Laggy HD Movies

Before we start, make sure your notebook is on 'high performance' mode. Don't be trying to do heavy tasking on power saver profiles.

There should be a battery icon on the traybar right next to the clock on the bottom-right side of the screen. if you click it a window with the battery options should appear. There you can choose Power saving ot high performance. BUT i belive that if the laptop is plugged in to the wall it's like automatic "high performance setting"
Still you should try the settings. Hope this helps

You should try to acces graphic properties. right click on the desktop and you should find Graphics Properties. adjust the settings there.

Ive checked my graphics properties and adobe catalyst control panel. I dont see anything that needs to be adjusted. I dont think my computer is in any power saving mode. I have tried playing in full screen mode. Regualr videos play fine but when I try to watch HD it just lags and gets all choppy. Here are my cpu-z results: http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/3605/cpuz.jpg

Before playing the movie it was fluctuating from 997.6mhz to 1.8ghz every few seconds. Then I played the movie and under load it was the same as that screenshot. Now ive stoped the movie and it looks to be staying at around 997.6 and every once in a while it spikes up to 1828 for a little.

speedstep on laptops? =\

Im running prime 95 and cpu-z is showing it constantly at approx 1330mhz, fluctuatung only between approx 1330.0 - 1330.4. Somestimes it goes back down to 997mhz as well while prime 95 is running but most of the time its at 1330.

Ok ive posted the results in the image below. I ran prime 95 for about 20 mins and then i took these pictures showing the reults in cpu-z and coretemp. As you can see the temp fluctuates b/w 95C - 100C and the core speed stays at 1330mhz most of the time but sometimes goes back down to 997 for a second or two for some reason. Ive shown this all in the screenshot which I edited in paint.
http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/6927/cputemps.jpg

Im not really sure how to open this notebook up and take apart the fans and heatsinks. Ive never done it before so I dont really know what Im doing or where to even look for these parts.

I found out how to open the notebook and take out the fan. I've cleaned it and now the heat is not so high. When idle the cpu operates b/w 45C to 55C approx and it now can hit its proper clock speeds when it needs to. I played an hd movie again and while playing it the temp max out b/w78-80C with the clock speed hitting 1828mhz consistently. The movie plays much better than it did prior to cleaning the fan but it is still not very watchable. Its no longer choppy and super laggy but I still get a pretty poor framerate while watching it. In windows media player the sound plays smooth but fps is very low. In media player classic the fps is a bit better, but the sound becomes very choppy. Itll cut out the sound completely every few seconds and then cut back in for a few seconds repeatedly.
http://img523.imageshack.us/img523/4641/newtemp.jpg

I just played it in vlc media player and the video is playing much smoother in it than any other player ive used. It still not as smooth as it should be and it lags every little while and I see some square artifacts show up when it lags(kinda like the squares you see on streaming videos) but it is a much better frame rate than the other players. I still wouldnt call this watchable framerate wise but its not far from it. However it is in wmv format and when I open it in vlc it says "No suitable decoder module:
VLC does not support the audio or video format "wmap". Unfortunately there is no way for you to fix this." Because of this there is no audio at all while playing it.

That wasnt my idle cpu shot. The was minor usage. I was recording a radio show using adobe audition. When Idle my cpu usage fluctuates from 0 - 5%. All i have running is kaspersky, pc tools spyware and the hp software that came with the system.
http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/3728/idle.jpg

Ive shut down everything and the performance in the media player hasnt changed.

What kind of power does a system need in order to have good performance while playing hd video? What should I upgrade in my laptop to make it powerful enough, the video card or cpu? And do you know what my best options would be to do that in this laptop(ie. most powerful cpu/video card it supports)? Btw I really appreciate all the time you have put in to help me out. I wouldnt have gotten this far without you.

Sharr, your argument is really saying that raw power is the issue.

I have a T8100 @ 2.1GHz and an 8800mGTX and I can play movies fine.

I'm not really sure how GPU dependent playing HD movies are - something I'll try and find on the ole' internet. I'll post when I find something.

Windows Media Player classic is my main player and the problems i am having are with all kinds of 1080p movies. for example, i cant watch the movie trailers from apple in 1080p. the trailers are laggy. i have no problem with 480p or 720p trailers thou. it isnt a LCD problem since i have 15.4" WUXGA (1920x1200) LCD Screen.

same here, HD files. to be honest, i dont really know any other players besides the "classic" ones, windows media player 10, media player classic, vlc player, quick time. i never bothered with others because i never had any problems with the movies until the HD 1080p files came out.