[SOLVED] Cursed Computer - Chromium Status_Access_Violation and More

[cmir93]

I'm beginning to believe my PC is cursed.
My PC is experiencing a quite peculiar problem for over a year now. When using chromium based applications I experience errors. For example, 7/10 times I load a page on a chromium based browser (Chrome, Edge, etc.) I receive an Aw Snap! error with a sub-explanation of "STATUS_ACCESS_VIOLATION". Refreshing a few times solves it but the page can crash at any second. I also see strange colored translucent blobs on the screen when I watch videos on these browsers (here). These blobs can be seen by others if I stream my screen to them through the internet. Discord (another chromium based application) fails to open about half the time that I try to open it. In order to reset my chances of opening Discord, I have to open the Task Manager and end the Discord tasks. The League of Legends (video game) Client is also chromium based. If I attempt to open my "Loot" tab, I briefly see the Loot page with some of those same aforementioned blobs for half a second before the Client crashes and reopens rapidly about 5-7 times over the course of a few seconds (blobs seen here and also here). This crash also happens when attempting to edit my Rune Pages and sometimes during Champion Select. If I alt-tab during the loading screen for the game, my GPU driver crashes and I have to restart. Also, sometimes after the match is complete, and I return to my desktop, my Discord window is just black. I can still actively talk and listen to people in the audio call, but I cannot interact with the application and have to end the task in Task Manager.

Things I have tried:

• Software
  • Uninstalled and reinstalled the effected programs. Used a cleaning tool to remove all traces of the programs.
  • Uninstalled and reinstalled on another drive.
  • Uninstalled and reinstalled Windows 10 via USB. (multiple times)
  • Checked drivers for GPUs and Mobo.
  • Updated BIOS for Mobo.
• Hardware
  • Mobo
    • Completely replaced Mobo.
  • GPUs
    • Enabled Intel Integrated Graphics in BIOS. Plugged monitor into IO panel on Mobo. Disabled GPUs in Device Manager.
    • Ran Mem check on GPU VRAM.
    • Updated Firmware of GPUs.
    • Used an application that wipes all remaining bits of GPU driver, and reinstalled new driver.
  • RAM
    • Series of Mem checks. Both software and via Mobo Mem check button.
    • Swapped the 4 sticks around in every possible combination.
    • Ran 1 stick at a time.
  • Drives
    • Formatted my secondary solid state drive (used for video games). Turned off PC. Unplugged OS Drive. Replaced with formatted secondary drive. Rebooted and reinstalled Windows 10 on the secondary drive with the primary drive unplugged.
  • Cables
    • Replaced SATA cables.
    • Replaced SLI bridge.

My Computer Specs:

• Intel i7 6700K
• ASUS z170 Deluxe
• 2x EVGA GTX 980Ti Classified
• 4x Crucial Ballistix Sport DDR4 8Gb 2666 MHz
• Crucial 250 Gb 2.5 Inch Solid State Drive
• Crucial 1 Tb 2.5 Inch Solid State Drive
• EVGA 1300W G2 80 Plus Gold PSU

Where to go from here:
I hope this is a software issue because the only thing that I have not replaced/tested was the CPU. I have run 3DMark benchmarks on the GPUs and CPUs to induce errors but nothing went wrong. I don't think it's the PSU either, doesn't sound like a power related error.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Half of the reason I'm posting in this length is that I hope we can solve this and leave this post here for others in the future.

 

[Ralston18]

What site(s) are you using to download League of Legends? And Discord?

This:

"I also see strange colored translucent blobs on the screen when I watch videos on these browsers. "

Are you able to do a screen capture of the blobs?

If so, do so and post here via imgur.

 

[cmir93]

What site(s) are you using to download League of Legends? And Discord?

This:

"I also see strange colored translucent blobs on the screen when I watch videos on these browsers. "

Are you able to do a screen capture of the blobs?

If so, do so and post here via imgur.

Hey, thank you for suggesting that I uploaded images as well. I have added them into the original post as hyperlinks when the blobs are mentioned. I have added 3 screenshots. Two from the League of Legends client and one from a Youtube video. The browser video blobs are harder to recreate but when they happen, they really flare up. The blobs are not stationary and change shape.

I obtain all my software from the host sites. discord.com and na.leagueoflegends.com .

Thanks for reading!

 

[cmir93]

I fixed it! As shown above, I've tested nearly everything except for the CPU.... I was going to borrow a CPU from a friend's old computer and try that in my system. But after some finagling tonight, I was able to find the issue:

• I ran Intel's CPU Diagnostic Tool. No error.
• I ran it again while triggering the crash in the League of Legends Client. The prime numbers test in the diagnostic tool found a failure.
• I disabled Hyperthreading in BIOS. Still broken.
• I opened the League of Legends Client and began triggering the Loot page error while using the Task Manager to Set Affinity for the program.
  • This allows me to assign/disable certain cores from working on the task.
  • Since Hyperthreading was turned off, it was easy to determine which cores were which.
• The client worked flawlessly when a certain core was disabled.
• By sheer luck, this core was the 4th core.
• The reason this is lucky is that BIOS lets me set how many cores I can run, but not WHICH cores I can run. So since it was the 4th core that was triggering the problem, I was able to set the BIOS to only run 3 cores.
• I re-enabled Hyperthreading along with setting BIOS for 3 cores.
• Rebooted and everything works. All problems are gone. Running 3 cores/6 threads, but that's enough to hold me over for another year or so before buying new hardware (this build is 5 and a half years old).

Thanks for the input @Ralston18 . I am glad this was resolved and can stay here for anybody to reference in the future.

 

[Rogue Leader]

@cmir93

I've restored the posts you have deleted. This may help someone else in the future and I'm not sure why you decided to just burn it all, but its back now.