Help - my music is chopping

[Paradigm]

I keep all my music on a 200GB external HD. It has never given me problems but lately, when I play certain songs, there is interference in the music. It sounds like...chops or blips in the songs, a sort of machine-gun repetition over the track. Sometimes it is a bit more sporadic.


I should add (even though you didn't address it) that I know it's not a speaker problem because I have the same problem with my headphones and computer speakers.

It has never happened with the songs before, and some of these mp3's I've had for years. The only problem with the option is that it's sporadic when the songs chop. For example, I posted this when one of my songs chopped, and I clicked onto a new song, which didn't chop. but it's not as if certain songs are chopping in certain places.

outside of a few poker programs i really can't figure out anything that i might have installed that could be an issue. i even uninstalled and re-installed PokerTracker (that was the only new thing that might give me issues) and nothing changed..

by the way, i can rule out the USB hard drive being an issue, since i converted a .FLAC to .mp3 and left it on my desktop and it chopped a lot, which is great, because the last thing i need is to replace my ext. hard drive. when i reboot my computer, sometimes even the WINDOWS SOUND chops.

any thoughts?

thanks!!