Never had that happen to me before. from when i was using i5 or i7 CPU systems.
What CPU are you using on how old a pc? Built-in sound card or standalone? iTune is your player of choice? Hate iTunes as it tend to be a resource hog so i rarely use it. ITunes has a lot of various same apps running in the background that is why I hate it. If I have no need to update my old iPad 1, I always shut down anything in the background to do with iTunes. Long time back, when I only had 4 gig ram. Shutting down the iTunes makes a big impact on the way s/w works on my PC. I prefer to use VLC for all playback.
With iTunes open, it also does other things including linking up to "mothership apple".
What s/w you using to upload your photos to the cloud? Lightroom?
Internet speed?
8 gig ram is okay.
What other function or s/w is running in the background?