Blew up a 9800 GT - can I use it again?

Long story short, I blew up a 9800 GT today (accidentally, of course!) It was working fine but it was running very hot, cleaned it out, bit of moisture from the can of air clearly got on the PCB, put it back in the PC turned on the PC and then boom that was that, smoke pouring out of it!

I am assuming because it popped and smoked a capacitor went on it, therefore rendering the card dead. This has never happened to me before and I can't find a definite answer on the internet, but is the card likely to work again if I leave it a while - or is it totally toast? The card still looks immaculate with no signs of burning on it.

I doubt that it will work again unless you replace whatever burnt up.

Did you inspect both sides of the card? With combustion you should at least see some visual evidence of which component bought the farm.

Whether it's fixable or not depends entirely on what died, as you're aware

Yeah the card still looks absolutely fine even though it smoked and popped. It didn't catch fire, just smoked. Not the end of world by any means if it's dead, just wondered if maybe it was salvageable but if not no worries! Cheers!

If it's dead, blow it up for real.

Darren said:

If it's dead, blow it up for real.

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Wanna do a few things with it first. I was actually using this in a PC which my Digital Leaders at school are going to take apart and put back together to learn how to build a PC, but I noticed the PC was missing a graphics card (it actually had no expansion cards), so I grabbed this old 9800 GT from my cupboard to use in the build to illustrate an expansion card. Now it's dead I guess it doesn't matter how they handle it or if they do something trying to put it in. I can still use it to illustrate how to put an expansion card in, then blow it up!

I can confirm that the card is definitely dead. If I attempt to boot the PC with the card installed the PC won't even power up (fans spin a little and then it dies), but if I remove it it's fine. Makes me think it must be a power issue with the card.

And I'm not sure if it was the moisture that killed it. A friend of mine said it could have been a bit of dust that shorted it out. Who knows?