Just got home from work and turned it on, it immediately started overchurning my cpu fan at full speed. CPU usage is at like 10% and it's never been this loud, ever.

I think it's from a windows update that ran during the night.

Any tips for addressing this?

And then after 5 minutes of googling and looking for answers, I've found nothing, but the fan abruptly died down. It's back to silent operation.

I'm scared.

 

This is generally the first thing that breaks in my laptops. The fans start to sound overtaxed. Then they grind and click. Then they stop altogether and your comp heats up like a mofo eventually resulting in slowdown and/or castastrophic system crashes. A cooling plate can help counteract this.

Replacing the fan is not a truly difficult fix though. Just make sure you have everything backed up then take it to Geek Squad. For most laptop models, they can crack open the casing and replace it.

 

Could be harmless. If it went silent and nothing you've done in it made it kick back up I'd be wary.

Like Oz said how are your Temps? Normal, or abnormal.

 

Normal temps. It's not a laptop. Literally only change recently was a windows 10 update

 

Has it ran loud again like it did when you became worried?

 

Nope. Just went insane the one time for about 10 minutes then stopped and has run normal since, although I haven't really used it much since then

 

If it does it again, check your running processes in task manager. A hung process can eat your cpu like nobody's business. If you see one above 20 percent, end it.