Sound drops out for split second every few minutes.....

Did a BIOS update and that has definitely helped. Still getting higher latency but not as bad. Going to try some of the other steps now.

EDIT:  Doing a search for "Windows 10 latency" yielded a lot of good results.  

Updated all drivers and disabled pretty much every piece of hardware I don't use (Wimax, Wifi, etc.).

Latency looks better in LatencyMon presently.  Fingers crossed.

You might give Fidelizer a try.
It can prioritize audio in Windows.
I use it and it seems to improve sound quality significantly.
Plus, the price is not prohibitive.
https://fidelizer-audio.com/

In fact, I would contact the designer,  

Keetakawee, and tell him what you are experiencing.

He might just know what to do.

Bob

Awesome. Thanks!

Talked Keetakawee and installed Fidelizer.  Unfortunately, it didn't work.  Also tried different USB cable. 

Instead of throwing the laptop out the window I did a clean install of Windows 8.  Maybe the laptop isn't happy with Win10.  

Still in the process of updating everything......