From reading this whole thread, to me (quite the layman, but knowledgable enough to be dangerous), it seems like:

1) Your DVD drive is breaking down.

2) Neither of your computers have the graphics capability to run newer games (hence BF1942 runs well - great game BTW). Before I built my new rig, about the best I could do is play WoW (world of warcraft) at medium settings (AMD 2600+, 2 Gig RAM, nVidia 6600OC video card).

At the same time I was running that rig, a friend (VERY computer illiterate) bought a decent rig from Best Buy. The only problem was that it had integrated graphics on the motherboard. Now her rig was better than mine (minus the graphics card), but WOULD NOT run WoW because the CPU was divided between processing the program AND the graphics. I took her out to buy a video card (from BB - same as mine, but by this point only cost $90), intalled it, and it ran WoW like a dream. Now...that was her desktop PC.

As far as laptops go, I'm at a loss. Can you upgrade with a better graphics card? I know laptops are limited when it comes to graphics cards, but are they upgradable? That might be your best bet.

A very few laptops are upgradeable in graphics. 99% use integrated chips.

New graphics cards are almost as big as new laptops.

Laptops are not a high end gaming platform.

*sigh* I guess that's all she wrote then.