making desktop pc wireless... HELP!!

hi
my boyfriend has a desktop pc, and wanted to make it wireless, he lives in a shared house, and theres a virgin media router downstairs, he can connect too.
He brought himself a belkin wireless adapter ...
http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/belkin-150n-wireless-u...
the link above is the one he brought, but he couldnt pick up a signal with it at all, it was now and again picking up the name of the router downstairs, but wouldnt stay connected ,and half the time the name of the router wasnt even coming up to try to connect. He installed the belkin cd and everything but no nothing worked.
So he took it back for a refund,
now i have a laptop which already has a modem inside it l, and mine connects fine to it, picks up signal straight away and works perfect, so how come my laptop works wireless connecting to the downstairs router, but his pc when he had the wireless adapter wouldnt work?
When we took it back, the lady in pc world said something about certain adapters only work with certain routers ,and was going on about N and G routers etc, but we didnt really understand lol ,
Like i said its virgin media internet with the basic virgin media router, which is downstairs, my laptop works perfect connecting to it, but my bf wants his pc too connect , is there a certain wireless adapter we need to buy to make it work?
Anyone that can help would be fab
Thanks

There are different standards for wireless connections, you need to determine which wireless connection you're using, I would take the make and model number of the router and google for the manufacturers website and check the technical specifications for that router, see what it supports and make sure whatever wireless adaptor you buy also supports the same type.

Usually the different types are simplified into letters such as A, B G and N, so for example if you have a wireless N router you need a wireless adaptor/dongle that is capable of wireless N technology.

In my experience those USB wifi dongles are poor at best, as you have found out. I would sugest a wireless ethernet bridge, i bought the belkin F5D7330uk and it performed flawlessly. More expensive but, as with most things in life, you get what you pay for.

http://www.broadbandbuyer.co.uk/Shop/ShopSearch.asp?...

I thought that an N router would connect to a G dongle, but only at a theoretical max speed of 54 Mbps. My N router connects to my N USB dongles perfectly at 150Mbs but to my old G card at 54Mbs. These are no reflection of the download speeds I get on the computer, of course (usually 18-20 Mbps via Virgin cable over wireless).

tell him to buy a wireless card himself, if he doesnt want to open the pc then he can get a usb version.