We were in the process of Yaobing looking at logs, etc on this problem and he was unavailable for awhile. So, like any good computer audiophile, I got impatient and went to work! My machine had quite a bit of software installed/removed since it's build in the search to get some nice asynchronous USB sound out of it, and was getting some freezes in both 16, 17 of JR.
SO, wiped the HD partition for OS and did a clean install of XP from my OEM disc. Had to set bios to the known defaults to get XP to install, so may have had a setting jacked up in there? Was really careful reinstalling drivers to get the right ones/install just once, etc. Only Aiso4All for the USB DAC, onboard sound disabled. Ended up with a pretty fast install of XP with indexing, auto updates off, windows security center/firewall off. Then very limited software install: WMP, never even opened and configured, Chrome 4 the browser, just MC 17 and needed the weird/annoying/but it works Imon as the driver/remapper for my particular Antech IR sensor.
So far my recording/real time watching of OTA TV is much better. I still have not tried an install of the second tuner for a QAM scan, am going to use J River as is for awhile and make sure it's stable before tackling the QAM thing.
So now have a machine running great using only the router firewall and NO antivirus either. Does anyone have a recommendation for antivirus that is friendly to J River? Comcast gives me Norton, that did not seem to work so well before. Thanks!