Video stutters, audio garbles, wifi disconnects while streaming video

[EternalDecree]

Specs: I am running Ubuntu 12.04 64bit on a Toshiba P200D laptop, 2GB ram, 1.9 GHZ dual core cpu with ati radeon x1200 graphics card using the open-source driver.

If I stream video from youtube or similar services everything works perfectly for about 10 minutes, then suddenly the video starts stuttering very quickly, the audio seems jumbled together, and when I exit full-screen I see that my wifi is disconnected and I cannot reconnect. Sometimes suspending the system and bringing it back up will correct these issues, other times I have to shut down (this problem also seems to disable reboot) and bring the system back up.

Thank you in advance for your assistance. I do not even know how to begin thinking about this problem.

EDIT: The same problems occur during DVD playback as well.

[EternalDecree]

Bump

Sorry everyone. I still haven't been able to come up with a solution. Thanks again for your time.

[Thee]

Why don't you install the proprietary driver for your graphics card? It should work better for multimedia.

[EternalDecree]

I would love to if I could but my card is no-longer supported and the proprietary driver will not work on any releases of Ubuntu past 8.10

Is it most likely the open-source driver causing all my different problems?

[Thee]

Is it most likely the open-source driver causing all my different problems?

Well its hard to tell when you cant test it with other drivers.
Can you connect with Ethernet cable and play videos then, to make sure its not the wifi connection thats causing problems?

[EternalDecree]

I'll give it a try tonight. I'm thinking it will probably still mess up though because by the time my wifi has disconnected the video has fully loaded, so I was thinking my wifi disconnecting was a symptom, not the cause.