Power Suppy Fans, Case Fans, and Coolermaster CPU Liquid Cooling All Dead... HELP!

[Wrathcaster]

Awright, so I've been really busy lately and have mainly been fucking around with my laptop, but I had a chance to grab a copy of bioshock and put it on my 2-year old desktop. Everything was going good, I was kicking ass and sending some electricity through some splicers and all of the sudden, I crash to desktop and I notice the colors are all fucked up on my PC. I restarted the computer and did the colors went back to normal, when I then noticed all my fans were dead except the one on my video card. FYI this is my system, bought from ibuypower.com:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+
Nvidia Geforce 7800 GTX 256 mb Ram
1gb Corsair XMS DDR
160 gb maxtor HDD
DVD-ROM, CD-RW drives
Soundblaster X-Fi Platinum
Antec P180 case /w 650W PSU

I had intended the desktop to be my main gaming computer when I purchased it, and until now it's been running great. To keep things cool, I included a coolermaster liquid cooling system that ibuypower offers on their build page. I'm not exactly sure what the make of it is, but it looks like the one pictured here:
Cooler Master - Products

I don't know exactly how long the problem has existed, as I haven't used my desktop in a few weeks; been really busy with school and such, no time to game. I do know that my roomates have been sporadically using it while I'm not there.

I don't know what's happened or what to do. I ordered the thing from a custom-build site like ibuypower because I didn't have the time to build it myself and hadn't kept up with technology to be confident tinkering around with $1.5-2k and potentially fuck it up. But I have no idea how to fix this thing, either, and I'm not sure who can help me. Does anyone know what might be going on here?

[Bladefury]

If you have a spare power supply unit, try replacing that.

Usually the first thing I try, nowadays.

[Slide]

No idea why you'd need water cooling on that setup, I have a similar build:

x2 4200, 4GB, 8800 GTS, P180

With a decent CPU cooler it can be run near enough passively. All I had going for a few weeks was a single 120mm case fan on slow speed and the temps were fine (a little warm but fine).

I'd bet the watercooling crap needs a new pump or clean water. Fucked up colours after gaming sound like an issue with the graphics card.

Rip out all of that water stuff. Scythe SCNJ-1000 Ninja heatsink | silentpcreview.com

[Wrathcaster]

Well, I was able to fire up the game briefly just to make sure I didn't have artifacts everywhere, then turned it off quickly to avoid any heat damage; I'm just wondering why my case fans stopped working as well; it'd make a bit more sense if it had just been the coolermaster shit. Ah well.

This recent incident has caused me to consider upgrading my PC while I replace the cooling shit. But I'm not sure what I can switch out without having to get a new motherboard. Also, I'm still running XP and don't really want to drop a ton of cash to get vista, but I wonder what the effect will be on gaming if I upgrade to an 8800, DX10 won't work at all, will it? Another issue is I lost the invoice that came with the PC long ago, and I'm not exactly sure of the specs on some of the parts (the ram, the mobo)...

Is it even worth it to upgrade at this point, or would I be better off with a new machine? The PC runs just fine on every game I play and bioshock looked amazing without any hitches at all. Maybe I'll just pick up some more RAM and get new cooling...

[Slide]

Originally Posted by Wrathcaster

Well, I was able to fire up the game briefly just to make sure I didn't have artifacts everywhere, then turned it off quickly to avoid any heat damage; I'm just wondering why my case fans stopped working as well; it'd make a bit more sense if it had just been the coolermaster shit. Ah well.

This recent incident has caused me to consider upgrading my PC while I replace the cooling shit. But I'm not sure what I can switch out without having to get a new motherboard. Also, I'm still running XP and don't really want to drop a ton of cash to get vista, but I wonder what the effect will be on gaming if I upgrade to an 8800, DX10 won't work at all, will it? Another issue is I lost the invoice that came with the PC long ago, and I'm not exactly sure of the specs on some of the parts (the ram, the mobo)...

Is it even worth it to upgrade at this point, or would I be better off with a new machine? The PC runs just fine on every game I play and bioshock looked amazing without any hitches at all. Maybe I'll just pick up some more RAM and get new cooling...

Are your cooling getting powered off the mobo or the PSU directly? Get a new PSU and replace your expensive, high maintenence pointless watercooling with some decent fans.

Your PC is dated sure, but the only major thing its lagging on is the 1GB RAM.

[Twobit Whore]

Yeah, you need to find out what is powering all the fans. Could be a loose connection, a bad PSU or a bad motherboard.

[The Ancient]

PSU seems like the pretty obvious answer. Of course, if it's blown and you are still running the computer you might have other components borked at this point as well.

[Wrathcaster]

shit. i'm really hoping i don't end up in the BUYING/BUILDING a New Desktop sticky...

[Taranatar]

Originally Posted by Wrathcaster

shit. i'm really hoping i don't end up in the BUYING/BUILDING a New Desktop sticky...

If you end up building a new PC and since you're using ddr I'm assuming your 4400+ is a 939, I will love you forever if you sell it to me at a reduced price (I'll even offer up my old single-core 4000+ as a partial trade if you want to still use it as a internet system)

[Wrathcaster]

sorry to ruin you fun buddy, but i can't afford a new PC right now, as I just now nabbed a new laptop. not a month after i get it, something on my desktop breaks hah, but I'm determined to fix this. From reading this thread and fiddling around a bit more with my computer's guts, I really think I can alleviate the problem by simply replacing the liquid cooling with a good heatsink.

[Taranatar]

Originally Posted by Wrathcaster

sorry to ruin you fun buddy, but i can't afford a new PC right now, as I just now nabbed a new laptop. not a month after i get it, something on my desktop breaks hah, but I'm determined to fix this. From reading this thread and fiddling around a bit more with my computer's guts, I really think I can alleviate the problem by simply replacing the liquid cooling with a good heatsink.

Sorry, didn't mean to sound so much of a vulture.

Removing the liquid cooling would be my first advice along with replacing the PSU. Liquid cooling is too expensive to fix/replace for me to justify ever buying it.

[Wrathcaster]

Well, I got a new heat sink, the one that was recommended earlier, as well as a spiffy new fan and everything is up and running once again; I think it's actually cooling better than when the water cooling was operational. I'm considering getting a new fan controller/thermal display, any suggestions?

*Oh yeah, and for the guy who had the p180 case or anyone else with one can you recommend a good 120mm fan for the back exhaust part? this was where my liquid cooling led to but now it's pretty much just open space... I'm not really sure how to mount the fan