The biggest cause I have found to cause skipping is the "Smooth Scrolling" option. Under Internet options, go to the advanced tab, and somewhere it says "Use smooth scrolling". This is enabled by default. Disable it. I think you will find that many of your skipping problems will go away, especially while surfing the web. Of course this doesn't help with skipping when you open a prog, or are doing other processor-intensive tasks. As always - do what everyone else has always said - increase your buffer and change the priority to it's highest setting - this will help too.

yes. smooth-scrolling is a major cause of many glitches, not just winamp skipping. it's quite the pain in the ass.