ACER aspire 3 fan been running constantly for two days and laptop hot - how to fix or stop it?

I have an ACER aspire 3 i5 laptop. It is about 5 years old. I mainly use it for work - word documents, excel, internet, pdfs, mind mapping softwear etc. I don't game on it. It has been running smoothly but for the last two days it has become hot and the fan is on constantly. Today when I switched it on, this started immediately.

I have 'balanced' power option, the light on screen is always dim, it happens when I my battery is plugged in (and not plugged in), drivers appear up to date, I have scanned for malwear. I have trouble shooted power, I have tried keeping my laptop fan unobstructed by a surface,. It does not have anything plugged into it's USBs. I have checked task manager and CPU is high - This occurs even when I am not using any programs. I have read this causes damage. I read here https://www.techosaurusrex.com/how-to-stop-laptop-fan-from-running-all-the-time/ about cleaning air vents with a hoover but I am a bit worried about it. I'm not sure if the fan as accumulated dust or how it might!

In terms of high CPU: the % for system interrupts is going quickly between 3% and 13%

High disk % is caused by Service Host: sysmain

I don' t know what these are though!

Further info: The only thing I can think of/see is AVG says everything is up to date but is suggesting I need to restart my computer. Normally when it has done some sort of update this updates automatically when I shut down my laptop. However, last night when shutting down it did not come up as an option. I thought by shutting down and then starting again this morning it would do the 'restart' job but AVG still has that message there. Does restart do something different to shut down/ turning back on?

I don't know what to do and I am VERY WORRIED! Please can someone help? It would be much appreciated!

[Edited the thread to add model name]

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Puraw

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/686553/laptop-fan-been-running-constantly-for-two-days-and-laptop-hot-how-to-fix-or-stop-it

Uninstall AVG and any other 3rd party AV programs. Look in Task Manager what is running and what uses resources, get rid of apps you don't need and bloatware running at the background, your i5 CPU should be near zero all the time and your total RAM in use 4GB or 50% if you run in Dual Channel mode (2x 4GB). Only use Windows Defender and Edge browser as default. Check your Startup apps in Task manager Startup tab, disable all. Finally get rid of redundant files, type Storage Sense in Search bar and run it, after scanning click on the Temp bin icon at the bottom of Storage Sense menu, it may find 100s of GB old update files like OldDos, delete everything (may take 30 minutes). Trim and defrag your drives.

Don't use compressed air or vacuum cleaners to clean PCs but a soft brush and a rubber blow ball for cleaning PCs. If still running hot you have to inspect the fan and heatsink after 5 years the fan exhaust duct/inlet heatsink will be plugged with lint and dirt. Disconnect the battery first, this video shows how to take out the fan with the heatsink attached.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-QFkkYy_F4

BenitaH

Thank you!

Will disabling all startup including things like sound, cortana and cloudpaging player or windows defender not negatively affect the laptop when I switch it on? i.e. does disabling switch them off so they won't work unless I active them some how?

when I go into task manager the CPU etc is high for system processes and Window Audio Device Graph Isolation (don' t know what that is) rather than AVG - this isn't showing CPU usage or disk.

Puraw

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1208022#Comment_1208022

Hi, if you reply, pls use quote or type @Puraw at the top or I won't see it.
What size RAM do you have: 8GB total with 4GB DDR4 in the RAM slot? if you have CPU-Z run that and copy the Memory tab and SPD tab Slot 1, CPU-Z is freeware, no need to install and you use it to upgrade RAM.

No, disabling Startup programs have no effect on the functionality, you won't see the Defender icon on the taskbar, that's all, This is how my Startup tab looks (on windows11 22H2 with "all the bells and whistles".)

Realtek works fine without startup, I don't use Cloud player or Cortana, most of us have uninstalled those years ago and it won't stop Windows from booting, it will boot faster as all those startup programs slow it down. Why do you still have AVG and Windows Defender running at the same time? As I suggested before uninstall AVG, I think that is one of your problems.
This link tells you how to disable all your audio enhancement, I don't know what you are playing on your laptop but keep in mind that Aspire 3 is a low-end system and certainly not a High Fidelty playback device.
https://www.maketecheasier.com/fix-issues-with-windows-audio-device-graph-isolation/
Best is to do all these items I recommended above then make a copy from screen in Task Manager what Processes you still have running with a copy of the Performance tap, CPU, Memory and WFI. Zip those and attach it to your reply and I will have a look at it. I get the feeling that your small system is overloaded with applications to the point of crashing: If you are a professional writer and into audio/music you really need to consider migrating to a much bigger Windows11 machine, Office365, large SSDs and plenty of fast RAM with at least Intel i7 12th gen. many good laptops that fit that are under $1,000, some have even 16" OLED screens.

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