Local Connection

Hello,
Whenever I try to use my internet on my laptop, its telling me to connect the wire to the local connection, when its a laptop, and I was using without a cable before, then its telling me to change my IP #, so I do that and it gives me an erro msg, also it tells me to swith something called 802.V, or something like that, but when ?I try to change it, it asks me for a password that I do not have, please help, I need the internet for homework, and even when I connect to the wire, my internet does not works! Thanks for your help-