Wahhh, that sounds terrible. My PSU doesn't look burnt out, but maybe it shorted because the fan required too much amperage? I don't know. I'll follow your advice and require good testing. :)

I'm seeing the prices for processors and it's pretty steep compared to what I paid for my computer! I paid $250 and that included a motherboard, which I checked and is being sold for $80, an i5 processor, which I'm seeing costs $150, a PSU, which is around $20, and that's $250 total and the rest of the inexpensive stuff is not even accounted for! (RAM, graphic card, case, plugs and cables) I don't know which magic the salesman pulled to make this happen but it gave me a good 2-year run.

Funnily enough, everything failed at the same time. I changed the HDD for an SSD, the fan started whirring, I changed it, the motherboard condenser lost its resin, changed it, and now I'll have to replace the PSU. This is the used old car of computers when taken for a mountain trip.