My songs on RealPlayer have started skipping...?

...or freezing, or taking a minute or two to play, or becoming garbled, as I work in other windows, especially if I scroll down a window or as a new site loads. I have TONS of available space on my hard disk and very limited and pedestrian programs, it does it when I work in Word, for example. And no, I don't want to switch to another player, this is supposed to work, and I'd like stuff that is supposed to work to actually work. I'm funny like that. Any help, very much appreciated!