Not really sure whats happened

[tigerchristabel]

My laptop was working fine this morning when it came up with a message that there was a problem and it needed to restart. When it restarted it wouldn't let me log in (circle of doom for an hour) and I gave up and turned it off and then turned it on again. I tried to reload my work and it was really slow and sort of crashed (it wouldn't do anything). I tried to restart it but it spent another half hour with a restarting screen so I turned it off again. When I turned it back on the sound wasn't working and it takes ages to troubleshoot and when its finished it keeps saying the audio device isn't working (still says that when I put in headphones). Its been really slow every since and won't load anything to do with the file explorer.
Please help!!!
I've got a Toshiba satellite and its on windows 8.1

[Allan]

1) What was the EXACT error message you got this morning?

2) Do you have an anti virus app installed? If so, please run a FULL system scan.

3) Also download and run a full system scan with MalwareBytes.

If you have any problem running the scans in regular mode, see if you can run them in safe mode.

[tigerchristabel]

It said something about a fault and that it would produce a report but it hasn't said anything else (sorry I wasn't really paying attention)

[Allan]

Well, it was important and would have been very helpful to help troubleshoot - but okay.

[Allan]

If the malware scans come back okay we'll try several other steps (clean boot, ram test, hd test). BTW, when you boot to safe mode does the system run better or is it still very slow?

[tigerchristabel]

I'm really sorry - if its any help, it was green. I did a full scan with avg free and it said there was nothing but I've downloaded malwarebytes and its scanning now. Thanks

[tigerchristabel]

I haven't tried safe mode - how do you do that?

[Allan]

Reboot. As soon as the system boots begin tapping the F8 (function) key until you get to the advanced boot options screen. From there, choose "Safe Mode".

[tigerchristabel]

Thank you so much for your help, it was a problem with my antivirus programme.

[Allan]

Good to hear you've got it sorted out.