Audio crackles then disappears completely

That didn't work either. I was starting to think it was a GPU issue or that my sound card was going out, but after a few days researching, I came across this page:

PERMANENTLY RESOLVE HP SPEAKER COMPRESSION (HISSING, CRACKLING DISTORTION WHEN PLAYING VIDEO, MUSIC, ETC)

The problem is caused by Bang and Olufsen audio correction compression - you need to change the driver from Realtek,
to the normal high definition device driver. This affects a lot of HP models with B&O sound. The first part disables the
Realtek driver - the second deletes it permanently.

It's simple and takes 2-3 minutes.

CLICK START - GO TO DEVICE MANAGER
IN THE LIST CLICK 'SOUND VIDEO AND GAME CONTROLERS'
RIGHT CLICK 'REALTEK HIGH DEFINITION AUDIO DEVICE' - CHOOSE DISABLE - IGNORE WARNING AND CONTINUE
RIGHT CLICK SAME FILE CHOOSE 'UPDATE DRIVER SOFTWARE' THEN 'BROWSE COMPUTER FOR DEVICE SOFTWARE'
CHOOSE 'LET ME PICK FROM A LIST OF DEVICE DRIVERS ON MY COMPUTER'
HIGHLIGHT 'HIGH DEFINITION AUDIO' (NOT REALTEK) CLICK 'NEXT' AGAIN IGNORE WARNING AND CLICK 'YES' -
RESTART / REBOOT WHEN PROMPTED

PLAY A FILE - YOU NOW HAVE NORMAL LAPTOP SOUND!

***IMPORTANT - THE DRIVER WILL REVERT TO REALTEK THE NEXT TIME YOU REBOOT, UNLESS YOU DO THE SECOND PART BELOW)***

AFTER REBOOT (TO **PERMANENTLY GET RID OF THE PROBLEM**)

CLICK START - GO TO THE CONTROL PANEL - 'UNINSTALL A PROGRAM'
HIGHLIGHT REALTEK HIGH DEFINITION AUDIO DEVICE AND UNINSTALL

IT'S AN IDEA TO CREATE A RESTORE POINT BEFORE ATTEMPTING THIS IN CASE YOU MAKE A MISTAKE - IF YOU HAVE AN EARLIER
RESTORE POINT YOU CAN SIMPLY ROLL BACK TO THAT. IT IS SIMPLE THOUGH IF YOU FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS. MAKE SURE YOU WANT
TO PERMANENTLY GET RID OF B&O BEFORE UNINSTALLING.

It seems to have fixed my problem! I've been playing for nearly an hour and haven't run into the audio problem yet. I'm going to tentatively say that this resolved my issue. 

Thank you for helping to troubleshoot Holger1405! I really appreciate it!