Streaming Video Problem

I have two systems (specs appended below). On the supposedly weaker system
(Dell Inspiron 600m laptop), streaming works just fine, even at 700k. On
the supposedly more powerful system (HP Multimedia PC) streaming even at
400k is subject to pauses and jerkiness. This is on the same network, with
the same streaming source (icenetwork.com). I have even run both
simultaneously (to eliminate possible differences in the server network
quality at different times) and the laptop still performs better than the
multimedia pc.

Can anybody suggest why the weaker system performs better? And how I could
get the Multimedia PC to live up to it's potential?

TIA,

-Richard M. Hartman

186,000 mi/sec: not just a good idea, it's the LAW!


--- system specs ---

Dell Inspiron 600M
1.6 GHz Intel Pentium M
589 MHz, 512 MB RAM
Windows XP Professional version 2002 SP 2
768 MB Paging File

HP Pavilion Media Center PC
2.61 GHz AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 5200+
960 MB RAM
Windows XP Media Center Edition
version 2002 SP 2
1440 MB Paging File