I have an issue with using my Apple AIRPORT Express that is driving me nuts. I use my Airport Express to wirelessly play music to my receiver. I don't use it to extend the NETWORK or any of those other uses.

For two years, everything worked fine between my Windows PC and my Apple Airport Express. My computer could play songs to my Airport Express wirelessly, and I could load the Remote app on my iPhone and control the songs that iTunes would play, on my computer. Four months ago, the computer stopped "seeing" the Airport Express, and my iPhone could no longer locate the iTunes library on the computer. All the meanwhile, my spare laptop (which I was just using for testing of this issue, as it's too old and slow for my music use) could operate just fine with the Airport and iPhone with Remote.

I picked up a new PC to replace the aging one, and figured it would also fix my music issues as well. Well, it only fixed it in a very temporary and frustrating way. Now, when the PC loads up, it sees the Airport Express and I can use Remote on my iPhone, and I can play music across the network with it all just like I should be able to. Then, anywhere from 15 minutes to several hours later, it all stops working. The Airport Express option on iTunes goes GRAYED out. The Airport Utility program can no longer find the Airport Express. My iPhone can no longer find my iTunes library with Remote. But, if I reset the computer, it all works perfectly again, until it randomly fails whenever it feels like it. It never continues to work for more than a few hours.

Through all this, if I load up my old laptop, it works fine. So, to me, it's not like the Aiport Express is "going down". Also, the Airport Express has NOTHING to do with my iPhone and the Remote app finding my iTunes library on th ePC, so the fact that BOTH of these things stop working makes me think it's something to do with the PC or the PC connection to my network.

FYI, it seems to make no difference whether my PC is connected with a CAT5 or with the built in wireless.

My old PC and this new one both have Norton, but I've tried disabling everything and I don't see a difference. Maybe I need to dig into this more, but it's strange that Norton would let it all work for a while, then stop it.

Another fact LEADING me to believe the Airport Express is fine is that my iPhone has apps like Pandora and Songza that can play music either through the iPhone itself, or, send it to the Airport Express. I am ALWAYS able to select the Aiport Express. It is never "down" or not selectable..

New PC is Windows 8 with Norton installed. Network is through FiOS and their Actiontec router. Let me know if you need any other info or testing.

Thanks in advance for any help!

Have you checked to make sure that you're using the latest version of iTunes and that your Airport Express is using the latest firmware?

I've never used an AirPort Express, so I can't think of much else to check.Yes, both are up to date fully.

One other observation I've noticed now:

After the computer disconnects from the Airport (i.e. if I look in iTunes, the airport speaker symbol is grayed out and only PC speakers are selectable), if I open Remote on my iPhone and click the aiport symbol in the Music player, it "revives" the airport express. The connection re-establishes, and the symbol becomes blue on the PC screen instantly. Somehow, doing this with the phone "re-links" the connection between PC and Airport Express...