Dell Laptop Seems to 'Forget' About Lan Connection on startup

Not sure if this is to be in Networking or the laptop forum; lan port on my laptop.

So, not sure why, my laptop does this thing and it's driving me nuts, any help is appreciated.

my Dell insipiron N5010 Laptop,  very old laptop, 2009 or 2010 or something.

runs windows 7 x64 bit.

Sometimes when i open the lid and the computer returns from sleep mode, the wifi is on, but i do not like to use wifi when i use it to watch videos, so i use a lan cable.

however, the cable IS plugged into my computer, and the laptop will show as no network connection.

using the search term' network connections' in the windows 7 search bar, i bring up my connections.

the connection lists, but says no sable connected or something like that.

last night the connection kept dissapearing  and reappearing.

to solve this problem i have been doing the following steps:

 1) Open network connections

2) right click disable local area connection

3) Restart computer.

4) open network connections and Re-Enable.

then it will work. however, if i were to sleep the laptop again, it will break again.

A while back ago, when the dc connector of my laptop broke, i had taken it in to a shop to get repaired, this was the second time it broke and was not covered by dell's warranty, i used a local shop in town.

the guy mentioned that the first time the dc adapter may have been re-soldered to the board, where as he replaced the entire micro board.

mentioning this, i have not checked inside the computer to see if any physical damage is present.

i can solve the problem, but it's annoying when you sit down to watch a video, but have to reboot the computer....like 10 minutes...every day...

P.s. running the windows 7 diagnostic tells me, "there is no cable plugged into the LAN port, Please Plug one in" ....There has always been a cable plugged into my laptop.

In the case that the lan port is busted, does an Ethernet to usb- adapter exist?

My laptop also has an 'eSata' port, which i've never used. i assume it's for an external hard drive?