World of Warcraft

I was so excited to be one of the one out of 500 that got the invitation for Beta.  So I installed it logged on and began playing.  Started off with random artifacts all over my screen and 1 min system freezes so I figured oh well it must be a hot card. Next day Massive color dis-coloration and artifacts everywhere on my screen and infinite time system crashes. It got to the point where I was forced to reformat both my gaming Hard Drive and my System files hard drive because my computer would not even boot up.  Was fine for a bit then the artifacts and random system freezes came back so I took my computer apart and sure enough 3 capacitors on the top of my 7600 GT were blown up, LITERALLY. Ive had this card for over a year and I have NEVER had 1 problem with this card over heating or artifacts for that matter, even when I played AOC for a month on medium settings. No over clock on my video card has ever been attempted. Even in the EULA and TOS whatever you would like to call it they even specifiy by playing beta they are not responsible for damage done to your system by their game forcing you to agree to that to even log in.  So now my computer again will not boot and im out the $120 bucks I spent on it ( AT THE TIME ). Please no flame this is a fair warning to the WoW Community to avoid the beta if you do not want to have damage done to your rig. Heres an album I created on Photobucket to prove that I was in Beta and the DHC / w/e is lifted for any forum moderators it is completely legal to post these pictures. 

http://s153.photobucket.com/albums/s235/xonoma/WoW%20Beta/

{ Mod Edit }

No flame here just an honest question. Is it even possible for software to fry hardware? Aren't there safeguards in place that will shut your system down if it gets to hot?

Maybe this was just some kind of incredible coincidence. Your system doesn't sound like it is that new. Not that wow needs a newer system to run just saying the parts were old.

Either way, sorry to here about your problems.

Why didn't my video card fry on AOC with medium settings then?  Thats the descrepancy that cannot be logically explained. Anyone can tell AOC graphics are much more demanding than WOTLK and thats not an insult its just the technical truth of it.  And if it was completely impossible for software to damage Hardware why would they even include it in the EULA / TOS ? If it was to cover their own butts theyd have to put 5 trillions warnings in the EULA / TOS if that was the case. They put it in there for a reason. This is not a flame on blizzard because I understand the risk I took by hitting "I accept" Its just a fair warning to anyone else that would like to avoid this and wait a couple months to play the polished version.

 Im in beta and all is fine on my 8800gts.. I did have some artificats on screen so I turned off my over clocking on the gfx card and all was fine. I was also run with shadows set 5 (devs says we should not use this) so im sure that did not help.

Wotlk does seem to much your gfx card more then previous versions.

sounds like your card was over heating.  All games specify if your pc blows up when playing this game we cannot be held responsible.

In the end you dont know it it was Wow, WoW could of just tipped your already struggling/broken card over the edge.  We will never know. For all we know AoC blew of the capacitors and wow blew the other.

They put it in the EULA so people wont pester them with accusations. 

{ Mod Edit }

Perhaps the game didn't fry your graphics card.   Stuff breaks, shit happens etc.

Your just beating around the bush.  Why cant you see this one way instead of. "WHAT IF, WHAT IF, WHAT IF" It was the game nuff said. I love WoW but some of you fan bois need to lay off. Yes "shit" does happen. and as I previously stated I understand the risk I took when I hit the accept button and I never pestered them in anyway. So take your trolling ass right out of here. This is a nice, fair warning to the people of this community that these things can happen and I do not appreciate being flamed for taking time out of my day trying to assist other people in avoiding potentialy destruction of their rigs.

Originally posted by coffee

 Im in beta and all is fine on my 8800gts.. I did have some artificats on screen so I turned off my over clocking on the gfx card and all was fine. I was also run with shadows set 5 (devs says we should not use this) so im sure that did not help.

Wotlk does seem to much your gfx card more then previous versions.

sounds like your card was over heating.  All games specify if your pc blows up when playing this game we cannot be held responsible.

In the end you dont know it it was Wow, WoW could of just tipped your already struggling/broken card over the edge.  We will never know. For all we know AoC blew of the capacitors and wow blew the other.

Honestly id run a few diagnostics on your card and take it out and check your capacitors on it because it was fine for me just like your stateing for a while and then it all went boom 1 day.

I'm not exactly an expert on the subject, but wouldn't it be more likely to be a power surge if capacitors are fried?  Seems like the kind of overheating required to melt a capacitor enough to cause a short would be significantly noticeable.

Did you mean to post this in the WAR section instead?

He's talking about WOTLK beta.