cannot ping router

I have connected my laptop new laptop to my home network and I can ping all the pc’s on the network, but I cant ping my router and therefore the laptop can’t connect to the internet.
everything is set up with static ip’s in the right range, the default gateway is set for the router, in fact everything is excactly like on my other machines, the only difference is that the OS on the laptop is in a different language – they all run win2000
Any suggestions please, I am out of ideas
Thanks