IP conundrum

I've been having an issue for the longest time with my wifes Dell Inspiron 1525 laptop. It seems as though, everyonce in a while, i have to go in and release/renew the ip address to get it online. This is the strange part though. I noticed just recently that when I tried to set it to a static ip address, i couldn't get it online at all. I couldn't even get to my router. I also noticed that i always am assigned the same IP address from my router (192.168.1.99). It gets stranger, My router shows the laptop connected and also tells me that it is assigned statically. I even went so far as to rebuild the laptop to factory settings and it still happens. I am still assigned the .99 address. I have gone into the router set the dhcp server to only give out addresses from .1 to .50 and i have deleted the laptops registry from the router and performed a release renew on the laptop and i still get .99 set as the ip address. This is driving me nuts because everything is set to automatic on the laptop. My guess is that the wireless network adapter is somehow stuck on that IP and that it has nothing to do with the router. HELPPPPPPP