Network and Internet connection problems - Please Help

OK here is the story.

I've been having connection problems for the last year, it's really annoying and so hard to understand whats happening.
The internet connection is my dads, he lives in the garage beside me. He's with talk-talk fibre optic. The small modem type thing that connects is in the garage along with the main router that connects to the small thing, not sure what this is but it obviously connects to the fibre optic.

His PC is connected to the router by wire, there is then a wire that runs from that router up through the garage and into the house through the wall in one of the bedrooms, this is were I have a router or two, (i've tried two routers with mixed results.)
I'm connected via wireless through the second router in a room upstairs and get full signal when connected. I have a belkin 54g and a netgear dg834n.

Now this morning after leaving my computer on all night, i woke up and it wasn't connected. Although this happens everyday when i turn my laptop on, i have to connect via wireless to the main router in the garage, then reconnect to the router up stairs to get the connection to come on. This time round it wont work at all.

The netgear gives me - "Windows Networking TroubleShoot Error: The connection between your access point, router, or cable modem and the internet is broken."

And the belkin gives me - "Windows Networking TroubleShoot Error: the default gateway is not available"
and "wireless network connection doesn't have a valid IP configuration"

This is really annoying. I think it's something to with the way the talktalk router is set-up, or the hub that im connecting to from the main router.

My operating system is windows 7 ultimate 32 bit

I'm not sure what to do.

Anyone help?

Thanks.
Aaron

The TalkTalk connection is handled by a cable modem, connected to a router in the garage.

Presumably an ethernet cable runs from that router to your premises.

Why would you need a further router? Surely you would either use an ethernet switch (if you need to connect more than one device) or connect that cable direct to a computers NIC card/ethernet port.

If the cable running into your premises comes straight from the cable-modem, as opposed to the router behind it, then just connect that cable into the router in the garage instead; problem solved.

FYi - Certain Netgear 834 units had lousy chipsets which were renowned for connection drop-outs, from memory it was the v2/v3 builds.