I need some help with Age of Empires 3

Hello everyone and Happy New Year!

Here is my problem:

I recently purchased AOE 3 Gold Edition(comes with warchiefs expansion). I installed it on two different machines without a problem. Then I tried play it on the two computers using the LAN option. I tried using a No-CD crack on one computer but it would say there where version differences or something when I tried to connect via LAN. So I used the Original .exe's on both computers which requires the disc. I would start a game and then take the disc out and put it in the other computer. That worked and I could host a game on one computer and play it. The problem is, is that we will be playing and all of a sudden it will freeze on both computers and say that the other player is unresponsive. The weird thing is that we managed to play an entire round once without it messing up. We are connect via a wired Linksys BEFSR41 V.2. Maybe the router isn't fast enough? I even tried a direct IP connection and it still did it.

Help?