I am experiencing the same too with my other laptop. It's a Dell Inspiron 6400, Intel C2D 1.66Ghz, 3GB ram, and an ATi X1400 256MB (but on win 7 detected as 128MB =( ).. I think it's because my lappy is a bit under powered. And VLC is not great for me coz it's still lag. But amazingly, Window Media Player got me rocking. Played the video smoothly. i will try your solutions. Thanks.