Stuttering MP3's

Anyone know a reason my computer would stutter when playing mp3's. It happens almost 90% of the time when im trying to listen to music and do other things on the computer. It even happens sometimes when no other programs are running. This happens in both media player and winamp. I have a 1.8ghz p4, 256mb ram, geforce 4 4600ti computer with 4 hd's and 2 cdroms (dvd and cdrw). So there should be no hardware issues. I've am running windows xp pro and it's been installed for over a year now... I know reinstalling it would most likely fix the problem but I don't want to go though all the trouble just for music since I have a lot of programs installed and configured to my personal settings.

Thanks,
-Greg

You wouldn't happen to have Total Recorder installed, would you? I had that problem with QuickTime, it would stutter if the Total Recorder driver was present (even if it wasn't being used). Removed Total Recorder and everything was fine...

DMA conflict maybe? Haven't heard syptoms like that since working on cheap PCI sound cards with few configuration options in Windows 9x.

Maybe try reinstalling your sound card drivers... or getting updated ones.

Heh.. another weird that that I just remembered. About a month ago I turned on my computer to find about 40% of my shortcuts deleted. Definatly not a virus... but I don't have a clue as to what else It could be. The sound is probobly the crappy 5.1 onboard sound on this soyo (sy-p4s) motherboard now that I think about it. Still can't think of a reason for the shortcuts being removed. (I just noticed it now as I went to open photoshop only to remember there is no shortcut in my start menu.

Oh yeah, no Total Recorder installed or anything similar.

-Greg

Its not just your program priorities is it? My laptop started playing mp3s jerky when I reinstalled the OS. When I put the player to high priority, it was fine.