Intel 14th Gen Issues Update/Chrome Error

[Johny9999]

Hello everyone,

 

For Context my build is:

Motherboard: ASUS Maximus Z790 Dark Hero (Fully Updated BIOS and Drivers)

CPU: INTEL i9-14900KS

RAM: 2 x Corsair Dominator Titanium First Edition 32GB Kit (2x16GB) 7200Mhz (In total 4 Sticks running stable at 5800Mhz)

Boot Disk: Samsung 990 Pro 1TB SSD NVMe

Game Disk: Kingston FURY Renegade 2TB SSD NVMe

Storage: Samsung 870 EVO SATA 4TB SSD

Storage: Crucial MX500 2TB SSD

GPU: ASUS RTX 3090 OC

PSU: ENERMAX Maxtytan 1250w Titanium (Replaced With Enermax Revolution D.F.X 1200W Gold as it started to fail on the 12V Rail after 7 years of abuse)

Case: Phanteks Enthoo Elite

Fully Watercooled Build, dual loop.

 

So.... On March 2024, I got my hands on my first 14900KS. Since then a lot has happened with INTEL, as you might already know, and long story short, until they get their "things" straight, I had to change 2 CPUs. The First one failed 2 weeks after purchasing. The Second one lasted a few months but eventually died too.

Both of them showed very few signs of issues before failing, and all of a sudden the PC was not booting up. After the final microcode fix, and after replacing my CPU for the third time, I thought it was over. Not... It failed once again a few months later. 

Roughly a month ago, my PSU started showing suicide signs (random PC power off, no response to the power button, etc.), and luckily I had my old one (12-year-old PSU), which I used to make sure that the issue is the PSU. Since then, I got it replaced with a new unit within warranty while I wait for the Seasonic Prime TX-1600 Noctua Edition I ordered to arrive.

 

During my troubleshooting steps for all CPUs, I reset BIOS, removed 2 RAM sticks, tried it with XMP and without, changed the NVMe position, reseated the CPU, replugged all the Power cables, tried to format the PC (most of the time it would fail), and I had the same result with all of them.

 

I am pinning all the mentioned CPU replacement dates below for reference.

Purchased in March 2024

Replaced in April 2024

Replaced in September 2024

Replaced in February 2025

 

Also for reference, the issues that I had included:

BSODs, "Critical Process Died", "attempted execute of no execute memory"

Software Issues that included unpacking failures of NVIDIA, Steelseries, Chrome Installers/Updaters.

Chrome website crashing usually with error "Status_Access_Violation"

OCCT RAM Test would give me CPU Errors, or BSOD, but MEMTEST86 would pass normally with and without XMP.

PC failing to boot, meaning it would show the Motherboard logo (so it would pass POST) and then reach the Windows boot screen, stay around 10–20 seconds there, BSOD, and get to recovery.

PC failing to load PCIe NVMe Drives, meaning that one moment they would be visible and the next it would act like you unplugged them.

 

Now, for my final recap, I am on my 4th CPU (3 Replacements), and I think I also have issues with this one. I started getting Status_Access_Violation (once or twice per day) on Chrome, which I also had the behavior with my 1st CPU, but for now does not conclude a 100% CPU failure. I tested the RAM with MEMTEST86 and OCCT RAM test and I had no errors there.

 

Has anyone else had to change so many CPUs? Do you think that my RAM frequency is too high to be handled by the CPU? Did you experience the same behavior with Chromium based browsers the last couple of days?

Do you have any suggestions? (Please do not say change platform or generation.... if I had 2K sitting there for a new CPU, Mobo and RAM, I would already have done it. And yes, RAM is Limited Edition from Corsair Specific for INTEL, so I would have to replace that too)

 

P.S. I probably do not remeber all the details regarding the troubleshooting steps/issues that I had until now. Feel free to ask, and if I remember, I will add it down the line. 

 

Thanks!

[jaslion]

Well you have a ks. Those are exceptionally susceptible to it since those are overtuned out of the factory. Then you also have the dark hero. A niche overpriced board that doesn't get heaps of support due to being a low volume product. So basically it's broken again, replace it with a non ks this time or if you get a ks back just sell it and then make sure to LIMIT the bios manually in the dark hero so it DOES NOT go over the acceptable voltages.

 

Fyi 5800mhz on ram is fine thats basically just normal speed for ddr5 cpu's anyway so no sweat there unless you push the voltages.

1 hour ago, Johny9999 said:

to change so many CPUs?

A couple people on ks's have had the same problems yes. The posts I remember all had asus boards too funnily enough. Except one had a msi meg another limited volume product. Typical behavior of these to push chips harder to seem more worth it but well a 150$ board can do the same really :p. Asus being a known one to really push the limits

 

Else if this is just a gaming rig you can get an i5. It easily maxes a 3090 or just ryzen swap. 7700x + board is less than the price of a 14900ks used at this point in time.

 

Quick show of it since well ram you can keep:

PCPartPicker Part List: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/2dBC8Q

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D 4.7 GHz 8-Core Processor  ($479.00 @ Abt)
Motherboard: ASRock B850M Pro RS Micro ATX AM5 Motherboard  ($148.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $627.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2025-03-18 14:52 EDT-0400

 

All you need and faster or well get a half the price 7700x it's cheap and VERY good. Either that or get an i5 13600/14600 those aren't as affected by it.

 

[PDifolco]

Who said madness is doing the same thing again after a failure expecting a better result ?

Dump your CPU to the bin, get an AMD one !

[OddOod]

50 minutes ago, Johny9999 said:

Please do not say change platform or generation.... if I had 2K sitting there for a new CPU, Mobo and RAM

Okay, I won't. Instead I'll say: Keep RMAing the CPU every few months

[Johny9999]

35 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Well you have a ks. Those are exceptionally susceptible to it since those are overtuned out of the factory. Then you also have the dark hero. A niche overpriced board that doesn't get heaps of support due to being a low volume product. So basically it's broken again, replace it with a non ks this time or if you get a ks back just sell it and then make sure to LIMIT the bios manually in the dark hero so it DOES NOT go over the acceptable voltages.

 

Fyi 5800mhz on ram is fine thats basically just normal speed for ddr5 cpu's anyway so no sweat there unless you push the voltages.

A couple people on ks's have had the same problems yes. The posts I remember all had asus boards too funnily enough. Except one had a msi meg another limited volume product. Typical behavior of these to push chips harder to seem more worth it but well a 150$ board can do the same really :p. Asus being a known one to really push the limits

 

Else if this is just a gaming rig you can get an i5. It easily maxes a 3090 or just ryzen swap. 7700x + board is less than the price of a 14900ks used at this point in time.

 

 

As far as I can tell, at least with what the BIOS claims, is limit the CPU within INTEL specs. I even went to the point to limit it even further by choosing Performance Profile Intead of Extreme which is what the KS has to be set to for the Wattage. For the Voltages the CPU under load goes up to 1.3v roughly, but I never noticed it go above that. Not sure about idling though.. Is there a way or a test I can run to check or should I leave a monitoring software to gather the info while idle? I can also set the max voltage just to be sure and what I can find is that the max Voltage is around 1.5V? Can you verify if that is correct?

 

Regarding the RAM voltages, I do not. The only "Overclock" I do is enable XMP, nothing else.

 

For the CPU swap I probably won't go that way. At a point I will upgrade my GPU (Not NVIDIA 50 Series though, but I will probably need the horsepower), plus watercooling... different motherboard and waterblock (if there is one for it). Thanks for the suggestion though, appreciated.

 

34 minutes ago, PDifolco said:

Who said madness is doing the same thing again after a failure expecting a better result ?

Dump your CPU to the bin, get an AMD one !

Insanity is the actual definition

(Far Cry 3) Vaas: Did I ever tell you what the definition of insanity is? Insanity is doing the exact... same fucking thing... over and over again expecting... shit to change... 

 

By that quote, after 4 CPUs, I am definetly insane

 

30 minutes ago, OddOod said:

Okay, I won't. Instead I'll say: Keep RMAing the CPU every few months

Thats the plan for now if that fails too. 5 Years of Warranty baby  

 

As I can tell, you all believe the culprit is the CPU then I guess.

[jaslion]

2 minutes ago, Johny9999 said:

For the CPU swap I probably won't go that way. At a point I will upgrade my GPU (Not NVIDIA 50 Series though, but I will probably need the horsepower), plus watercooling... different motherboard and waterblock (if there is one for it). Thanks for the suggestion though, appreciated.

Course it has a waterblock. Just a generic cpu waterblock is all you need.

 

Your problem is as simple as the 14900ks chips are GUARANTEED to fail basically because they are pushed from factory.

 

Also don't discount the 14600k/13600k it's really not that much slower than a 14900k like 10% behind the 14900ks if even that. Usually on average it's 7% slower which well doesn't really matter that much since it can easily max a 4090 gpu in the single player good looking games at 1440p and in esports games goes MANY hundreds of fps. The 14900k's main advantage is more cores which well the i5 already has enough performance cores to where it doesn't matter anyway.

 

As for amd yeah the 9800x3d is a lot faster anyway than the 14900ks and you just need a block for it or just reuse the block you already have since am5 has a broad range of am4 backwards compatibility.

 

5 minutes ago, Johny9999 said:

As far as I can tell, at least with what the BIOS claims, is limit the CPU within INTEL specs. I even went to the point to limit it even further by choosing Performance Profile Intead of Extreme which is what the KS has to be set to for the Wattage. For the Voltages the CPU under load goes up to 1.3v roughly, but I never noticed it go above that. Not sure about idling though.. Is there a way or a test I can run to check or should I leave a monitoring software to gather the info while idle? I can also set the max voltage just to be sure and what I can find is that the max Voltage is around 1.5V? Can you verify if that is correct?

 

Regarding the RAM voltages, I do not. The only "Overclock" I do is enable XMP, nothing else.

Yeah you've done the correct thing. Just don't get a 14900ks again or any ks. They are pushed TO THE LIMIT from factory and exhibit stupid high failure rates due to it.

 

As for monitoring other than having a logbook from a monitoring program no other real way to do it.

 

 

[Johny9999]

4 minutes ago, jaslion said:

As for monitoring other than having a logbook from a monitoring program no other real way to do it.

 

I will look into it and see what I can gather then.

 

Regarding the voltage limits you mentioned earlier, by your knowledge, is there a safe voltage value or range I should set for future use?

[Kisai]

1 hour ago, Johny9999 said:

Also for reference, the issues that I had included:

BSODs, "Critical Process Died", "attempted execute of no execute memory"

Software Issues that included unpacking failures of NVIDIA, Steelseries, Chrome Installers/Updaters.

Chrome website crashing usually with error "Status_Access_Violation"

OCCT RAM Test would give me CPU Errors, or BSOD, but MEMTEST86 would pass normally with and without XMP.

PC failing to boot, meaning it would show the Motherboard logo (so it would pass POST) and then reach the Windows boot screen, stay around 10–20 seconds there, BSOD, and get to recovery.

PC failing to load PCIe NVMe Drives, meaning that one moment they would be visible and the next it would act like you unplugged them.

 

Yep that's all stuff that happened to me with the i7-14700k. The browser errors would happen regardless of anything else. The unpacking files problems was a bit of a crapshoot, which is why if you wait too long, that firmware might also be corrupted and has to be updated via a failsafe.

 

Like I have not had to replace mine a second time, HOWEVER, I have only turned on XMP once, and it immediately BSOD'd so I left it off ever since exchanging it in October. The original CPU was installed in May. So that time frame is similar to my original exchange as well.

 

I've also been worried about it dying again, because a few random program crashes have shown up, but if the browser crashes start or the unpacking files starts failing, I know it's done.

[Bjoolz]

Go to C:\Windows\Minidump and check if you have any minidump files. If you do, go back to the Windows folder and copy the Minidump folder itself to the Downloads folder (You can use the desktop if you don't have OneDrive syncing files). Zip the copied folder and attach it to a post. Please follow the instructions to the letter as Windows doesn't like you messing with files in this location.

[Johny9999]

23 hours ago, Kisai said:

Like I have not had to replace mine a second time, HOWEVER, I have only turned on XMP once, and it immediately BSOD'd so I left it off ever since exchanging it in October. The original CPU was installed in May. So that time frame is similar to my original exchange as well.

 

Fair warning!

A friend of mine had almost the same issue as yours. He had a 13900KS and the PC would not boot with XMP on. It would go to the Mobo logo with the Windows loading icon on best case scenario, and then BSOD. He left XMP off and after a year and a half or so his CPU died too. Keep that in mind just in case...

Since then he got it replaced and he was able to turn on XMP no issues at all. We got it replaced roughly the same time with me, a month ago, but as far as I know he had no issues at all until now.

 

23 hours ago, Kisai said:

I've also been worried about it dying again, because a few random program crashes have shown up, but if the browser crashes start or the unpacking files starts failing, I know it's done.

TBH after replacing 3 CPUs, I am not that worried, probably I would be calling it tired of the process... Drain the loops, dismantle everything (yes the motherboard HAS to get out of the case to remove the CPU block to get the CPU out), wait for 7-10 days for the new CPU to arrive, put it back together, fill the loop and here we go again...

 

14 hours ago, Bjoolz said:

Go to C:\Windows\Minidump and check if you have any minidump files. If you do, go back to the Windows folder and copy the Minidump folder itself to the Downloads folder (You can use the desktop if you don't have OneDrive syncing files). Zip the copied folder and attach it to a post. Please follow the instructions to the letter as Windows doesn't like you messing with files in this location.

Well, at least for now, with this CPU, I have no BSODs yet. So no minidump files or any reports that might indicate the exact cause.

From my past experiences though, I had some minidump files I managed to decode with errors including SSD failing to be read, and (if I remember correctly) Page Fault in NonPaged Area which indicated RAM. In both cases it turned out to be the CPU creating the issues. The rest of the times when the BSODs started appearing more often, I was not able to boot into Windows at all.

[jaslion]

1 hour ago, Johny9999 said:

wait for 7-10 days for the new CPU to arrive, put it back together, fill the loop and here we go again...

If it goes again I'd really just swap the thing to some different platform or just take an i5 or older 12th gen chip as those don't have the hardware defect at all.