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

@gdnrbob - It occurred with local files also so I don't think it was network related.  

After the Win8 clean install, the problem stopped.  I still had high latency but no more dropouts.  I'm thinking that the old laptop just wasn't happy with Win10 (likely some I/O driver issue).  

I think I solved the problem: I bought a new laptop.  :-)  
Should have it in a few weeks.  

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone!

@OP, 
Yes, Win 10 can cause havoc on older PC/laptops. 
If I remember correctly, there was a local network issue that took almost a year to be corrected.
In any case, good luck with your new laptop.
B

Sounds like you've fixed your problems by going back to Win 8, but one more observation. I have Win 10 on a desktop which I occasionally use for recording and mixing with an older version of the Adobe Audition program. While the program ran fine on prior computers, it suffered some drop-outs and interruptions on the new PC with Win 10. The problem was fixed by going into settings and changing the priority to its highest level for Audition. Most programs don't really care if there is the odd pause here and there in  CPU processing as its tries to balance the various operating demands, but that doesn't work well for audio. Changing the priority settings fixed that for me.