Black Screen Glitch with Various Media

[JaceySquires]

I'm running Windows XP on an IBM T42 Thinkpad, and I've been irritated by something that randomly began occurring a few months ago.

Whenever I load some form of movie format on either REALPLAYER or WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER, the monitor blacks out for a moment, may flicker back on and then to black again, for about three seconds until the video has loaded.

I do not know if this is some sort of resolution setting I accidently enabled or if I have codec conflicts. Please let me know what y'all think I can do to figure out the cause of this.

[Stryker]

Hi JaceySquires, and Welcome to PC Mech!!

It sounds like it might be a video driver issue as it's spread across a couple of different players (i.e. WMP and Real Player). Are all of your drivers installed and updated current for your video card/onboard video (whichever you use)?

Give us a little more info (mobo, video card, other system specs) if you have them. It may assist in solving the problem.
• Edit: just re-read and saw that it's a IBM T42 Thinkpad (i.e. a Laptop) so I would assume that it's stock from the manufacturer. Sorry about that, but still check your drivers.

Thanks,
Stryker

[JaceySquires]

Yup, I have it with the standard specs, nothing more or less.

Here's the graphics card I use:
64MB ATI Radeon 9600

Here are all of the other system specs:
14.1 SXGA+(1400x1050) TFT LCD, Pentium M 735, 512MB RAM, 80GB 5400rpm HDD, CD-RW/DVD-R Multi-Burner(slim), Intel 802.11b/g wireless(MPCI), Modem(CDC), 1Gb Ethernet(LOM), UltraNav, Secure Chip, 6 cell Li-Ion battery, WinXP Pro

I updated all of my drivers within the first week of having my computer and haven't updated anything I haven't been prompted for.

[JaceySquires]

I'm running Windows XP on an IBM T42 Thinkpad, and I've been irritated by a recurring glitch whenever I load movie files with realplayer or wmp (doesn't seem to occur with quicktime).

Here's what happens:
I load some form of movie format, the monitor blacks out for a moment, may flicker back on and then to black again, for about three seconds until the video has loaded. This doesn't occur EVERY time I load a media file, but I haven't noticed a correlation between what else I'm doing at the time and when this occurs.

Someone mentioned something to me about making sure I've updated my drivers, and to give my system specs on this forum as well.

Again, I have an IBM T42 Thinkpad, and all of my parts are stock parts.

The graphics card I use:
ATI Radeon 9600

Here are all of the other system specs:
14.1 SXGA+(1400x1050) TFT LCD, Pentium M 735, 512MB RAM, 80GB 5400rpm HDD, CD-RW/DVD-R Multi-Burner(slim), Intel 802.11b/g wireless(MPCI), Modem(CDC), 1Gb Ethernet(LOM), UltraNav, Secure Chip, 6 cell Li-Ion battery, WinXP Pro

PLEASE give me any of your ideas on how I can get rid of this annoying "FLICKERING BLACK" phenomenon.