How I fixed my Apple TV dissappearing from my iTunes Device List

Question

For those looking for a magic cureall you won't find it here.
The long and short of the matter, the problem was on my end. Specifically an element of my ethernet's driver configuration utility wasn't loading properly. So, the AppleTV would show up in my device list and then dissappear after about 5 minutes and the only way to get it to show back up in my itunes device list is to cycle the power on the AppleTV. Unfortunately doing this would cause the same dissappearing AppleTV out of my iTunes device list.
I'm one of those fools that bought that KillerNIC overpriced ethernet card and I had disabled the killernic tray application. As I recall I had some issues with my initial windows install and had to disable it to keep the computer from rebooting constantly. When I fired up msconfig and had teh tray application launch when windows boots up then the AppleTV showed up in my device list and everything was fine and is still fine.
I spent about 2 hours on the phone with Apple tech support, who were as helpful as they could be when the problem was on my end. They even transfered me to one of their product specialists and he had some suggestions, but we soon realized the problem wasn't with the AppleTV, but something on my end.
A few things to try, that the Apple tech reccomended:
-If you are connected with a wired ethernet, then plug the AppleTV directly into your computer (PC or Mac) with the ethernet cables. The ethernet jack on the AppleTV is autonegotiating so you don't need a crossover cable. We tried this on my PC and the AppleTV didn't show up in my device list. But when we tried doing this on my Macbook the AppleTV showed up just fine. Which showed both myself and the Apple tech that all is well with the AppleTV, but something in my configuration was amiss.
Don't waste your time on port mapping or port forwarding or any of that business, since the AppleTV is behind the firewall those sorts of things are not going to affect the AppleTV. Now the tech did say that some routers are flakier then others and a setting change or two might cause the AppleTV to stop working. His suggestion was to save my current setting and reset the router to default settings. Do not revert the firmware to an earlier version, but put the router settings for the current firmware into a default state. I know this is tedious, but if you are as frustrated as I was a few hours ago, then any suggestion to try is helpful.
For the record here is my system and network stuff:
router: Dlink DGL-4300 (V1.8)
ethernet: Bigfoot Networks KillerNIC (v3.1.2.3)
OS: WinXP (but the tech didn't think that the OS was the issue)
I guess the moral of the story is why did it work and what changed to make it stop working? I was 100% convinced that an iTunes update caused teh problem to fail, because heck it was working once and now it doesn't work and I forgot that one bit that made my setup nonstandard (the missing tray application).
Now this might not help anyone but me, but just on the off chance that someone else out there has more money then sense, bought an overpriced ethernet adapter, disabled the tray application, and is now having problems with dissappearing devices. Well, do I have a solution to your problems.
ds

Answer 1

It's not a matter of unpairing it from the iMac. You need to pair your iMacs remote to it and the ATV remote to the ATV. If you don't pair you iMac to it's remote, then the ATV remote will always be able to activate it, even if the ATV's remote is paired to the ATV (and vice versa).
In case you don't know how to pair the remote. Hold the remote aout 3" from the iMac and hold the menu and next buttons down for about 5 seconds. You will see a linked chain on your screen once there are paired.
Glor