My laptop's audio periodically "pops"

As the title says, once an hour or so (rough estimation) my new laptop's audio just makes a popping noise which interrupts whatever is currently playing.  Audio cuts out completely, and I receive a "pop."  Some pops are shorter than others, but they're all pretty short--just, occasionally, I barely notice the blip in my normal sound, and other times it cuts out and back in completely.

This pop occurs while listening to Pandora, standalone MP3's, and while sitting on a silent desktop.  No rhyme or reason detected.

I've had the laptop for about a week now, and uninstalled/reinstalled the audio drivers, as well as muddled around with disabling/enabling the Realtek HD Audio Driver and its settings.  I've run it up through all the power modes, as well, and as far as I can tell, there's no processor interference (I checked the IRQ list for conflicts).

I want to use my laptop as my portable media/mp3 player while I'm away from home, and although this issue is only minorly annoying, I'd really like to get rid of it so I can fully enjoy my music while out and about.

While typing this, I got two pops, about four minutes apart.  I'm typing on my desktop and listening to my laptop, which has its display turned off and absolutely no other applications running beside Google Chrome logged into Pandora One.

Any suggestions?  Thanks!

-Chris

EDIT:  One more question--I just ordered a pair of SRH840's.  Should I also invest in a USB DAC?  (Would that take care of my popping problem?)  If so, I'm curious, how much of a drain on the battery is that going to be?

Quote:

Originally Posted by bcasey25raptor 

I own the Fiio E7 and it barely uses up any battery at all. I might lose at most 10 minutes. I highly recommend you get one.

 

Fantastic--just caught your response in my other thread.  That is JUST what I'm looking for.  You're awesome. :)