Windows 7 - Win 7 pc freezes when streaming video to living room pc

Hello everybody,

I'm sorry if i make some spelling errors, i am dutch and not that good at english.

I recently upgraded to windows 7 on all 3 of my home computers and i am loving it so far.
There is 1 problem i can't solve myself and it has to do with my home server freezing up whenever another computer in my home network stream a dvd (or sometime even a small divx) movie from it.
Strange thing is, the same setup worked flawlessly when i had vista on all my computers so that rules out that its any hardware issue (maybe a driver issue from nic or something?)

PC1 where i think the problem is :
My main computer with al the media on it im going refer to as server, this pc has Win 7 Ultimate x64 installed on it, intel core2duo E6850 @3,0Ghz, 4 gigs DDR2 memory and an Asus P5K motherboard.
All my media is on a shared drive on this pc and all other pc's can access it through my home network.

PC2 the one i use to watch movies :
My 2nd pc is in the livingroom and hooked up to my flatpannel tv, this pc ill refer to as my mediacenter.This pc has windows 7 ultimate x32 installed. It has an Intel Pentium 4 3.4 CPU, 2 gigs DDR2 memory and an Abit AB9 Quad GT motherboard.

My network settings :
My home network is completely wired (no wireless devices whatsoever) and all connected through a netgear FVG318 Router. There is no password on sharing and every setting in my home network is set to share everything with all others in my network, so all if freely accessible.

The actual problem :
As said all my media is hosted on my server computer, there are DVD's divx movies and some music and pictures.
Whenever i try to watch a DVD on my mediacenter the movie freezes, sometimes already in the titlescreen but also sometimes 5, 10 or even 30 minutes into the movie. The freezes are completely random i guess.
The mediacenter workes fine after a freeze, only error i get is that it cannot connect to my server.
When i goto my server i at first noticed that my network connection was lost on my server.
After some trial and error i found out when i disable my networkcard on the server and after enabled it agian i could continue watching my movie on the mediacenter but it the freeze kept happening.
Then i thought it might be a power save setting so i made a powersave scheme where nothing turns off, no hibernation and not even the display turns off.
Also i changed some setting in the network card on my server telling it that it could not be turned off to save power.
After all this done when i watch a DVD now on my mediacenter my whole server just freezes after a while.
I still see the desktop screen and my mouse mointer but i cant move it, no error msge its just a frozen screen.
I also browser my system logs and looked for errors around the time the freezes occur but i cant find anything related. the only errors i see are after the system halted.
The log stated the system has been shut down unexpecedly (couse i pressed the off button) and after it restarts i see i couple of performance index errors (WmiApRpl).

So if anyone has any idea what to do about this problem, any help would be really appreciated.

Thank you and regards,

Enjul

This type of network connection problem is a widespread with older NIC drivers and Windows 7.
As soon as the connection is loaded up it quits and needs to be reset.

About all you can do is look for the latest NIC drivers for the media center PC. Hopefully an updated one will come along soon.

I would love the real answer to this, if it indeed is a network driver, or something else. I have the exact same problem. My server is booted and loads no programs. I am streaming to Media Player Classic (both computers Win 7 Pro 64) via HDMI, and it works fine for about 1 to 15 minutes, then stops. MPC crashes at this point when I check my laptop, but the computer is fine. The server however is completely frozen and must be rebooted. My server has a P5E3 Deluxe mobo, and whole house is wired for internet.

DIVX Web Player Beta 1.40 will cure streaming video freezes on Windows 7X64.

DivX Web Player 1.40 Beta 2 | Download | Baixatudo

Go here and click the Baixar button.

Uninstall the DIVX web player only. I used Revo uninstaller pro because it helps you
clear out the old web player registry values with the scan tool. Some people have trouble uninstalling the web player only, So this will stop it from blocking uninstall.
Then I just deleted the folder in Program Files x86.

Then install this one, for 64 bit only.

It is not your drivers or your motherboard, trust me.

It is the only thing I have found to cure the problem with the new release by DIVX which does not work in 64 bit windows 7 and will eventually stop any browser from responding.

Edit: Still experiencing that the mediaserver "hangs" when trying to stream video

Hello,
I'm having similar problems, and I'm sorry for bumping this thread. But the original post was so detailed, and it explained almost exactly the same problems I'm having!
Also, I have the same motherboard as original poster: ASUS P5K.

For 3 years I've been running a mediaserver with Windows 2008 server installed - without any problems.
Some days ago I decided to do a re-install with Windows 2008 server R2.
It ran nice all day, while I installed Hyper-V and alot of programs needed. Fiddeling around, enjoying a fresh, clean installation - I bet you all know the feeling

Late the same evening I was about to watch some tv series on my laptop with VLC player, streamed from my media server through normal "filesharing".
Note: This has never been a problem for 3 years.

The video started playing, and then suddenly it stopped, and I lost connection to the network folder.
I could not connect through Remote Desktop Connection, and the server seemed to be "frozen / Hanging".
It didn't respond while physically at the media server's monitor either.

Rebooted - same thing happened.
Re-installed - same thing happend.
Re-installed to Windows 7 on the media server - same thing happend.
Re-installed to another version of Win 2K8 server - same thing happened.

I Disconnected all unecessary hard-drives, reconnected them, tried installing on other hard-drives.
Still the media server is "hanging" while streaming video!
Browsing "network folders" and looking at pictures works fine.



I'm currently trying to find motherboard drivers, especially network drivers, since that was recommended in this thread. But I can't seem to find the correct one?!

I can't remember if I ever did install anything from the motherboard-CD, and I don't think I have it anymore...
It's so long ago, and the server has ran 24/7 for 3 years.

Anyways:
Device manager tells me there's a "Atheros L1 Gigabit Ethernet" card.
When I look up "P5K" on ASUS' page, there are no P5K card with those drivers available. So I don't know what to do.
Downloaded Chipset drivers just for fun, and when I try to run the setup it tells me "Does not support this OS".

Makes me believe that windows 2k8 is not supported at all.
- Can anyone help me find the correct drivers for "Atheros L1"? Windows keep telling me that the drivers are correct.

- I've installed some of the things available on P5K on ASUS.com, like raid, "ATK".

- I've turned off "computer can turn off this device to save power". Even though I have my doubts that this is the cause of my problems.

Doing a reboot, and check if fileshare streaming works

Edit: Still experiencing that the mediaserver "hangs" when trying to stream video

ok.... update:
I disabled IPv6 in LAN properties, and now it's working

Just a coincidence I tried it out. Was looking at other threads here, and got the idea to try it out from reading about Error 'code: 0x80070035 The network path was not found