Sound distorts or crackles in 8.1

So, a few days ago I installed Windows 8.1 on my old Toshiba laptop after couple of years of running 7 with no problems. Today while listening to music I noticed that the sound was distorting or crackling at certain times, now a week ago the headphone jack of the computer stopped working but the harman/kardon speakers still worked perfectly. I don't remember having this problem prior to installing 8.1.
I do have the latest drivers installed and I've tried several possible solutions Google had to offer.

Any ideas?

I also have this problem, but i figured some of the problem: there is a service called device association service which takes a very great slice of the cpu while active, but only for a few seconds at interval of 20-30s. The problem with this service is that it cannot be stopped. Each time I try to disable it or puting it in manual, it always switches back to automatic...

icecold94 said:

I also have this problem, but i figured some of the problem: there is a service called device association service which takes a very great slice of the cpu while active, but only for a few seconds at interval of 20-30s. The problem with this service is that it cannot be stopped. Each time I try to disable it or puting it in manual, it always switches back to automatic...

Click to expand...

seems to be for bluetooth pairing, are you able to stop it if you have your bluetooth disabled? Windows 8 Services - TechNet Articles - United States (English) - TechNet Wiki

check that your not running in powersave mode. Generally manufactures ship laptops with a custom powersaver mode which underclocks the CPU to a state where it cannot really multi task (this happens with my ASUS zenbook, it underclocks to around 1.3Ghz and the sound distorts when watching movies).

Solution is to switch to high performance mode.