Sound is choppy on my XP SP3. Do I need newer Codecs?

[pattybrew]

I read through Dell Diagnostics and it recommended that I: see below

Reinstall Sound, Video and Game Controller Drivers

Click Start, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel.
Double-click System and then click the Device Manager tab.
Click the plus (+) sign next to Sound, Video and Game Controllers.
Click each entry one at a time and then click Remove, repeating the steps until the Sound, Video and Game Controllers category is removed.
Close all open windows.
Reboot the computer.
The sound card will be detected and you will be prompted to reinstall its drivers.

I have no remove button and in Actions there is no remove. All I have found is uninstall in properties and uninstall drivers. Is that what I should do? I got a popup this morning that my SoundMax Integrated Digital Audio needed driver update. also

[pattybrew]

Everything I have tried has only increased the choppy sound. It occurs only on Plug and Play Flash programs.

[pattybrew]

Please disregard the above post. It is not a Plug and Play device/program that is the problem.

[Geek-9pm]

The  issue is you continue to use Windows XP. Adobe and others limit support for Windows XP. You need to move up to Windows 7 or 10.

[BC_Programmer]

It is a Pentium 4 system; performance issues with modern software are to be expected, and there is no magic wand to be waved to make the issues go away.

[pattybrew]

Thanks Geek and BC_Programmer
I removed most of the programs running in the background and will see if that helped also I unticked the 'use hardware acceleration'  on the browsers. Then got sidetracked hunting for a fix for perser error 0x80070003. I am ready to give it up on this old girl. She is running faster since I installed Avira and scanned with Reimage. Am taking my Mac tomorrow and hope it is fixable.

[SuperDave]

The  issue is you continue to use Windows XP. Adobe and others limit support for Windows XP. You need to move up to Windows 7 or 10.

I'm still working with XP with no problems.

[patio]

Ditto...Zero issues despite all the doom and gloom garbage out there...

Heck...i still have a Win2K rig that's flawless...