Really Need Help!

When I try to open a MPEG-2 video in Windows Media Player, the screen goes dark. It doesn't go off. The back light is on, but the screen is greyed out or whatever. Nothing brings it back. This only occurs while on battery, and not all the time, just it randomly does it. The only way to get it back is to hold the power button to manually turn it off.

I capture Halo 2 gameplay with a Dazzle DVC170 and cut/save clips with Pinnacle Studio Quickstart 10. The clips I save are rendered and saved as MPEG-2. They play great, but occasionally, for some reason, the screen does what I said, and my laptop pretty much freezes up while Windows Media Player is open.

Specs:

Inspiron 6400
T7400 2.16 C2D
1 GB RAM
ATI x1400

I'm using a Normal Startup and I have the most recent BIOS Update for the 6400.

I'm not sure why it does this, but it really annoys me.

 

and this only happens when on battery and in windows media?
With that being the case I have two possible causes in mind:
1) there is a less than perfect connection between the battery and the laptop and the system is turing off video feed to the monitor to prevent damage.
2)windows media is having problems.

to see if it is the battery you would need to have a second one to test. if it is windows media then try another program like winamp.

 

Maybe I should upgrade to Windows Media Player 11?

The battery can't be the cause. The problem has just recently been appearing. I have had this laptop since November of '06

 

Any insight guys? Is there anyone else who experiences this problem with the screen?

 

I'm not sure what the WMP issue is, but, if you would like to try something different, VideoLAN is free and works quite well. I personally dislike WMP 11. I liked that you could just drag your files over to your playlist in WMP 10, but they had to !@#$ it up and make better(note sarcasm here). I can't believe the setting up the Urge music store hasn't caught the ire of the anti-trust people, but what do I know.

 

That's the thing, I'm not convinced that it is a problem with WMP 10. Could it be the x1400 driver? Or could it be just a bug that occurs sometimes?

 

If you think it is upgrade/downgrade the drivers.

 

Does anyone else have any suggestions?

 

Use Media Player Classic instead It's very lightweight and it'll let you play far more file formats than the standard WMP will let you.

 

try to change the file type to RM or RMVB, then play it with Realplayer. If it only occur while you are on battery, try to go under control panel and see if your settings are correct.

 

My settings are fine. I don't think its just MPEG-2 though. It has happend with WMV as well.

Should I try to upgrade the video card driver?