having a little problem with soundfonts

i just reprogrammed my machine after i had a HD crash last week. i was running windows XP, but i decided to use 98..its just more simple to me.
anyway the problem is when i run my sounfont in fruity loops to record into cool edit, i keeps distorting and popping..like it doesnt have enough memory. it works, it just has these anoying pops once in a while in my backing tracks. [img]images/smilies/mad1.gif[/img]
i am running 348MB of sdram. now i never had this problem at all with XP.never. could this have something to do with windows 98? i dont see how.. [img]images/smilies/icon_confused.gif[/img]should i just change back to XP?