Problem with Video Playback...

Hi,
I bought a Dell Studio 1558 on June 7, 2010 through Dell's website.
The specs are:
Intel Core i5 430
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
4GB RAM
500GB HDD 7200rpm
15.6 Full HD Screen
1GB Ati Mobility Radeon HD 5470
Backlit Keyboard
9-Cell battery......etc

I'm experiencing choppy video playback since the beginning. What i mean by choppy video playback is: once i start playing a movie, be it a HD one or a normal one, irrespective of the video format; i start experiencing chopping of video ( the video doesn't jump to a forward location but freezes for some 2-3 seconds and starts from where it started to froze). This phenomena, though its not continuous, starts with an interval of some 1-2 minutes in the beginning. When the playback proceeds, the interval keeps on decreasing till say every 15 seconds, when i just stop playing the video out of frustration. Actually, there is no problem with the audio playback. This phenomena happens irrespective of the media player used and the file format.
I'm not a fan of codec packs; so, i usually play the videos on VLC media player. I use MediaMonkey or Windows media player for the playback of audio files. There is no problem with audio playback though.

Logically tackling the problem, i started off downloading the latest version of Display Driver from ATI website. The driver on my Dell Studio 1558 is of January 2010 make. The Dell Support website still has't come out with any new driver for HD 5470. I tried installing the Driver available on ATI website. What i found was astonishing. The audio in a video file played but not the video. The screen was always blank but i could hear the audio. I uninstalled the driver and installed the Video driver provided in the Dell Driver disk. Once again the choppy playback started occurring.
Thinking it can be a problem with the latest Windows 7 updates that i keep on installing; i restored the laptop to factory condition using the Rescue Disk. The problem still existed. Now, i tried not updating the windows. but, the problem still existed. I went for a Factory Restore once again and updated the windows to the current updates and installed VLC. Still, the problem exists!!!
Besides, there is one more funny problem. I have a 15 month subscription of McAfee Total Security. In case i restore the computer to a previous restore point, the McAfee service including the real-time scan, firewall etc stops working. Only when i go for the Factory Restore, do they start working again!!
I wasn't able to install McAfee from the disk provided by Dell. It just mentioned 'the setup was unable to install McAfee on your computer'!!

Anyways, my main problem is the video playback. I bought this laptop with Full HD screen just for the sake of watching HD videos. Now, that objective is not being achieved!! I dunno if the problem is with the Video Card Hardware or Driver or with the Windows 7 OS itself or its updates!!
Please help......

Btw...i do have the one year Dell warranty and the Complete cover protection valid until June 2011.

 

Have you tried just reinstalling the OS from scratch? I think that'd be a good place to start...

 

Is this happening from a DVD/Bluray? Where is the video file coming from?

I have the same system, but with the i3 instead of the i5. I got the newest drivers from ATI when I received my laptop and ONLY had that problem when streaming over the internet from ctv.ca and some other sites. Youtube worked fine, even their HD videos. Plugged in to the network directly the problem went away for the problem sites.

DVD playback is also fine.

Do you have a lot of stuff running in the background? What's your pagefile size? <-- (Press ctrl+shift+escape, click on the performance tab, look in the bottom left corner and read the "Paged" memory size.)

 

maybe caused by harddisk,try any other storage media(dvd,usb disk,nas...),if u got same problem,reinstall os