Sound Breakup/crackling problem

Gr6 & 7 I am getting severe crackling when I use GR6 or 7. Dell Inspiron PC, Win 11 w/ Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-9400 CPU @ 2.90GHz. At first I was just using standard PC speakers (USB and rear speaker jack) Used for yrs. w GR6 (7 kept shutting down unexpectedly so I eventually gave up on it but today it's been up most of the day with only one shutdown) then the speakers started crackling very severely but were OK with PC windows sounds. Adjusting ASIO 4All Buffer size didn't help. So I went and bought good quality Monitor speakers and ran them thru my KOMP Audio 6 mk2. After about 6 months the crackling started in the Monitors. I've tried everything I can think of (I'm not a PC Wiz!) and contacted Windows. They say not their fault/problem. If it were a soundcard problem, wouldn't it have been crackling all along? I'm at wits end and being 70 yrs Old I don't have a whole lotta time to mess around on this kinda ****** when I should be making sweet music!!! Since I first started with GR5 15+ years ago I've spent more time messing around than playing music.