Split second dropouts listening to audio on desktop

[Muse]

At first I thought the YouTube videos I was watching had momentary (i.e. 1/10th second) dropouts, maybe on purpose to thwart copyright infringement or some such but the same videos play OK on one of my laptops on the same LAN DSL connection.

I recorded WAV files from the videos and on my laptop they play fine but on the desktop I get occasional ~1/10th second dropouts (silence). Never had this problem before. I even get dropouts listening to MP3s on the desktop. I don't know where to start looking for a problem. Programs are closed, Task Manager shows system idle process at ~98%, i.e. nothing is taking up resources. The desktop's specs:

Gigabyte GA-K8n Pro motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (socket 754, FSB1600, E6, Venice, 90nm, L2-512KB)
BFG 6600 GTOC AGP video card
2 sticks Crucial 1GB PC3200 400MHz 184-pin DDR Memory - CT12864Z40B, 2 GB total
Corsair vx550w PSU
USR Model 2977 PCI hardware modem
Hercules GTXP soundcard PCI with breakout box
MyHD HDTV 120 HDTV PCI
MyHD HDTV 120 HDTV daughterboard

Windows XP SP3, using Winamp for audio files

:'(

Can someone suggest something? Thanks.....

 

[SithSolo1]

I would start by de-fragging the harddrive

I remember this happening to me before but I can't remember exactly how I fixed it. I may have ended up reinstalling windows.

 

[Muse]

I was wanting to do some audio editing using Audacity. I wound up installing Audacity on my Windows 7 laptop (had to use a beta version since the "official" release doesn't support Vista or Windows 7), and I did the whole thing with no problems whatsoever, AFAIK.

The HD? Well, the data is on a USB connected HD, which is brand new, almost empty, fragmentation can't be the problem. The application installations,for the most part are on the D drive, and I suppose it could be pretty fragmented. I'll check that out. Thanks.

 

[Muse]

Further experimentation leads to reduction of the problem probably to the headphone amp I've been plugging my earbuds into. The amp is fed by the breakout box of my Hercules GTXP sound card. I guess I can dispense with using the headphone amp entirely. I'm not sure why I was even using it. Maybe because I needed a female jack, but I have an adapter with male RCAs on one end and a female mini jack on the other. Problem solved, maybe, but I'm wondering what's wrong with my Airhead headphone amp. :\ Not using the headphone amp has me plugging the headphones directly into the line out from my receiver, which is rather hot for my Etymotic ER4S earbuds, but it works if I have my volume set very low in Windows. Not optimal, I suppose, but it's working. I use my earbuds almost all the time instead of my 5.1 speakers.

 

[Muse]

I just decided to retest my headphone amp and it seems to be working right now. I can only think that the AC adapter that powers the amp was having discontinuity issues with the power strip it was plugged into. Well, it's a theory, and the only idea that makes sense ATM. Anyway, I'm retiring the headphone amp for the time being since I figure I don't really need to use it for the time being.