Media file hick-ups

[Smithers]

I have a really annoying problem. When playing anything in winamp, realplayer, or mediaplayer the computer seams to have small hick-ups every 5-10 seconds. 5 seconds after starting any media file (mp3, avi, mpeg,?.) there is a hiccup after 5 seconds, and afterwards it just seams to come on a more or less constant basis.

I?m running an Athlon 900 MHz on an Abit kt7raid, 256 mb sdram., SB live value and a geforce2, XP .

I?ve tried several things to tweak performance ? without any result?

Any suggestions?