Networking 2 PCs under wireless XPP

I have a PC connected to broadband with an ADSL modem and a 54g Netgear wireless card on a PC and a Tosh Laptop with built in wireless and want to net work the 2 machines. Both run XPP and I have tried 'Obtain an IP' but they don't seem to want to do it, even after 2 hours of trying. DHCP is on but to no avail. In the past I have just keyed in IP addresses, Subnet mask and Gateway into each PC and it has worked. Unfortunatley I cannot remember what I put in. I have keyed in the DNS from my ISP and know that these are correct. At the moment the machines are going to Automatic Private addresses. The machines do find each other under peer-peer wireless but I am still having problems. Please can you give me some settings to try. PS: I am also able to ping the other PC from the laptop, a wins server address would also be useful.