Audio hiccups since "upgrading" my laptop to vista

[Tikker]

I'm not even really sure where to start troubleshooting this. I'm assuming it's likely the vista driver that's giving me issues, but here's the symptoms

playing any kind of media file that has audio (doesn't matter if it's just an mp3, a dvd, divx/mkv video file [altho these have mp3 audio as well usually]) results in a kind of stuttering in the audio track every 30 seconds or so

sometimes it's a bit more often, or sometimes not at all

stuttering isn't quite right, it's almost like it's briefly buffering the audio track. slight distortion, stuttering, etc etc.

I thought initially it was maybe streaming over wireless that was the issue (i WAS having issues with my new N WAP) but even playing a file that exists locally has the same issue

doesn't matter if it's played via mediacenter, windows media player, or Itunes, same result

I've got the most up to date driver for my audio chipset

it definitely never did this with XP

[Drem]

fix: don't use vista. ever

i thought you were using windows 7, anyway. does it suck ?

[Tikker]

win7 for the HTPC's and the server

(and it's very decent for that)

vista on the laptops right now. I don't really want to buy another win7 license for a laptop that'll be replaced in the not too distant future

and fwiw, other than this bit of an audio glitch, vista has been just fine