stuttering sound

[jamoor]

i have a dell dimension something or other that cost me next to nothing,
it has a p4 processor, 80 gig hdd and onboard sound, 512 ram

this has driven me nuts, the sound randomly stutters/goes off completely when playing a DVD or divx off an external usb hard drive, sometimes the video even stutters sometimes and the pc comes to a grinding halt,

I got so annoyed I reinstalled windows which didnt do the job!!

Any ideas?

 

[jamoor]

3ghz,
its dvds also and windows error sounds.

 

[jamoor]

yep all drivers are the latest ones!