Video playback stops, VLC and Linux Mint Cinnamon.

I am running Linux Mint 17.3 with Cinnamon and xfce4 desktops on a Dell Inspiron 1525. I am having a strange video problem. From a fresh start, I use the xfce4 desktop and everything runs normally. I use VLC to test a video and it plays normally. The problem pops up after the system has been running for a while. I go back to VLC and I get sound but no video. Videos play fine in my web browsers at all times. This problem is also linked to the Cinnamon desktop. From a fresh start, Cinnamon runs fine. If I start in xfce4 and VLC works, I can switch to the Cinnamon desktop no problem. However, if I am using xfce4 and VLC stops working correctly and I switch to Cinnamon, it crashes. This seem like a video problem of some sort underlying these two symptoms.