Do I Need a Router with NIS 2011 for a single machine?

Hello folks:  I know this has been a topic before as I've read some of the threads - and became more confused.  I've had a wired firewall in an older 3Com router for several years and have not had any problems until today.  For some reason, I could not get an internet connection.  After long discussion and trying different things, it was clear that the modem was fine and the router might be the problem.  I removed the router and hooked up the modem directly to the PC via the Ethernet connection.  It took windows 7 a minute or so to finally find the connection, but it finally did.  After all that, my questions is this:  With the smart firewall and other protections in NIS 2011, do I need the hardware firewall? 

 

Thanks for the advice.

 

BC