Find out who makes your ethernet card
Get the latest driver from the ethernet card maker's website
Install, reboot
I'm having the same issue and that works for me until I reboot again and then I have no internet at all. My mate has a similar issue that only occurred for him after a installed MS update.
I've rolled back drivers and exhausted all the Asus and Marvell drivers and it still happens on each reboot. Reinstall the driver and the network instantly returns.
I read that windows 7 forum above as there are pages of people with the same or similar issues and nobody seems to have a fix that works for long.
Clearly theres an issue that needs sorting. I've gone back to XP until a fix comes out.