Laptop fan spins at max even when PC is turned off

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Deus Gladiorum

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TL;DR:
Laptop fan spins when turned off or in sleep mode at full blast all the time. Waking up from sleep mode turns off laptop. Windows installation also seems screwed. I have no idea what's going on.

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Full thing:
The title may concern my laptop fan spinning even when my laptop is off, but in reality that's just one of a ton of symptoms that are driving me insane, but I think all of these problems must somehow be related. But to start, I have an Acer Aspire V7-582PG that's a little over a year old. I installed an SSD into it this summer, and for multiple reasons I've reinstalled Windows 10 onto it more than a few times. Right now I think I have my third install of Windows 10 on this SSD.

When I close my laptop or hit the sleep mode command to put it to sleep, the fan will still occasionally hit max speed for a second and then stop. When my laptop is completely shut down -- nothing plugged into any USB, no power adapter plugged in, no power LED indicator or anything -- something similar happens and the fan will just speed up to a bit less than full blast for a bit and then shut off. That's just scratching the surface of the issues.

If my laptop is asleep and I try waking it up from sleep, whether it's by moving the mouse or hitting a key or tapping the power button, for a split second my laptop will look like it's about to wake up and all of a sudden it'll completely shut off instead and I'll have to reboot it. Then, when I try to reboot it by hitting the power button, it'll again light up for a split second and then shut off, just like when trying to wake it up from sleep. I have to try this 6 or 8 times or so before it actually turns on, and boot times are slower than they used to be when I do (granted it still only takes like 35 seconds or so to get to Windows).

Then there're the problems inside Windows 10. I can't search for any .exes whatsoever inside start. It's not a problem with my index, as I've rebuilt the search index multiple times after confirming that search is looking in the right location for my .exe shortcuts. I can't even search for certain built-in Windows applications like Snipping tool, let alone MS Word or Skype.

So what do I do? Does anyone know of these symptoms? I feel like maybe there's a driver issue with Windows too because I think I've noticed Windows 10's auto updates install driver that don't always seem to work like Intel Management Engine when I've tried reinstalling Windows. Gah, I'm going insane! All help is appreciated.
 
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It could be a problem with the Intel Management Engine Interface. Try disabling it or downgrading to an older version.

Tomas Helps

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Ok first try opening BIOS by when the laptop turns on use the BIOS key (usually F12 or Delete if not try other function keys) in bios scroll through to the power options and check what speed your fans are on (Try changing all your fans to silent/slow mode)
 

Deus Gladiorum

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Unfortunately, there's no option for that. It's an OEM laptop; very few of those have any advanced BIOS options.
 

rieverjohn

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Hi Deus, When your laptop is shut down and the charger/power supply removed does the battery charge indicator show a light?
With no power input then the battery is supplying power to the fan. Take out the battery then plug in the charger, see what happens then when you switch on. Does the fan run up and down with the charger plugged in and the laptop switched off, if this does happen then I would think there is a fault in the motherboard.
 

Deus Gladiorum

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No, the battery charge indicator doesn't show a light when the laptop is shut down and the charger is unplugged, but the issue still occurs.

I would take out the battery to test your theory, but it's a bit inconvenient since it's on the inside of the chassis and I'd have to unscrew the entire bottom just to access and disconnect the battery. However, it being Thanksgiving break I went home for a few days and left my laptop unplug but shut down. In that time, I assume the fan must have kept going and drained the battery, so when I got back yesterday I had to charge it from empty, and last night I don't recall the fan spinning when put into sleep. Additionally, it seems like a week ago or so my laptop stopped shutting down when waking from sleep, or at the very least it's done so less frequently. Though it's too early to say any of my issues are fixed, it at least seems as though my issues have been mitigated slightly. If the issue persists though, I'll go ahead and unscrew my bottom case and see if the fan runs while the charger is plugged in and the laptop shut off.

I really appreciate you responding though!
 

Screamtogofaster

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It could be a problem with the Intel Management Engine Interface. Try disabling it or downgrading to an older version.
 
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Deus Gladiorum

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Yep, that was definitely the main issue! I had thought it couldn't be, because I had disabled the Intel Management Engine (IME) much earlier after having issues with it as stated in the OP, but I wouldn't put it past Windows 10's crap automatic updates to have installed a newer version and re-enabled it on its own. Thankfully though, you were right, and simply disabling it in Device Manager seems to have resolved most of the issues entirely.

Before disabling IME in the device manager earlier tonight, I had even opened up my laptop and disconnected the main battery and replaced the CMOS battery as well, which obviously hadn't worked. But as soon as I restarted my laptop after disabling the IME, it immediately booted to Windows in what felt like nanoseconds compared to before when it took forever to boot and usually required 50 presses of the power button before that just to start it up. It seems as though the sleep problem is fixed as well. Opening it up from sleep the past couple times, it immediately resumed without issue. I also don't seem to hear any noise coming from the fan while it's in sleep mode either, but it's a bit too early to say that's been rectified since that was an issue that could disappear for days at a time before coming back.

As for the Windows Start search not working for programs, that was actually completely unrelated. It turns out that this was a registry issue which is linked to your Microsoft account, as I discovered when my desktop encountered the exact same problem after being upgraded to Windows 10 last night. The very simple registry fix was provided by the top comment left by SuperMar1o in the reddit post linked below, so many creds to him for that:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/3mergr/cant_find_start_menu_items_via_search_anymore_any/

So almost everything seems to be in working order now, thankfully, though I'll update this thread if anything else occurs. My only question now is, what should I do with regards the IME? Everything seems to be sitting pretty with it disabled, but should I try to find a previous driver or something anyway? Should I at least let Acer know that they need to figure out what's going on with this and tell Intel to update their Windows 10 IME driver? Once again though, thanks to everyone for all of the help!
 

Deus Gladiorum

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Well, bad news. At some point I uninstalled the software I think was included with IME, and the problem came right back. Every single problem but the windows search issue. I tried re-disabling IME which iirc reinstalled itself after I did that, tried system restore to right before I uninstalled the software, everything, but still for the past 2 weeks or so, nothing I've done regarding IME or rolling back drivers has fixed it and I'm going insane again. I don't know what's going on, but I want to cry. Anyone got advice or something to stop the crying?
 
Jan 29, 2019
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Hello. I'm not very technical but I really need help on the same problem. Can anyone list the steps, sort of like an idiot guide to solve this? thanks.
 
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