Suspected CPU problem

Turritopsis

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Nov 1, 2013
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Hey so, I have Intel core Duo E8500, 4Gb Ram, 1Gb 9600GT, I know it's very old, I am looking for a replacement. The thing is that it sometimes randomly crashes, I can be playing Borderlands 2 with ~60fps, or I can be looking at a stream, listening to music it just crashes. The interesting thing is that it sometimes crashes so that the sound goes into the horrific stuttering and sometimes even when I can't use my mouse and no keyboard combination works, I still hear my music playing normally, or the game sound, either way. I suspect it might be a CPU problem, because anytime I put it to hard work it seemingly refuses to work and pretends to be dead :S I don't know much, so this might not be the correct forum, but still, are there any suggestions as to why it just crashes ?
 

Shog40

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Oct 31, 2013
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going of my own exprience
I had the same sound and mouse problem plus a video lag to go with it after i had my CPU Over heat. My problem sought of sorted itself out. right after i bought a whole new CPU.. So yeah it is a CPU issue.
 

Turritopsis

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Nov 1, 2013
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What is the normal temperature for a CPU?
 

Shog40

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Oct 31, 2013
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My CPU Idles at 45C as soon as i jump into a game its jumps upto 70C and when it over heated it was at 95-97C
 

Turritopsis

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Nov 1, 2013
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Well that's just insane, my CPU idles at 35C and when playing 45C, at max. tho my GPU used to go to 100C+, but now that I cleaned it it's at 70-80C in-game. So I don't think it's a cooling problem then. what other problem could it be then...?
 

Turritopsis

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Nov 1, 2013
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But what? I just now had Win 8, then the crashes started, I figured it's a windows glitch, so I downgraded to Win 7, and now the crashes start again..

 
It honestly might be overheating. The recommended highest temp for your chip is 72.4°C. ( http://ark.intel.com/products/33911/ )

If you're reaching higher than that on load you may be killing it. Have you got an aftermarket CPU cooler? It's recommended not only for the ability to overclock, but keep your parts cool and prolong their life.

If it started after installing win 8 you could wipe your hard drive and reinstall windows 7. Other than that, sounds like it could be a driver issue if you're getting crashes when gaming or watching something. Have you ever had it crash when the PC was just idle?
 

Turritopsis

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Nov 1, 2013
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I did format the disc then installing windows, my cooler is the default one, but it is good as it is intel, the CPU heat is not the problem it never goes above 50C I've seen it happen maybe twice. The drivers might be the case, I don't really know, I need some software that would tell be what drivers are installed and up to date or not, any suggestions?