send the msg to Microsoft, and reopen. Last night, I couldn't get anywhere, basically 2 clicks to google and retry. Sometimes, it seemed like I would get to the same place, try to open for example, digital photos of a camera I'm interested in - and it would continually freeze at that particular point. Other times, we can download a song without any trouble - no lost connection. The lappy is really nice, but if its a hardware issue, it needs to go back. If it might just be the router, then I'll update this later and let you know. Router is located one floor down, but the lap shows max signal stregnth!! Any ideas or suggestions would be great....