How do you set up your laptop to wireless?

Do you have a wireless network adapter for your laptop? They come standard on most new models, but not all.

Assuming you have the necessary hardware, as you noted in your question (that’s ⅔ of what you need) and as @Nullo responded (the missing piece you forgot to mention).

Assuming you have that, then you can follow your router’s instructions (now I see that you never actually specified that you have a “wireless” router, so I’m assuming that) and set the thing up so that you can connect to it via your wireless card.

You’ll probably want to set up some kind of minimal security, which the instructions can also tell you how to do.

If you don’t have the instructions for your router, you can generally look them up online with no trouble, as long as you know the brand and model.

If you don’t have a wireless adapter built into the laptop, you can get a USB WiFi adapter on Amazon for $20.

Also, set up good security on your router (WPA2). You don’t want people downloading illegal stuff through your account. My brother in law set mine up with no password and a neighbor not only stole my bandwidth, he also locked me out of my own router! How rude! Then he hacked my weak password, which I was running with WEP security. Now I max out security, and have been trouble free ever since.