Acer Aspire X1700-U3700A after Win7x64 Professional upgrade from Vistax64 Home Premium: freezing shortly after booting, general unreliable (did clean install of OS).

I just upgraded from Windows Vista 64-bit to Windows 7 Professional on 1/2/2010. I did a clean install.  After install, even while downloading/installing  updates for the OS, I noticed that I lost connection (I was unsure what it was at first but it was this). I figured maybe it was just a driver issue for my Zonet ZEW2500P (which I recognize does not show up as supported for win7x64, but it was downloading data fine, others have stated no issues with this wireless adapter in win7x64 on a different PC, AND I've tried another wireless adapter on this PC to no avail). I also tried updating the drivers for the Zonet adapter using the Ralink 64 bit Win 7 drivers for the chip in my card. No difference.

The problem: I will have access to the internet (via my FIOS router) for a little while and it is problem free. Then after about 5-10 minutes, the internet connection is lost and all networking functions of the computer seem to cease working. I can't load networking portions of control panel, view wireless adapter properties, etc etc. More importantly, when the problem begins, it never stops and it will actually cause the computer to hang at shutdown (I've let it sit for 30 mins before I hard-rebooted).

What I've tried: I went to Acer's site and updated to the latest BIOS available to me, thinking there may be some incompatibility there. No effect. I tried the Ralink drivers for 64bit win7 from ralink's site for my wireless USB adapter. No effect. I upgraded video drivers (under some suggestion though it didn't make sense to me) from NVIDIA's site for the G100. Nothing. I tried a friend's wireless USB adapter that IS listed as supported in Win7x64. Problem still persists. I uninstalled all windows updates that had been installed thinking it may be a conflict. Didn't fix the problem. I have power cycled the router thinking it may be that (despite having access on other PCs wirelessly connected to same router). No help.

Please, please, someone. Anyone have any ideas what may be causing this? I am so tempted to just go back to Vista so I have a working HTPC again, but I paid for the upgrade and the license has been activated now.

I may have omitted other things I have tried, but any suggestions are welcomed! Any services I should spot-check? Any special networking things in Win7 that XP or vista don't have that may be conflicting? (my familiarity is mostly with XP)

The PC was completely problem-free in Windows Vista HPx64 (adding to the frustration that I even bothered it)