Windows 7 Not Recognizing LAN Adapter/controller?

I've been running windows 7 pro 64 bit for just under a year now. Couple days ago the computer was on just sitting idle while i was around the house, then i noticed this message pop-up the windows firewall was not active and if i wanted to activate it, ever since then i have not been able to get the computer to recognize any sort of internet connection. Im on a wired connection to a wireless router (D-Link Xtreme-N Dual Band Gigbit), all other computers connected to the router work fine.there is a red cross in the little network icon in the taskbar. If I click that icon, it says �No connections available�If I click troubleshoot, it says �Problems found - There might be a problem with the driver for the local area connection adapter�If I look in the device manager, there IS an entry for �Network Adapters�, in fact there are two:

1) Realtek PCIe GBE family controller (which i recognize as the one from my motherboard Asus P7P55D-E Pro

2) WAN Miniport (PPPOE) [i have no idea where this comes from, but it has a yellow exclamation sign above it]

I have uninstalled 1) from the device manager and let windows re-install it on reboot, i tried installing drivers from the CD the mobo came with, i tried going on another computer and getting updated drivers from the Realtek website, none of them worked. if i try to uninstall the WAN miniport it does not disappear?If I look in BIOS the contorller is there and ON. Reboot, swapping ethernet cables, restarting router, scanning for viruses/malware with MSE, Webroot Complete, Malwarebytes finds nothing.If I rollback to an earlier restore point, it doesn�t help.The only thing i can remember that happened before the loss of connection was an update to TuneUp Utilities 2012 and Webroot Secure Anywhere 2012, both of which i've since uninstalled to see if it was one of those, but still nothing. Also completely disabling Windows Firewall doesn't help either.