Every games freezes every once in a while for a couple seconds

[Waffle1]

Pretty much every game I play will randomly freeze on me for usually 2-10 seconds every 5 or 10 minutes, I have tried games like counter strike, gta v, civ v, borderlands 2, seems like they all freeze at the same frequency. This issue started happening after I got a blue screen crash, and have had probably 4 more in the past 2 weeks. I monitored my cpu and it seemed to throttle a bit, temps aren't super high though.

CPU: Intel Core i7 3770K
GPU: GeForce GTX 660
16 GB of ram

Another small issue is that sometimes my audio will lag
example: playing csgo I would fire a gun, and it would make no noise until a couple seconds later, at which all the noise would pile and all play at once. Has been happening just long enough to annoy me.

Edit: It is definitely not due to overheating.

 

[popatim]

Temps are supposed to get 'super high' because its the job of Throttling to prevent that. Since you are entering into being throttled then that means you are exceed temp for normal operation and need to investigate your cooling setup and see why its getting hot enough to enter throttling.

 

[dontlistentome]

That CPU is old enough that a simple thermal paste removal and reapplication could be all it takes. At the same time, clean off the heatsink fins and CPU fan. The 660 is old enough that you might want to consider doing the same for that too.

Before you do anything though, run a benchmark and record the temps for both. This way you'll have a baseline to compare it to after you've done the thermal paste replacements and benchmark it again.