[SOLVED] Need help with a seemingly undiagnosable problem

[shyeleganttrick]

Hi,

Everything was fine untill a few days ago. (I cant recall anything that I changed/ did differently). I was starting my computer (windows 10) when;

The problems:

Artefacts appeared on the desktop and other programs (chrome, games, photos, anything graphically demanding) They were symbols, dots and lines of different colours like: {{{}]][......//

Then chrome started crashing constantly, youtube videos would not play and just crashes whenever I played a video, full of artefacts. other browsers like explorer/edge/mozilla would do the same as chrome. Operainstall.exe would just crash.

Games like The Witcher 3 would run, but would be rife with sound popping and visual glitches until they would inevitably crash 2~ minutes after.

Geforce expirience stopped working with the error “cant find a network to connect to”.

It might be important to note that the frequency of chrome crashes is not uniform, sometimes I can open tabs without them crashing constantly for a few minutes, sometimes every single tab I open crashes.

Steam would also not launch due to “invalid steam.api dll or something like that.

The artefacts on the desktop are sometimes there after booting up, or sometimes they appear as a result of running something graphically demanding.

My specs: (have never overclocked anything manually)

i7-7700k @4.20GHz (2 yrs old)
GTX 1080ti 11gb (2 yrs old)
STRIX Z270G Gaming (2 yrs old)
Samsung EVO 500gb SSD (2 yrs old)
8192mb (2x4) DDR4 (2133mz) (2 yrs old)
Cooler Master 750W Bronze (5 yrs old)

Things I have tried ( and I experience the same exact problems after):

DDU and reinstalling graphics driver
Checked all my drivers are up to date using a universal driver updating software
Updated Bios
Reset Bios to default
Disabled hardware acceleration in Chrome
Removed GPU and used integrated graphics
MemTested Sticks of RAM (success)
Re-arranged sticks of ram to different slots
Updates to the latest windows updates (on windows 10, but I couldnt update further than service pack 1 on 7
Formatting SSD and Reinstalling Windows 10 multiple times
Doing the same and Installing Windows 7 multiple times
Resetting CMOS battery
Inspected Motherboard for blown capacitors/ damage (there were/was none)
Disassembled entire pc but motherboard and CPU and thoroughly cleaned it of dust
Tried installing Ubuntu, get all sorts of errors during installation
Replaced PSU*
Replaced Motherboard *
Tried another HDMI cable*
Tried another Monitor*
Tried plugging in PSU into another outlet*
*added later

Conclusion:

This is where I am now, at the bios trying to futilely install Ubuntu.

I have tried to stress test the cpu using intel burn test, but I get no further than 1-3 passes because the exe crashes. Ive also used the intel diagnostic processor tool and it stopped and failed at the prime number test. So this is my only lead, a faulty cpu. However I read somewhere that if the computer boots, the cpu is not faulty.

Thank you for reading, help is greatly appreciated And also needed 🙁

 

[boju]

Lol fair enough. Haven't yet worked out your passion for uppercased words, seemed like you were defending yourself. Nevermind 👍

 

[Darkbreeze]

Sorry. I generally use upper case in the same way most people use italic. Just easier than using formatting.

 

[shyeleganttrick]

Haha, thank you for the reply anyway DB.

After posting about the potential motherboards, I realised my mistake and quickly took it down but I guess you were even quicker in replying.

Got a working, compatible MOBO, everything booted nicely.

However the artefacts still occur. I guess I will replace the CPU now.

Just my luck...

 

[Darkbreeze]

I'm not sure that would be the indication, but it certainly could be. I'd have thought the motherboard was a lot more probable. Hard to manage on long threads because it's easy to lose track of what's been done already and what's been replaced.

You still have the same problem whether using GPU card OR iGPU? Yes? Then yeah, if the motherboard didn't resolve the issue it has to be either CPU, display cable or monitor.

 

[shyeleganttrick]

Just tried another monitor and hdmi, no luck. Have also tried plugging PSU in another wall outlet.

I’ll replace the CPU. Thank you for all the input thusfar.

 

[Tyrvidar]

You wouldn't happen to have MSI Afterburner running on your machine would you? Believe it or not... I thought my 1070 was dying maybe or I was having Overclocking issues/bad PSU. This turned out to be some kind of odd conflict with Afterburner ( I never overclocked this card with afterburner, only monitored) this jacked my stuff up even though it had been running fine for 1+ years since I put the video card in there... I dumped afterburner and it was fine... I went ahead and reinstalled drivers afterwards as well for the GPU, most of what you described was happening to me. Outside of games I noticed throttling of my GPU at 70%+ no reason at all. I read on some other forums that Afterburner (or maybe earlier versions of it) can do some weird <Mod Edit> to GTX 10 series cards.