Hardware failure, need suggestions

[Troghdor]

Two nights ago, I was alerted to a hot smell coming from my computer, I immediately hard shutdown the computer, and took the case off. I found that my video card had overheated and was causing the smell so I cleaned everything in the system, and found that dust had caused the video card fan to seize. I swapped out the video card with an old, and known working one. I put the system back together and booted up only to find that Windows (vista 64) hung while it was loading processes. I hard shutdown and tried safe mode to no avail, the system hung right after it loaded the last process but never booted fully into safe mode.

This weekend, I took the computer in to have it looked at, and they said that their diagnostic software wouldn't run. They said it's likely a hardware failure issue due to the heat generated by the video card meltdown. They said they can't pinpoint the actual hardware failure without additional diagnostic which would cost, and since money is tight right now, I decided to pass. My initial thought is that the heat transfer fried the MB, but another friend of mine says that if I'm able to get through the without any trouble then it shouldn't be a problem with the MB. He says it sounds like the processor. I've checked the individual parts, and nothing looks like it has any physical signs of heat damage, so I'm not quite sure, and unfortunately don't have the funds or resources to swap out parts and check.

[llDemonll]

what video card was the first to die in it?

[vesseblah]

Did you uninstall the graphics card drivers and installed new ones for the old card? Drivers messed up could easily explain Windows failing to boot.

And yes, if something was destroyed by heat it is nearly impossible to diagnose if you don't see any burned/browned spots on the motherboard. Does the motherboard have some integrated graphics you could try without any graphics card, in case the PCIe port is damaged, or can you move the card into different slot, even a slower speed one?

[noteworthynerd]

Does your motherboard have an on-board gfx card? I would plug into there and see if you can get it to boot all the way. Like vesseblah said, it is entirely possible that you fried your mobo's PCI slot, I did the same thing when I had my videocard plugged into a PCI slot, but didn't have enough power going to it.

[Bitlovin]

Are you getting any POST error beeps when you start the computer?

Do you have a spare hard drive that you could try a fresh OS install with?

[Cows For Life]

Examine your board for any burn marks or swollen/burst capacitors. If you find any it could be a sign of death.

[Troghdor]

Thanks for the responses, No error beeps on startup, nor any error codes or messages of any kind.
The system does not have an onboard video card, as it came with an Nvidia Geforce PCI-e card when i bought it. don't remember the exact model.
The first card i burnt out was an Nvidia Geforce 9600, 1gb ddr3.
From what I could see on the mobo, and ram, there were no blown capacitors, no scorch marks, and nothing to indicate any heat damage. I did not take the heatsink off and look at the processor because i didn't have any thermal paste or anything to replace what I took off. I did however take out each stick of ram, unplugged each card looking for damage, as well as disconnected and reconnected all cables in case i dislodged something while taking out the vid card.

I was able to find someone who can take a look at it tomorrow so hopefully it's not too bad, and i'm not out a small fortune to replace/buy/build a new one.

---------- Post added 2011-04-11 at 07:28 PM ----------

Update!!

Took out the HD and placed it in an enclosure, hooked it up to my wife's laptop via usb, and ran error check on the disk. I was able to put the hd back into my computer and i'm currently using it to type this message.

Life is good.

Thanks for everyone's suggestions it's good to be back!!