Snap, Crackle & Pop! Help with Sound Quality

I just bought the VCI-100SE - and an Audio 2 DJ. Before that I had the M-Audio Torq Xponent. I never had problems with Sound quality before really, but right now I'm getting lots of little crackles and distortions in the sound. Very annoying.

I've checked all the connections, wiggled them all over to see if its a connection that is causing the problem, but its not. It just seems the thing is struggling itself. Noises are fairly random.

PC: Dell 5000, P4 3.2, 3GB Ram, Win XP - any suggestions as to what might cause it?

raise your latency and see if they the sound defects go away.

Turn off wireless, and unplug any usb devices you don't need.