[Valerie]

it's fine to have your pc hard wired to the router and use the wireless part for the laptop and you seem to have set that part up right if both can access the internet. Seeing eachother depends on how you have configured your firewall and if you have set any folders to be shared.

not sure about the rest, tho if the pc couldn't connect to the internet when bypassing the router then that looks like the virginmedia connection was down.