I am running on Ubuntu 8.04 for quite some time without many problems. About almost a year ago or so I have been trying to upgrade to 10.04 LTS, but without any success. Each time when trying to upgrade or even newly install the installation process crashed after about an hour or so (I forgot exactly how long).

Now I wanted to try Ubuntu 12.04 (not even installing, but I only selected "Try Ubuntu without installing") and I got similar errors. I did not try to install it, because of earlier experience with 10.04 when after I also lost 8.04 and had to install from scratch again (after which it worked). I get the following screen (as I am not allowed to upload photos here the text):

26.767262] [Hardware Error]: CPU 0: Machine Check Exception: 0 Bank 5: b200001804000e0f
26.767279] [Hardware Error]: TSC 0
26.767287] [Hardware Error]: PROCESSOR 0:6f6 TIME 1349017924 SOCKET 0 APIC 0 microcode 44
26.767297] [Hardware Error]: Run the above through 'mcelog --ascii'
26.767307] [Hardware Error]: CPU 1: Machine Check Exception: 0 Bank 1: b200000000000175
26.767316] [Hardware Error]: TSC 0
26.767323] [Hardware Error]: PROCESSOR 0:6f6 TIME 1349017924 SOCKET 0 APIC 1 microcode 44
26.767331] [Hardware Error]: Run the above through 'mcelog --ascii'
26.767339] [Hardware Error]: CPU 1: Machine Check Exception: 0 Bank 5: b200003000000e0f
26.767348] [Hardware Error]: TSC 0
26.767354] [Hardware Error]: PROCESSOR 0:6f6 TIME 1349017924 SOCKET 0 APIC 1 microcode 44
26.767363] [Hardware Error]: Run the above through 'mcelog --ascii'
26.767371] [Hardware Error]: CPU 1: Machine Check Exception: 4 Bank 1: b200000000000175
26.767379] [Hardware Error]: TSC 1bf231e65f
26.767386] [Hardware Error]: PROCESSOR 0:6f6 TIME 1349017951 SOCKET 0 APIC 1 microcode 44
26.767395] [Hardware Error]: Run the above through 'mcelog --ascii'
26.767403] [Hardware Error]: CPU 1: Machine Check Exception: 4 Bank 5: b200003008000e0f
26.767413] [Hardware Error]: TSC 1bf231e65f
26.767421] [Hardware Error]: PROCESSOR 0:6f6 TIME 1349017951 SOCKET 0 APIC 1 microcode 44
26.767429] [Hardware Error]: Run the above through 'mcelog --ascii'
26.767437] [Hardware Error]: CPU 0: Machine Check Exception: 5 Bank 5: b200001806000e0f
26.767447] [Hardware Error]: RIP |INEXACT| 60:<00000000c1018b5c> {mwait_idle+0x7c/0x1d0}
26.767464] [Hardware Error]: TSC 1bf231e674
26.767471] [Hardware Error]: PROCESSOR 0:6f6 TIME 1349017951 SOCKET 0 APIC 0 microcode 44
26.767480] [Hardware Error]: Run the above through 'mcelog --ascii'
26.767487] [Hardware Error]: Machine check: Processor context corrupt
26.767495] Kernel panic - not syncing: Fatal Machine check
26.767505] Pid: 579, comm: debconf-communi Tainted: G M   3.2.0.29-generic-pae #46-Ubuntu
26.767515] Call Trace:
26.767525]  [<c158f812>] ? printk+0x2d/0x2f
26.767534]  [<c158f6e0>] panic+0x5c/0x161
26.767542]  [<c10247ef>] mce_panic.part.14+0x13f/0x170
26.767551]  [<c1024872>] mce_panic+0x52/0x90
26.767558]  [<c1024a18>] mce_reign+0x168/0x170
26.767565]  [<c1024bb5>] mce_end+0x105/0x110
26.767572]  [<c10252db>] do_machine_check+0x32b/0x4f0
26.767581]  [<c1024fb0>] ? mce_log+0x120/0x120
26.767590]  [<c15a5e47>] error_code+0x67/0x6c
26.767602] panic occurred, switching back to text console
26.768498] Rebooting in 30 seconds..

For information, I have also tried earlier Arch Linux. I can install it, but when I try to install a window manager (LXDE) again I got similar errors. Fedora also crashes when installing and also Mandriva did not work for me. Therefore I think something deep in the machine might be wrong. But as stated above I can (clean) install 8.04 and also 9.10 can be installed without problems. Also updates for 8.04 can be installed. My machine is dual boot with XP next to it on a different partition.

My HW:
Memory : 2.0 GiB;
Processor 0: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6320 @ 1.86GHz; Processor 1: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6320 @ 1.86GHz;

How can I install Ubuntu 12.04? Last option would be to completely format my machine and install everything from scratch, but even I am not sure if that would solve it in the end.

Can anybody help me out?