Windows 7 Media Hangs, after 5-20 minutes of uptime

Hello all I am struggling with this issues and it is really annoying trying to figure it out. I would appreciate any feedback or help in troubleshooting.

So I built a new computer a few weeks ago for gaming and other items. I was just getting ready to start installing all my media software for a home media server and burn in the HDD when I started getting some very odd behavior.

Before two days ago everything was working perfectly well. The issue is after starting up the computer I can play videos, music and games. After about 10-30 minutes a game will freeze and I need to CTRL+ALT+DELETE out of the game and end the task. After this point windows media player, VLC, and zune will not play any music or videos, but they know they are there. If I try and startup a new game from steam or outside of steam the game hangs at the initial load.

I suspect RAM would be the cause of this, but I have not run the hours of mem-testing yet. I am currently testing my 4960x i7 with a CPU burn in software.

During all of these issues I get no events in the event log and the computer does not crash. I can still look at network folders, open up office or view pictures, or even browse the internet.

I have freshly installed windows 7 Ultimate x64 N and the issue is still there.

Again please let me know what you call think as I am thoroughly confused.

Thanks FN

Ztruker said:

Suggestion. Instead of testing the ram, remove half of it and run for awhile. Still problem, swap ram and run some more. If the problem doesn't go away it's not ram.

Thanks for the advice. I guess that makes much more sense.

So to update the issues. It appears once the game or media source hangs (video or sounds) that I am no longer able to open up the "Playback Devices" from right clicking the speaker icon in the taskbar!?

So I am leaning towards an issues with something sound related.

For sound devices I have:

1) G930 Logitech Headset.
2) Realtek HD Audio from my MB (ASUS 9x79 pro)
3) Bluetooth HD Audio from my MB (ASUS 9x79 pro)
4) Nvidia HD Audio for the HDMI port (GTX 760)

I have removed the Realtek drivers and I am using the generic ones from MS. I disabled the Bluetooth and I don't use the Nvidia HDMI port so I am disabling this as well.

I will update on any more thoughts.

FN

So after a disabling and reverting to some of my sound drivers as generic everything is working great. I am going to make an image and then start re-enabling them until I find the incompatibility.

FN