Ok nvm, throw the thermal paste idea out the window, after an "intensive" gaming session, the cpu throttles to 1 ghz, and is stuck at that, even after cooling down.
Fig. 1: 34570

It seems as though if the problem was fixed by reapplying the thermal paste. Apparently the Asus IT wasn't bothered enough with thermal paste, which screwed up processor management.

Yeah the fan works, I even reapplied the thermal paste. As of currently the problem hasn't arose yet. I will see if it happens again.

I have only observed this while under windows 10, not under 8.1. Note that the laptop has recently gone through rma, so they might have messed with it, as hasn't been observed before.
So after the...

What happens when you click on quick access?

I fixed it! YAY:D
I deleted the downloads folder, which removed it from the left pane, then recreated the folder and repinned it.
Voila:
22834
it works!!! :)
Thanks to Brink for your help...

nope

Nope, right clicking and pinning doesn't pin downloads to quick access or replace the broken shortcut. And this happened when I updated from 10130 to 10154, so I am not sure a system restore is...

Ok, thank you, but now the empty folder thing that can't be unpinned is back. I deleted the two keys and imported yours. Help?22830

Specifically, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\HomeFolderDesktop, and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\HomeFolderMobile
...