Many laptops don't have the wifi card utilities installed on it by default. You should be able to find the relevant drivers on the manufacturer's website.

As for your router, it sounds like it's either a router issue or a laptop wifi card rather than the network or ISP you're connected to. Does anything abnormal occur with the lights on your router when the connection drops?

Also, can you post the output of "Start>run>cmd /k ipconfig" while the problem is happening? If it is your gateway timing out and the problem is not the firmware of your router locking up it's probably fixable by forcing IPs in the computer.