I have an Asus P8Z77-V (BIOS version 1606).
I started getting this problem but I think I have fixed it by setting "Link Speed" to "100Mbps Full Duplex" and "Gigabit Master Slave Mode" to "Force Master Mode". It is annoying to not be able to use Gigabit Ethernet though.
At first I never got this issue, but then it started when I updated the Intel Network Connection drivers. I tried 17.2 and 17.3 but they didn't fix it. Actually I only ran the NVM utility after I had updated to those versions.
I tried uninstalling the drivers and then reinstalling the one that came with my motherboard drivers CD but the problem still occurred.
Anyway, I just saw this problem mentioned somewhere else that suggests it could be a problem with the motherboard BIOS: Tools to flash and recover BIOS on ASUS P8xxx boards (FD44Editor, FTK) - [H]ard|Forum
Problem: Integrated Intel LAN can't start, code 10 in device manager.
Solution: GbE region is corrupted. Reflash GbE region.
So I'm hoping that if I just upgrade my BIOS version it might fix the issue without the need to disable 1GBps Link Speed. Otherwise I might try using that FTK tool to reflash only the GbE region of the BIOS.
Just wanted to mention that here incase it helps anyone!