SOLVED: W510 Wired Network Stops working

Question

I had a problem with a W510 I ordered with Windows 7 32 bit. At random times, the exclamation point icon would appear over the network icon in the system tray, and the network adapter would no longer be recognized. I could use the built in Windows facilities to reset the adapter, but it would quickly fail again. The only cure was to restart the machine, which was annoying. Wireless networking was not affected - just the wired Ethernet connection.
I downloaded the latest drivers from the Lenovo site and that did not fix it. I have had numerous Thinkpads over the past 12 years and have NEVER had any sort of hardware fault before, so I doubted that it was a hardware fault. Therefore I wiped the machine clean and installed 64 Bit Windows 7 instead.
The first problem I had after installing Win7 x64 was that the internal USB controller was not recognized by Windows. Therefore, USB devices (i.e. my thumb drive with all the x64 Lenovo drivers on) were no longer recognized. Therefore, I burned the x64 drivers to a CD and used that instead.
All the devices including the USB controller then came to life, and it looks like the problem has been completely solved.
I post this, in case anybody else has such a problem. 

Answer 1

I just started seeing this issue with my pen silo.  The Wacom tablet component has completely stopped working, and I'm seeing "USB device not recognized" every time I insert and draw out the pen.  My guess is that all the peripheral components in the tablet are connected to the motherboard via crappy silver trace ribbon cables, and they're susceptible to the tiniest amount of flex, heat, and disruption.
Since the USB device is, at least in my case, still operating well enough to report that it is having trouble, I'm guessing that the issue is transient, but that doesn't fix my problem - and probably won't fix yours.  I'd recommend getting a refund.
Here's how to see if the device is reporting a problem:
1) Wait until you see the "USB device not recognized" message again.
2) CTRL+X -> Device Manager
3) Other Devices -> double-click "Unknown device"
4) Go to "Details" tab
5) Select "DevNode status" from the drop-down; the Value pane will have DN_HAS_PROBLEM on one of the lines.
6) Select "Problem code" from the drop-down; the Value pane will likely show "0000002B", or Microsoft USB problem code 43 in decimal.