I decided to plug it in and test it. Starting up seems okay, fans aren't going crazy. But it hung for a while as it was loading up the desktop - more than it would usually. I'm still not going to let the third time be the charm - murdering my computer. Again, in an hour or two, I will be dragging this computer out to the repair shop.
Also, while checking the fans, even paying attention, I somehow put my finger close enough to touch the CPU fan... it made a bang noise, but nothing else has gone wrong.