iTunes crashing Macbook

[lnfinity]

I just reinstalled iTunes yesterday, because every time I would try to open it, the icon on my dock would be bouncing up and down but it suddenly stop after a few seconds and nothing would happen. Now, after reinstalling, it opens, but once I press the "play" button, the pinwheel comes up and it freezes my entire Macbook, making me force my Macbook to shut down. I did the latest Software Update and it still hasn't helped.

Can anyone help? Thanks!

Edit - I guess it's slowly getting better, but still has problems. I tried playing a song and it lags like crazy. It plays for a few seconds, and then pauses, and then plays again, like when you buffer a YouTube video and it doesn't load all the way. It's really slow.

 

[Detrius]

Check the system profiler to see if anything is chewing up processor time.

If not, you may have a bad hard drive. Back up any important data, if you haven't already.