Windows 7: Not playing complete songs

Just a (hopefully)quick one.... My dilema is that i am able to play songs in iTunes, WMP, VLC and even foodbar 2000. however they will not always play complete. i may be able to listen to them no problems . from start to finish. But every now and again wheather the computer has been on for 5 min or 5 Hours it will on play a portion of the track, could be 5 seconds or 2 min. it never lets the song play complete. i know its not the song file as i can play the exact copy on other computers and/or devices....



Any ideas

Well since it happens randomly, it's not a fade in fade out option. Check your drive for errors with the chkdsk /f command. You may also need to defragment your drive. If your media player doesn't have complete access to the file, playback will end early. To test that, try and play an MP3 while you're downloading it.

Does the player just stop and sit there?
Does it act like it's reached the end of the file (rewind, exit, etc.)?
Do you still have audio after the player stops (PC sounds, etc.)?

There is a reason why they call WMP "Codec Hell"...

I had this problem with WMP under XP and it turned out to be a codec that was timing out if there was any delay in the stream. I solved it there with Media Player Classic - Home Cinema - Video Player and continue to use it on Windows 7 with truly spectacular results. The key to it's success is that all codecs are built in and optimized for direct sound. There's no reliance upon any part of Windows, except for the PCM audio output stream to the soundcard.

Thanks Product FRED. will give those suggestions a go. but one thing that i have just found out is that it will also do it if i am streaming audio like a radio station from the internet. The confusion continues :'s

@ CommonTater no the media player will skip to the next available song. if i navigate to the song in explorer an play it open the song itself, rather than going through the media player, i have no issue, plays from start to finish. i dnt normally use WMP prefer iTunes or Foobar 2000

I might be a little different than most, but I never open software directly. I operate my computers almost entirely by clicking on links and files. As long as your file associations are working correctly there's no reason to ever open a program directly, except to create new content.

iTunes ... Meh, not thrilling.
Foobar is pretty good.
Played with VLC and it's ok.
I'm still liking Media Player Classic best, though.