New Server Requires Frequent Reboots

[smdl]

Hi, all.

Last weekend, I conducted a proactive server upgrade after about 5 years of excellent performance on the previous machine. In doing this, I moved from XP to Win 7, and had a fun time remembering how to set up multiple HD-PVRs (3), USB-UIRT, FireWire tuning for my 4250HDs, EXEMultiTuner, ComSkip, SageMC, etc. In the end, I was victorious (or so I thought), and things are generally performing very well. WAF was initially high.

Unfortunately, over the past week, I have repeatedly seen the server become unresponsive to the extenders (HD100, HD200 and HD300). In most cases, when I go to the server, I find that the client there remains fully operational, allowing playback, etc., without issue. I have also found that restarting the SageTV service does not seem to restore operation to the extenders. Finally, I have confirmed that the server does have network connectivity by connecting successfully to the internet.

One time, while watching, we noticed the extender performance starting to become erratic (choppy, hard to control), but most times there is just no server present when the extender is powered on. The choppiness could be an early symptom of the overall failure, though.

Today, when this problem came up, what seemed to make the difference was killing the Sage client on the server. At that point the extender could then see the server again. I did not start the client on the server again, and am thinking of not doing so to see if the extenders will keep operating without it loaded.

I have tried searching to see what I could find on this issue, but wasn't successful in locating anything that appeared to match my symptoms. Will keep searching, but if anyone might be able to help get me started on the correct diagnostic path, I would appreciate it. On the past server, we only ever experienced a very occasional need to reboot the server when things would hang, and this is now happening daily. WAF is wavering. The sad part is that the performance otherwise has been absolutely fantastic.

For reference, the new server is WIN 7 Home Premium 32-bit (needed for FireWire), FX6100 processor, 4GB RAM, ATI Radeon 3000 onboard graphics, 3 x SATA HD with total of 5TB.

Java is 7 Update 45 (1.7.0_45)

Sage is V7.1.9.256, and the only installed plugin is Commercial Detector.

SageMC version is 7.0.10

Any other information I should provide?

Thanks in advance for any assistance, and please feel free to recommend existing threads to save time.

Cheers,
Shaun

[smdl]

A correction: I have now confirmed that restarting the service does actually cause the system to function properly again. There is just a delay while everything gets started again.