High fan speed.

[nickspry]

As of yesterday, my CPU fan is suddenly having long periods of running much faster than usual at idle. (700-800 rpm) Normally the system is barely audible but now the fan suddenly ramps up a few minutes after boot, and can stay that way for a long time, maybe dropping off after say half an hour, and then ramping up again intermittently. My temperatures all seem fine and I've not altered any settings in system or bios.
I did wonder if this might be a side effect of the latest Windows 10 update a few days ago, which presumably contained a fix for the recently discovered vulnerabilities in Intel chips. I'm at a loss to explain it but it's driving me slowly crazy. Any idea's appreciated.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Did you update the motherboard firmware as well?

 

[nickspry]

Did you update the motherboard firmware as well?

Hello. No I didn't. I haven't updated anything manually. Only had the Windows 10 update.

 

[Darkbreeze]

CPU cooler heatsink is clean, no accumulated dust or dirt in there I assume?

Do you have another fan you can use on there temporarily to determine if it's the fan or controls that are causing it?

Are you using any kind of control software or utility for the CPU fan speed/profile settings?



Have you monitored the core usage to make sure that the update isn't actually causing an increased load on the CPU? My preference would be either HWinfo (NOT HWmonitor or any of the included motherboard utilities like Commander or AI suite) or Core Temp. Those will both show core loads and temps with a high degree of accuracy across a much wider array of chipsets.

It's been noted already that the Windows patches have caused problems, even semi-bricked the OS on some AMD systems, as well as really affected NVME and SSD storage access times, so it wouldn't be too surprising if there were other side effects as well. Might even want to consider a clean install if it turns out that nothing else turns up anything.

 

[nickspry]

Thanks for the reply. Strangely, in the last few hours (and several reboots later) the issue seems to have subsided, at least for now. I still have no real clue what was/is causing it, other than Windows update being a suspect.
I have Core Temp installed and all temps and loads seemed pretty low. The PC was never being stressed during all this, with nothing more than a browser running. If the problem returns I'll update, and if not I'll put it down to being one of those mystery Windows quirks I guess :/

 

[Darkbreeze]

Seems there have possibly been revised patches released as well. Any idea whether a newer revision of the patch may have been installed?

Might also be a very good idea to run some malware/virus scans as well. In many cases when something finds its way onto your system it will be very active at first and then lay low until some later date. Can't hurt to just be sure. Even the best browsing practices or occasionally emails from trusted contacts can sneak something past you or your realtime detection. Anyhow, there are rarely behaviors with hardware that happen for no reason, so I'd keep my eyes and ears open for any recurrences just in case.

 

[nickspry]

It is possible that a revised update(s) was installed though I didn't notice any on screen notification of it. Perhaps if they're applying a tiny piece of code they don't bother to inform you about it.
I will do antivirus/malware scans as you suggest and see what transpires in the next few days.
Thanks for the suggestions.

 

[Darkbreeze]

If the problem comes back we can look into it further. Good luck.