User: "Hello, tech support?"
Support: "Hello. Yes, this is tech support. May I help you?"
User: "Uh, I hope so. My computer is on fire."
Support: "Sir, hang up, and call the fire department."
User: "That's not the problem. How do I make a backup? Fastest method possible."
The funny part, is that this is a true story (though, the quotes are incorrect. But you get the idea). Also, I've been to pawn shops (well, more like Good Will) where the CPU had literally exploded. You could see melted plastic stuff all over inside the case.
As for a fried video card, years ago I had a brother who made his own active cooling (meaning, it used water) system from 2-liter bottles, electrical tape, and hot glue (DO NOT do that... It was a bad idea). Take note, this was before active cooling was widely used. It was probably around the time the first people were experimenting with it. Anyway, there was a leak in his system that he was unware of. He was playing Quake, when it locked up on him. He looked in his computer, and found a puddle of water on his video card (it had been dripping onto it, thus that's where the water collected). He was surprised it didn't lockup sooner, considering the amount of water he found there. After drying everything out/off, he restarted, and it worked fine, luckily for him. Eventually, he got the leak to be slow enough that having some paper towel on his video card was enough to stop the problems, as the water would dry out just about as fast as it leaked onto it.
Of course, since then, he's gotten better hardware all around. I strongly doubt he even owns any of that stuff anymore, let alone uses it.
So yah, hopefully it was just the video card, Good luck on getting a new/better one. Mouser X out.
