not re-applying paste after taking apart wont do the card any favors, breaking the bond will affect the cards temp and you'll likely see high or very high temps to the point the card may overheat and your screen will go black, its always good practice to use paste after taking coolers off to avoid any problems.
likely the gpu is overheating so you need to take the card apart again and re-apply thermal paste, probably the stuff that was applied has dried up, check the pads too, if any are dry they need replacing too.
if the above doesn't work it could also be down to a bad display out on the back of the card, easiest way to check is move the display cable over or if you have a spare try that as the cable your using could be on the way out too.
I'm pretty sure it will be fine. However i have not tested the card since i have disassembled it. Certainly it has not overheated so far.
The lack of a photo does seem strange, considering phone cameras from a decade ago are good enough.
I literally sit breathing out vape directly onto my monitor so it all bounces off it, and there is none on it what so ever after the couple of years ive had them. The dust on top of it is dry too. External window is the only place i get build up of any residue. The worst I had it was after about 7 years (my blinds are always shut) and my friend asked if i got the build up, and i discovered that I do, but it still wasnt dripping.forming droplets. Thats with a similar amount (~12ml a day, of 50/50 vg/pg to 100vg, mixing my own).
but its irrelevant to the actual question about fixing the gpu, so doesn't matter beyond being a weird thing to make up if thats the case, or something going wrong if its not made up. Sub ambient cooling would cause it, because thats so common
I hope it works out op, with no IPA, do you have any TIM cleaner? thatll do the job too. or acetone (nail varnish remover). basically any solvent that will evaporate without leaving residue. As for not repasting, while it can technically cause issues with temp, it should still work "ok" enough at least for testing purposes.
Its strange people would think i am making this up. As i have said the quality on my phone camera is extremely bad its damaged, glass smashed etc, in addition i have cleaned it now.
From cleaning the GPU, it was fine, literally only that one place where the LED strip is is where the juice was, it is not evenly distributed over the entire card.
My best guess is that it has dripped from the radiator directly above (corsair 115i CPU cooler).
The level of vape fog was that i cannot see through the glass to read the corsair logo on that cooler, or even " HX750" which is on the PSU, about 1 inch from the glass.
I had cleaned that many times. And yes i figured this will end up being a problem, the dripping did catch me by surprise.
Anyway i will get back to work now, and test the now cleaned GPU in a few hours.
If it crashes again, i will just buy a 2060 right away and hopefully OCUK can get it delivered by the weekend.