Sound/crackling problems

Hello, I'm having a problem with my flash player. I've tested non-flashplayer related things (VLC/Video games) and they don't have the problem, so it's flash for sure. My flash player crackles and makes this annoying static sound, especially if I'm loading something else and it won't go away for a few minutes (assuming I never load anything during that time). Sometimes I don't even load anything and it just starts up. Most of the time the crackling sound is playing and the audio is hard to hear.

My OS is Windows XP 32-bit (Old -- I know) and my browser is Google Chrome, but I believe it happens on Firefox aswell. The issue started happening randomly about a couple weeks ago and I have no idea what caused it. I will post any further information if requested, I really want to fix this issue! Thank you!