So I don't know if this is right place to ask this at all but I've gotten good help here before so I thought I'd ask.

For the last year or so periodically my computer would start refusing to play media. In browser players would say they were playing but they weren't. No audio and the video wasn't moving forward although it would show the first frame of the video to be shown. iTunes would act similarly, thinking it was playing without actually playing any music. This persists across browsers, various application categories, etcetera. It can often be fixed by rebooting but it is only a short term solution. Does anyone know of anything that might cause this erratic behavior?

I'm using Windows 7 64bit. If additional information would help please ask. Alternatively, if this isn't the right site for this I would greatly appreciate some direction to a site better suited to my question. Thanks in advance for any help.