As you're probably already aware, this will show a comprehensive breakdown of everything that is loaded upon startup of the OS. Just like you were attempting to do with msconfig and in your services module, you want to basically turn everything off that is not absolutely essential to the OS, restart, and reenable things one by one until you find the culprit.
But let's start with a few questions, then maybe we'll run the cmd line version of Autoruns (which came with the download) so we pipe the output to a logfile if nothing jumps out at you when you scan the GUI version.
1. First though, have you by any chance enabled any options in your BIOS that have to do with network boot?
2. When you did the clean install, was it a true install with a windows disk (and did you format before), or was it a system restore with an Asus factory disk?
3. How did you install the laptop's drivers? Was it a pre-pack, all-in-one driver file from Asus? Or a whole bunch of individual driver files for each component in your system?
4. What type of HD are you using, how many partitions, and did you do anything beyond the defaults during the OS install?
5. Do you have any kind of drive compression or encryption (either in software or built-in) turned on?
6. Is the amount of RAM you have installed reported correctly in BIOS and in Windows?
7. Have you changed any policies in the policy editor? Made any tweaks?
8. Do you have an AV/Malware/etc programs installed? Set to run or update at startup?
Basically, after you made the clean install, what options or settings did you turn on/off? What programs/utils have you installed?
Also make sure you have no install disks/usb/printers/ethernet/peripherals attached. Turn off automatic updates, system restore, and disable hibernation.
Let me know and we'll continue from here.