So I was playing WoW one night and right before my raid started I hear a loud pop from inside my computer.  Computer shuts off...wtf.

So i restart and its ok, go to load wow, crashes....does this 2 times.

I pop the side of my case and look inside....video card fan isn't spinning....and then I see this.

http://img382.imageshack.us/img382/8323/wrf28ik.jpg

As Pat pointed out, the picture is a little out of focus.  But if you look you can see what looks to be an unrolled piece of cardboard....yeah thats a capacitor on the video card...it exploded lol.

My theory is the fan clogged and stopp spinning, causing the card to overheat and blow it.

Anyways, I thought it was funny.

See what WoW does? It destroys lives... and graphics cards!

Dude, yank the capacitor and solder a piece of wire across it.

-b0b
(...shrugs.)

b0b I already tried that, and it worked to an extent.  However when the capacitor blew it left a brown ring of burnt shit all around it.

So after soddering over the capacitor contact point, when I'd play games it'd look like there was a blizzard of black pixels all over my screen.

Im pretty sure the card is toast.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8904023216324058356&q=yeah+toast

-b0b
(...YEAH TOAST!)

That was fucking stupid.

I didn't even smile.

Yeah, but it was entirely appropriate considering the circumstances.

-b0b
(...YEAH TOAST!)