I used CSS for a color change on hover for a table
#tabb tbody tr:hover td{ color:#006; background:#d0e4f2; }
This works fine in Ch
That should work fine in IE8.
A stab in the dark:
Make sure you have a doctype as the very first line of your HTML that triggers Standards Mode, such as:
In Quirks Mode, IE emulates version 5.5, which does not support :hover on elements other than a.
:hover
a