Intermitent Choppy Audio

[chargerrich]

Setup:
Windows 7
i5 quad CPU
16GB ram
Yeti Blue USB Mic
Audacity 1.3.x

When recording my podcast each week, I will occasionally very choppy and unusable audio that is extremely frustrating. I have defragged the HDD, changed USB hubs and even tried a new mic but the problem persists.

I am running a very low volume sound bed under the recording and the project file ends up with several tracks (but never more than two running at once).

Could someone please provide some possible cause/solutions/settings to possibly mitigate this issue?

Any help is very much appreciated.

[kozikowski]

Change the hubs to zero. USB microphones and other sound services will not reliably go through hubs. The only exception is a wall-powered hub used to extend a microphone cable. In that case, the microphone is the only thing on the hub.
Koz