Well I finally got a custom rom on my TP and my laptop is connecting perfectly through it. It connects quick now whereas before on the stock rom it would take a long time to connect to the phone over wifi and never connected to the internet. Now pretty much as soon as I enter the password for the connecion, it connects to the phone and the internet.
Must be something in the stock rom that prevented it from working. Wish I could have figured it out just so that I would know and could pass along the info to help others that don't want to put custom roms on their TP's.
Merry Christmas to everyone.