Solved! (in part)

While I wait for a replacement for this piece of ****:



I decided to take matters into my own hands. The NVidia 6600 GT is an exceptional graphics card for the price. But a tiny bit of dust in any NVidia fan results in a meltdown. Looking similar to PigPen from Charlie Brown cartoons, this is a big problem for me. I found a temporary solution for people in my situation. I yanked the fan off of the GPU and leaned a case fan on the card.


Success! The core GPU temp is lower than it has ever been (39C vs. 45C)! Unfortunately, it's impossible to burn/read DVDs in this configuration since my computer is laying on it's side, but as a temporary workaround, it's perfect. Let the Photoshopped uprising begin in earnest now!