What is going on with my router?

I have a wireless netgear router and it's been fine for months (probably almosst a year). However, today it decided it wanted to keep dropping my connection every few minutes until Windows couldn't "connect" to the internet anymore. The only way to make it work again is to either turn off the router or turn off the laptop, then it works for about another hour before it starts dropping again. I updated the routers driver by going to Dell's website but it still happens.

This is getting me angry. It's interrupting my facebook games and my pinning to pinterest (LOL)!! Seriously, though, why is it doing this? heeeelp me, I'm networkly challenged!! :-D

 

What model is the router? Have you done anything different since this problem started? Have you tried power cycling the router and modem?