Quote Originally Posted by bhxtyrant
Is your ethernet built into the motherboard or is it a PCI ethernet card?If it is built into your motherboard then you may want to try going to start menu>Network connections>Show all connections and making sure that you ethernet port is enabled.I have seen people in the past have similar problems and it was usually caused by the port being disabled or damaged.Hope that helps.

:EDITamn BB you beat me to it lol.
You're post was a bit more informative concerning the method of getting to the network properties.