Hi there, there is no chance for this problem to be caused by hardware. There is some activity by s/w running in the background. Because you said that one suspect was a non legit win version, from my side I suspect that other non legit things running on your computer. So if you want to get rid of the problem IMO, the thing you have to do is simple. Leave only your system disk connected to the system, make a secure erase, make a fresh installation of a legit win OS and do not install anything except drivers from your ASUS CD. NOT even antivirus s/w. Turn off the scheduler task from administrative tools--->services and run your computer for a few days. Don't fool yourself that someone give away s/w and games for free because he is a good samaritan, the majority of them are full of viruses and malicious s/w. I bet you will not face the same problem again 😄
