I never had this problem with my P4 setup, but since I switched to an Abit NF7-S motherboard and AMD Barton 2500XP it seems whenever I'm playing mp3s or just about any audio is playing, when I do something that requires a litle bit of CPU usage, like opening a browser window or launching an application, my music temporarily becomes static'y. My sound card is an Audigy LS, but I have had this card for a long time in my P4 setup and never had these static problems... which leads me to think that it's not a sound card issue. Any ideas?