Doesn't look like this forum gets a whole lot of traffic, but hopefully someone can help me out. I just bought one of the Dell refurbished laptops, and noticed that video can lag when I try to watch things full screen. This has happened while running Milkdrop fullsize and while watching a DVD. My question is: What would most speed up the video play, a better video card or more RAM? I only have 256 of RAM, so I was guessing that I needed to put another 256 or so in? But, I wanted to make sure that it wasn't the video card before I did so. I'm not positive what the video card is; it should be whatever comes standard on the more economical Dells. Thanks for any help, Nathan
although 256mb of ram on winxp (or 2000) can be more than enough or too little depending on how you use your machine, playing dvd alone should not be problem at all. as a matter of the fact my laptop has 256mb of ram and run dvd quite well. even if i decrease it to 192mb i still have no problem (though less than 192mb starts slowing down the system). and even though i don't know what model your laptop is it's hard to believe that your graphic card is not strong enough to play dvd when your dell laptop is equiped with dvd-rom. the word "refurbished" kinda tickles my mind but my laptop is also refurbished one and have no problem with dvd except when i run it on mediaplayer9. you can try the following step first and then try using different well-known dvd decoder such as powerdvd6. first, do the following: start->help and support->click "fixing a problem"->click "games, sounds, and video problems->click"dvd troubleshooter" and then pick the subject you want and follow the instruction. i'm sure this won't normally solve your problems but at least give it a try. if the first step didn't help, you can download and play dvd on powerdvd6 to see if it's the software compatibility issue. if it doesn't solve your problem come back again.