AcPowerNotification.exe Virus (Coin Miner Trojan) Removal

AcPowerNotification.exe process comes from a malevolent program that can correctly be recognized as a coin miner trojan virus. That malware form uses your hardware to mine cryptocurrencies, generally – Monero or DarkCoin1. It makes your system pretty much unfunctional due to high CPU usage.

What is Acpowernotification.exe process?

Acpowernotification.exe is a malicious process created by coin miner virus
Acpowernotification.exe Windows Process

Acpowernotification.exe – Very high CPU as well as GPU use

Besides CPU utilization, some of the coin miners also use GPU power for their tasks. In that instance, you will probably struggle even to see the mouse arrow moving – GPU is often used on 100%. It is not as critical as CPU for system work, so Acpowernotification.exe coin miner viruses don’t waste time on trifles and use all of it. It often can lead to unhappy results.

Shortly about cryptocurrency mining

List of the typical coin miner symptoms

  • Extremely bad performance
  • CPU/GPU cooler fan creates a lot of noise
  • High temperature of the device (for laptops)
  • 80-90% consumption of CPU/GPU resources by an unknown process
  • Microsoft Defender is not working
  • How dangerous is the Acpowernotification.exe miner?

    Coin miners does not deal damage to your files. However, they make a lot of unpleasant things with the whole system

    First of all, Acpowernotification.exe malware makes your system overloaded. It is not able to run your applications anymore, since all CPU power is consumed by a malware. That malware does not care for your necessities, all it pays attention to is generating profits on you. Even if you are patient, and you waited until web browser is open, you will likely struggle with incredibly sluggish efficiency. Pages will open for years, any type of logins will take about a minute – just a horror story for a person who works online.

    Acpowernotification.exe Technical Summary.

    File Name Acpowernotification.exe
    Type Trojan Coin Miner
    Detection Name Trojan:Win32/CoinMiner
    Distribution Method Software bundling, Intrusive advertisement, redirects to shady sites etc.
    Similar behavior Aackingstondramhal_x64.exe, Ezupdt.exe, Dipawaymode.exe
    Removal Download and install GridinSoft Anti-Malware for automatic Acpowernotification.exe removal.

    “Visible” harm is not a solitary negative activity coin miners perform to your system. Acpowernotification.exe coin miner additionally deals damage to your OS. To conduct all malicious operations successfully, it wrecks the security mechanisms of your system. You will likely see your Microsoft Defender disabled – malware stops it to prevent recognition. If you open the HOSTS file, you will likely see a ton of new entries – they are brought in by this coin miner to connect your system to a malicious cryptomining network. All these adjustments are about to be gone back to the initial state in the process of system recovery.

    Hardware effects of coin miner activity

    Besides decreasing your computer’s performance, running at peak level for long times may cause damage to your device and increase power expenses. Hardware elements are designed to easily get along with high load, but they are good with it only in case when they are in a good shape.

    Small and well-protected CPU fan is hard to broke. Meanwhile, graphic cards have large and easy-to-access rotors, which can be easily cracked if affected while running, for example, by the user much earlier before the coin-miner injection. Malfunctioning cooling system, together with the really high load caused by Acpowernotification.exe malware can easily lead to graphic processing unit failure3. GPUs are also tend to have increased wearing when utilized for cryptocurrency mining. It is surely a bad situation when the performance of your GPU plunges 20-30% just after several weeks of being exploited in such a way.

    How did I get Acpowernotification.exe coin miner virus?

    Coin miners are spread through different ways, but their main sources are malicious banners and programs from dubious sources
    Unwanted banners adware

    The example of malicious banners you can see in the Internet

    Another way you could get this item on your computer is by downloading it from the dubious web page as a part of a program. People who spread hacked versions of well-known programs (which do not demand the license key) have small chances to get paid. For this reason, there is a huge lure to add malware to the final package of the hacked application and receive a coin for every installation. Before blaming these people for hacking and also malware spreading, ask yourself – is it OK to avoid buying the program in this manner? It is more affordable to pay $20-$30 one time than to pay a much bigger figure for antivirus program and new parts for your desktop.

    How to remove the Acpowernotification.exe miner from my PC?

    The best way to get rid of this coin miner virus is to use anti-malware software

    Booting the PC into Safe Mode with Networking

    Press the Start button, then choose Power, and click on Reboot while holding the Shift key on the keyboard.

    Boot into Windows Safe Mode

    Windows will reboot into recovery mode. In that mode, choose Troubleshoot→ Startup Settings→ Safe Mode with Networking. Press the corresponding button on your keyboard to choose that option.

    windows safe mode boot option with command prompt

    When your PC is in Safe Mode, all third-party applications, along with the majority of non-critical operating system components, are not started with the system start. That allows you to clean the computer without dealing with high processor usage of the coin miner.

    References

    1. Read about why Monero and DarkCoin are so popular amongst cybercriminals.
    2. About unwanted effects for GPUs in the process of cryptomining.

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    About the author

    Robert Bailey

    Security engineer focused on malware behavior, removal workflows, and Windows hardening. Robert reviews threat articles for practical accuracy, checking detection names, symptoms, and cleanup steps before publication.

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