XPS 1710 NIC not working, urgent help needed!

All of a sudden today my network card in my XPS 1710 seems to not be working. When I plug in the cable from my router, I get nothing - it acts as if nothing has been plugged in. Checked with another notebook, plugged in the same cable, and it works, so it's not the cable or the router.

When I click on the  Quickset Internal Network Card Power Management it shows the status of the network card as "off." I have the power management to turn the network card on and off with the power cord disabled, but before I did that I would get the message that the internal card was turned off when I unplugged the power, and on when I plugged the power back in. Now, when I turn that option on, I don't get the NIC on or off message. I do have the LAN Connection icon in the systray, and it shows "A network cable is unplugged" but again, it does not recognize the cable when it's plugged in.

I have a desperate need to fix this ASAP for work reasons. I downloaded the newest driver from Dell and installed it, no fix, uninstalled the NIC card and let it reinstall, no fix. It is as if Quickset or something turned the NIC card off and I can't get it back on again!

Help!!! Thanks.