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General discussion

What is going on with my PC? Please someone help me

Dec 10, 2014 3:35PM PST

I will be saying this very short, if you don't read all you will probably tell me to clean fans or scan for malware (i've already done it many times).

1. For the past few years i've had an unidentified (many people tried) problem that caused my PC to randomly go 70-80% CPU usage at idle and the usage would stay high until i would reboot the PC or relog from the system. It was random, except for the times it happened because there was Windows update waiting to be installed.

2. After years of everyday occurence, it stopped few weeks ago, and the day it stopped was the day i've had another problem appear- everytime i left my PC idle after few hours (or so) it makes a loud choke/moan/idk NOISE and, as it was idle before- with my monitor turned off- it stops being idle as if someone touched the keyboard. Also, my internet goes off for a second- i can tell because i lost connection to Steam servers and i can see the info in the chat. It just takes 1-2 seconds and then its back to normal. Always and only when left idle. I can't describe the noise. It's like a load/breath/moan noise from inside the PC.

3. Tonight something else happened. When i was sleeping with PC on, the regular "moan" apparently turned off my PC. All the software was closed EXCEPT for Chrome that i left on and it had all the tabs opened that i left it on with. Chrome was untouched, meanwhile everything else was turned off. I checked task manager and yes, it said my PC has been only working for 4 hours, while in reality it's been on for 20+ before i went to sleep.

Can someone please tell me what's going on? Is something dying? What should i do?

Discussion is locked

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Just a note, post deleted.
Dec 11, 2014 2:53AM PST

Just to let you know, someone posted a nonsense reply with a url web link that pointed to some unknown destination.

I didn't click the link because it looked suspicious, so I deleted the post because it was possibly disruptive and/or dangerous.

MarkFlax

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Yes I will write clean or replace fans.
Dec 11, 2014 2:53AM PST

But the random 70 to 80 can be correct and normal for far too many reasons. You can sort CPU use in Task Manager for more clues. It can be hardware related or the rather hard for folk to pin down .NET background recompiling (which tends to create questions that we can answer with more research (google it.))

The fan moan on spin down is classic!

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check power settings
Dec 11, 2014 11:16AM PST

both in the OS and in the BIOS. In BIOS you want to look for WOL which is "wake on lan". That means everything that tries to communicate with your LAN can cause the computer to wakeup, whether it's "idle" or even off. Other settings there can be keyboard and mouse. So, a bump on the table can cause a sensitive mouse to wake it up. Animals. I had to pull the "power off" key from my keyboard to keep my cat from turning it off, since I just set the lock on mine and walk away, leaving on all the time since it's low power linux unit. Don't assume all are related, the fan is likely one problem, the waking another. If the computer is out of warranty, take off the side and next time the moan starts, use a paper tube like from kitchen towels roll and put in front of fans to see if the sound is directed down the tube, to be sure which one is making the noise. Or can zero in on the noise that way if coming from something else.