Lenovo T500: Windows Media Player Flickers?

I'm running a Lenovo Thinkpad, T500 - I've had my T500 for close to a year, now, and it's been pretty good to me up until recently:

For a week or two, it attempted to randomly shut itself down in the middle of running processes, an issue that hasn't come up for a while, though I'm not entirely sure how I fixed it - if I fixed it at all

But more recently, I've noticed that if I watch something in windows media player, minimizing / maximizing WMP causes the entire screen to flicker.

Flicker, as in, the entire screen goes black for a couple seconds, and then I can see again. The odd thing about this is that it only happens when the video is actually playing - if I have the video paused, the screen will not flicker.

It's not a major problem, and it's something I can ignore - but it makes me wonder if there's anything else with my laptop that's going to decide it wants to work as well.

Any ideas, guys?

Auvic

Update: I download the DivX player, and it happens on that player as well.

When I open the video, the screen goes black, then partially comes back, then goes black again, then comes back for half a second, then goes black again - it happens 3-4 times every time I open a video file.

This also happens whenever I minimize/un-minimize the video whenever it's playing.

Bah. Any ideas at all?