Question : Problem: 3D applications / Games Crash Almost Instantly Upon Start

I recently installed a new video card and memory into my computer and with a few minor issues I got windows installed and everything working great except running 3D Applications.  When the application starts it will usually crash after 2 minutes in the environment and blue screen crash.

I have been running the games from my external hard drive which may be a cause for the problem so sometime today I'm going to install a game to my main drive to see if the issue was just because I ran it on my external, but I've never had a problem with that before.

I installed speedfan to see if it was a heat related issue and I believe my CPU is running hot.  The actual CPU temp is around 45c but the core0 and core1 temps are getting up to 60+ so I'm worrying that during the application it's getting even hotter then that.

I'm not sure if these could be the root of the problem but that's just what I have discovered so far.  Anybody have any ideas on this?

System Specs:

E675 2.66 Intel Core 2 Duo
Nvidia 260 GTX
ECS 650I SLI Motherboard
4 gig OCZ Ram
600 Watt Power Supply

Answer : Problem: 3D applications / Games Crash Almost Instantly Upon Start

If it's 60+ when idle, that's way too hot - 85 is the thermal limit.  You should remove the heatsink, clean off the old thermal paste with rubbing alcohol and apply a small drop of new thermal paste.  Make sure the heatsink is correctly mounted, flush with the cpu and locked correctly.