This doesn't make any sense! Surely modems and routers don't connect like this?

[Uranium]

Ok so, we recently just got a Cisco Linksys from a friend of ours,

And we tried to make it work with our PC and a new Inspiron 15R laptop we got.

It was fine for a while, except both of us (me using the laptop and my mom using the PC) were constantly disconnecting at 15-minute intervals.

To set it up I actually just pretty much threw the wires together and then rearranged them until it worked.

Now that I look at it again, I realized it doesn't make any sense. AT ALL.

My Modem is connected through an ethernet cable to the router, into one of the four ethernet plugs. While there is one Internet plug, nothing is connecting it to anything.
I tried to take the ethernet port out of the Modem, plug it into the Internet plug (where Iassume it's supposed to be) and connect the Laptop with a longer ethernet plug into one of the four slots instead, but even though it's a cable connection which should be stable, it gives me a "Limited" status, along with both a network and a wifi connection, which doesn't give me internet.

I currently have NOTHING connecting the modem and router the way I assume they are supposed to give me internet, and now the router is giving off a Wifi Connection?

I'm still not happy with it disconnecting every few minutes and even though I should be getting a stable connection the internet still lags whenever I try to do anything important.

With Wifi, it gives me an error that says "DNS server is not responding" when I can't connect

I have tried putting in some manual DNS servers. They do not work.

When I try to do a network, with the ethernet cable, it says something along the lines of "IP Address is invalid."

I tried doing the ipconfig /renew but it says:
"No Operation can be performed on Bluetooth Connection while it has its media disconnected.
No operation can be performed on Local Area Connection* 12 while it has its media disconnected."

I didn't get any sort of Bluetooth thing when the laptop arrived. (It was mailed)

Help please?
I have a Zyxel modem and a Linksys Cisco router. When I do the thing where you type in 192.168.1.1, It just brings me to a Zyxel page. On the Zyxel page, there are no dropdowns or options or anything I can change.
@Chris D I already did that. It says I have an Invalid IP address and doesn't let me connect. and ipconfig /renew does not work.

[Chris D]

The modem connects to your Internet provider
Connect the modem to the WAN port on your Router
Connect your PCs to the LAN ports on your Router, or use Wireless

[BuddhaSkoota]

You have an IP address conflict between the Zyxel and Linksys; Linksys also uses 192.168.1.1 for its LAN address. You'll need to change the LAN address for the Linksys to resolve the conflict. You may want to reset the Linksys to factory defaults and start from scratch.

- Connect you computer to one of the LAN ports (not the Internet port) on the Linksys. Don't connect the Zyxel at this time.

- Access the Linksys GUI through your browser. http://192.168.1.1

- On the basic setup page, change the Local IP to 192.168.2.1 and save settings. You'll lose access to the page after doing this, but you can verify the change by using the new IP to access the GUI.

- Reconnect your modem to the Linksys Internet port. Reboot modem, router and all devices.

The exact steps depend on your Linksys model, but the basics are the same.