The Saga of My Computer and Our Wireless. Help!

So I have an emachines desktop that is about five years old now and it's really a good, dependable machine. It runs Windows XP and that has never really given me many problems. HOWEVER, A few summers back, my dad bought a Belkin wireless router so my sister and I could connect to our cable internet during the summer. My sister's computer worked fine. No problems. Ever. My computer, however, seemed to decide right off the bat that it did not like SOMETHING about the Belkin adapter I was using. It would randomly freeze no matter what I was doing. As long as I have the adapter plugged in, my computer will freeze. Sometimes it's three hours between freezes and sometimes I can barely get it turned back on before it has frozen again.

First I tried uninstalling everything and reinstalling from the CD.

Then, I tried uninstalling everything and just installing the drivers.

Next, I went out and bought a new Belkin adapter...then a new adapter of a different brand.

I even switched virus protection.

No luck at all.

We took it into a shop last summer and the guys there said that it was working just fine and they'd had it on and connected to their wireless with MY adapter for eight hours. It never froze in the shop.

So NOW, I have graduated and I'll be stuck at home for a while and I'm VERY desperate to get the stupid thing working, but I feel like I've tried everything. Is it possible that the router itself is the problem? I've just completely run out of ideas! Please help!