Dropped frames on playback doesn't replicate in a new user account

I have been using FCP 4.5 for some time without any problems. Recently I have not been able to play clips in the Timeline without an immediate error message of dropped frames during playback. If I double-click the clip it will play in the Viewer perfectly. This will happen even if the only sequence open contains a single audio track.
I tried the same thing in a new user account and everything worked as it should, so the problem appears to be a conflict confined to my original account. I've tried moving prefs files for FCP and Quicktime but no joy. All source material is on a separate internal drive to the OS & project files.
Any ideas?
Ivan
PowerMac G4 Sawtooth 400MHz   Mac OS X (10.4.8)   120 & 250GB HDD 640MB RAM

It seems that I did not remove all the necessary prefs files - I have done so now and all is well, thanks to Ken Stone. He has a thorough description of exactly what to trash here:
http://www.kenstone.net/fcphomepage/trashing_fcpprefs.html
cheers,
Ivan

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