Graphics card blew, no money, can barely run anything without the entire pc crashing five minutes later. (By blew, I mean two capacitors on the card have literally split and opened up). Trying to scramble moneys for a new card.
Long story made shorter; I fitted my new liquid cooler a few days ago which went hunky dory, apart from a loud CRACK when the PC first turned on and the slight smell of burning around (more singed). Turned the PC off, gave it a quick inspection and I just assumed it was the CPU thermal paste doing something against the alcohol used to clean off the previous paste. From there on, there hasn't as such been a problem since. Last night my PC suddenly locked up, went all funny and I was like eh? Hoping it was a one off. Didn't happen again that night. All through today it's been freezing up, locking up then bluescreening etc. So after removing parts, replugging parts, cleaning etc, I decided to remove my graphics card for a closer look. Turns out, on two of the capacitors there's marks, crack and one of them is actually slightly split apart. Now keep in mind I've been monitoring my temps since this upgrade with the cooler (Dropped CPU temps from 50-60 down to 28-35 avg with no noise), and my GPU hasn't been recording anything abnormal (highest temp being 72 degrees, courtesy of the WoW login screen oddly enough). But 72 Degrees is pretty average for a graphics card, especially a 9600GT so in short, I'm assuming here that there was a surge in the PC when I first turned it back on which happened to blow two capacitors. How the PC has even been working all this time, I don't know. The fact it still even works astounds me. I do have an 8500GT somewhere, assuming I haven't thrown it out (odds are I have at some point). So I'll probably try and fit that tomorrow.
Wow that sucks. But holy shit, splitting two capacitors in half? Must have been some crazy power surge.
Update: Found my old 8500GT, so far the PC is responding well, but I'm just hoping there's no more problems that might occur.