When I play any video, be it offline via VLC or any other inbuilt video player, or online in Youtube or other sites with embedded videos, sometimes the audio stops in between for a second or two and restarts again or the audio replays/repeats the last one or two seconds of itself and then continues where it should be. All this but the video plays without any issues. This issue is completely random and if I seek back the place where the distortion occurred, there is no surety of the distortion occurring again.

Now for a little background, in the last 7 years I've had two machines, a desktop first with an Intel Core 2 Duo with 4GB of RAM and a Nvidia GT 610 after a year, and now a laptop with AMD 6410 with 8GB of RAM with a R5 230 graphics card. The issue that I mentioned was present in my desktop and still persists in my laptop. And worst of all, it happens with any distribution I use. Ranging from Debian, Ubuntu, their derivatives, Arch, Manjaro, Fedora, SUSE, whatever I use it happens, but not in any Windows OSes !! I have tried singly installing a distro, dual, triple boot even, but of no avail.

How can I solve this, please help.

All I can say is the only audio stuttering I get is on one single core atom netbook with a non capable trim ssd hard drive in it.

If I move my mouse pointer. It quits. I blame mine on that ssd drive.

I don't do Windows except for when tuning motorcycles.

I had the same problem for years and never solved it. So long, in fact that I simply left a video playing constantly with the sound off as, for whatever the reason, A video player stops the skips and stalls. You may try this for now.

I was however amazed to notice my latest Linux plays music perfectly. I have been using an extremely stripped down Arch for a couple months now. 0 audio ticks and I blast Dubstep and Raggae all day long most days. Its well tested.

So, I can say for sure its not the kernel, which is what I'd come to assume after the first few years of throwing something at the desk to shake the table to move the mouse to make the music continue.

I had in fact totally given up. But, there's your answer. As you've tried Arch, try again starting with a KDE (small) desktop rather than Gnome (beautiful but huge). Install only what you must have and test your music at each step.

And if you love that Gnome style, it may not be the problem at all. I'm not a programmer and only suggest KDE out of experience. Arch and KDE are cranking here daily without a hiccup and the truth is I haven't a clue why.

Was a happy discovery for me. Hope it works for ya'.

@Barkester, I am using Mint KDE at this moment, issue still there. As per you, I have to make a completely new install of the OS but I can't afford to do that. I've a lot of things setup on it, as I need my machine for projects at my university. And also Arch is too time consuming to put my head into now. Any other solution?

i'm not so good with kde, but it could be a pulseaudio issue?
try a distro that uses "only" ALSA, or try to fiddle with pulseaudio settings (i think i've heard about similar problems, and they required some pulseaudio configuration modification).

Used to get this a long time ago, try increasing the buffer size.

'Fraid not. I stumbled on this one almost blindly building a minimalist system. I will give you what I got after years of looking myself. What I know:

Having asked on several forums the same question and read other's. Mine is the only reply to this question I've ever seen that worked....ever. Its one of those questions.

I honestly think you've no hope with Mint, tho'. stripping it down would be a nightmare. Building up ain't so bad.

Only thing you can do on Mint is the video trick. It should get ya' through 'till you can make the change.

Best 'o luck.