Hi all-

A month or two ago (I've ignored this problem for a while) my computer started having difficulty playing video. When I play video, whether online or offline in the Divx player or Windows Media Player, it starts normally. After a few seconds, however, my CPU usage spikes to 99% or 100% (from a normal 20-25%), even with nothing else running. The audio (usually) continues playing normally, but the progress bar stops moving and the video begins to pause or slow down. After a few minutes the video skips forward to catch up with the audio, but the problem repeats itself soon thereafter.

My computer is a 2 year old Acer Aspire 5102WLMi, with an AMD Turion 64 x2 processor (1.6 GHz), an ATI Radeon Xpress 1100 videocard, and 1 GB of DDR2. I've made no recent changes to the system. The problem occurs with all types or lengths of video from all sources.

I appreciate any help you guys can offer! Thanks in advance!

Oh, and I'm using XP. I should have mentioned that.