My new Inspiron 1720 had trouble using the external USB audio interfaces I had from companies like M-Audio and Edirol that worked fine in other laptops. The audio was choppy and noisy. Working with a support tech from M-Audio I was able to determine that the problem was related to the Dell Wireless 1505 Wireless-N Mini-card in the laptop. When I disabled the wireless card in Device Manager and rebooted the problem went away. As soon as I re-enabled the card the problem would return. Dell was nice enough to send me an Intel 4965AGN Wireless-N Mini Card to swap for the Dell card. The printed Users Guide that came with my laptop (which I usually consider a throw-away) contained very clear instructions for removing and replacing the wireless card. Swapping the cards eliminated the problem.