It may be a coincidence but I had computer problems during the time I wasn't using one. The video card was acting strange and I started having vertical lines on the monitor. Within a couple of days the DVD burner light starting flashing and wouldn't eject or close after opening it manually. Then my computer started rebooting on it own. Once a day then twice until it shut down about every fifteen minutes. I made the 50 kilometer drive and bought a new UPS, another DVD burner and a new video card. No luck! I loaded up the machine and took it to the shop. Since the machine is only about two years old I couldn't believe all the problems. It turned out that the P-4 3 GHZ processor had a burned spot on it. Of course they or none of the other shops had a replacement. I finally was able to convince what I thought was the best shop that I really didn't care if the processor was identical. The light turned on for the guy and he came back with a 2.66 Celeron. I can't say I can see any difference in the speed. I think the serial hard drive and the gig of ram are more important than the processor. Bottom line is that if I have no UPS I won't plug it in again until I have a new one.

Hey Gary Make sure you have enough cooling. Heat is what usually kills cpus

It's a custom built computer and uses an Antec box. The cooling fan is one of those big noisy 4 inchers. Since I have downgraded to a Celeron 2.66 I expect it will run a lot cooler.

Hey Gary Make sure you have enough cooling. Heat is what usually kills cpus