I don't remember saying it was a laptop? It's a PC, a desktop. It was custom-built by a technician, so it doesn't have a particular model. I can give you guys the information from dxdiag if you like?
Basically, before I reformatted the PC, I could access the wireless network. I didn't need to have anything in my USB socket, I just turned it on and it connected to the wireless network. The only piece of hardware needed is the modem router. Now, after reformatting and despite having installed the chipset driver, my computer still won't even recognise a wireless network. Going by what somebody else told me, I was thinking I maybe had to install a WLAN driver, but I just don't know which.