Tasks remaining in manager

Last January my PC CPU fan began racing unpredictably. I removed it and re-applied heatsink compound. It's running much better now, usually staying in the 50s, and when programs occasionally demand more of the CPU, the temperature will rise to the 70s, maybe 80.

I noticed, though, that after using MS Word and printing, and closing MS Word, the MS Word and printer driver tasks remained in the task manager, and the fan would race again with the temperature approaching the maximum in the 90s. When I removed those two tasks, the temperature immediately subsided to the 50s and 60s.

Could there be a connection here between the Word and printer driver tasks remaining and the racing fan? A connection between the racing fan and the remaining tasks didn't occur to me until now.

I would also suggest you run a full system scan with something like the Free Malwarebytes. you may have picked up something nasty that is hiding behind the WinWord.exe file

Thanks, all, for the suggestions. I did an Office repair. I also use MalwareBytes and MSE, and, occasionally, TDSSkiller. All show no abnormalities. This is tricky because sometimes the Winword and print driver tasks aren't there--sometimes, more times than not, though, they remain. So we'll see what happens.

Could there be a relationship between the tasks when they remain and the racing fan?

The fan "Racing" would suggest a temperature rise, this may be due to high processor usage, this excessive processor use may be due to the Winword and Printer processes.

Next time (if) it happens make a note of the actual processor use, especially that by the suspect processes. If there is no untoward processor use then it is possible It may be a fault in the fan or controller .

Next time (if) it happens make a note of the actual processor use, especially that by the suspect processes. If there is no untoward processor use then it is possible It may be a fault in the fan or controller .

Thanks, Barman 58. Do you mean overall percent of CPU usage, or can I break that down into percent of CPU use by task?

If you open the task manager and check the processes tab You can check the actual CPU usage of the individual processes concerned, though it would probably show as quite a spike, on the overall usage, if it's causing the fans to race

I would suggest taking care of your over heating problem first. No mater what programs you do or do not run the temps should not be in the 90c arena.
What cpu cooler are you using and what method do you monitor your temps?

What cpu cooler are you using and what method do you monitor your temps?

I use RealTemp.

When I was having some serious fan-racing problems in January, I took the heat sink apart, cleaned the dried compound from the heat sink and the CPU, and replaced it. Unfortunately, I used the cheaper silicone-based compound. I have since purchased ArctiClean and Arctic Silver 5 thermal compound, and I will soon do that process again. I'm guessing that the better-quality compound will improve things greatly. I'll get to this in a few days.