This sounds like the embedded controller is getting hung or loosing it's mind - stuff like fan control going haywire, hotkeys not working. Normally the way to temporarily cure this is to remove the AC and the battery and let the machine fully power down (as you did). I suggest when this happens again to run "dmesg > dmesg.log" and attach that to this bug report to what the kernel is reporting.
This sounds like the embedded controller is getting hung or loosing it's mind - stuff like fan control going haywire, hotkeys not working. Normally the way to temporarily cure this is to remove the AC and the battery and let the machine fully power down (as you did). I suggest when this happens again to run "dmesg > dmesg.log" and attach that to this bug report to what the kernel is reporting.