Do you connect from home? and is it a DSL or cable
conenction?

iuf so your pc should be set to DHCP, which means the ISP
or the router is programmed to give your pc an IP and
therefore you would not need to change it.

But you can access this area by going to the properties in
network neighborhood and double-clicking the TCP/IP
setting.  If this was setup by your ISP, call them for
troubleshooting.  A bad IP will never connect you to the
Inet.