Wow. Well that is one problem/solution that certainly would have never crossed my mind. Is there a setting within chrome (like the "predict network actions to improve load performance" or something? I already, and have always, had the "let apps run in the background" option disabled) that I could try? If task manager shows that there is no instance of chrome running, is it possible that it is having an effect? I haven't tried to see if this would influence my issue or not, but I can't imagine not using Chrome going forward...which might sound a bit sad but I'm a huge fan.
Thanks for the tip regardless. I'll keep investigating it as a possibility.