My Laptop is suddenly running very slowly, and the audio is very crackly or broken. HELP ME.

[nmeadows]

I use a Toshiba Kira Laptop. I've had it since the start of this year and I haven't had a problem with it. I turned it on this afternoon and it suddenly started to run very slow. Turning it on again takes an extra minute and whenever audio is used it is very broken and crackly. The fan is also incredibly loud. Can anyone help me?

A few minutes after submitting this, my laptop's fan wasn't as loud as a jet engine and it wasn't running slow again. I left it to do a virus scan when I came back to check on it and it was slow again and the fan was loud again...

 

[GreyCatz]

Greetings, nmeadows:

I shall assume the following:
a) Your Toshiba is a 13" Kirabook still under warranty,
b) You're running Windows 8.1,
c) You have no viruses on the system.

OK, let's see. Your laptop is basically in working order, but it's slow and it emits loud intermittent fan noise.

Re a): I suggest you make good use of your warranty service - you've already paid for it. Contact tech support either on the phone or online and put the Toshiba people to work. If you start fiddling with either hardware or software, you may void your warranty, so keep that option as a last resort.

Re b): Have you ever done a File History run in Windows? Or made a back-up? If yes, now's the time to use that back-up. If no, you should do a back-up all the same. Your system should still be able to do this despite the slowness, and that way at least you'll keep your important files in case you need to do a factory restore later on.

Re c): If you have no viruses, go to Toshiba's support page and download all drivers pertaining to your machine and OS. If you're lucky, your problem may be down to some disruption during a large Windows Update run. Re-install the audio drivers and run whatever diagnostics app your Toshiba came with.

Best of luck,
GreyCatz.