real player

has anyone had this issue? I used real audio 8 as long as i could cause it worked for me but i wanted to look at some booktv on cspan and it only supported realplayer10 so i downloaded it. It streams for about 1min 23 seconds and then the connection times out. It does it on different stations not just one on just audio and also video (w audio) i have all the other players and it doesnt happen with them, i removed and reinstalled same thing...i even downloaded real alternative from this site and the same thing...so that tells me its something between my comp (dell c6000 laptop about 5 gigs of room) and maybe the .rm or ram format? Any leads on where i should start?
thanks