Those who feel insulted is beacuse they are most certainly not the best tradesmen. I have shown my gratitude to those who helped and have contradicted the innacuracies of the advice from some who instead of helping, were talking without knowing. Next time Tony, use the time to help those who seek help instead of making generalised personal statement like this and waste time. Good bye sir.
It's not about the insult, Leo, nor is it about the value of technical expertise, It's simple business economics. Wages, Fuel, Tax, Advertising, Office supplies, Plant, Admin, etc. An unknown fault call-out cannot be booked for less than an hour. You, as an engineer, must realise that fault diagnosis often takes 99% of an unpredictable time on the job. To use your own scenario, it takes much longer to determine that the fault is the actual graphics card, and not a corrupt driver, VGA cable, connector monitor, edge connector, memory conflict or setting, etc, than it does to swap out the card. Especially when you cant see whats happening because the monitor does not work. Anyone with any nous can exchange a video card in a few seconds. I would be paying you to determine with 100% certainty that I indeed needed a new £500 'SuperFXVideoNutterBlaster" card, and not a £1.99 VGA cable.
It's very possible that you have a burned out or damaged heater element in you dishwasher. This may have taken out the actuator switch in the programmer or thermostat. It may also be prudent to replace the MCB as it sounds like it has been placed under excessive stress for prolonged periods. You may also want to consider fitting an RCD/RCBO which, aside from the safety benefits, would detect such faults much earlier, reducing the likelihood of subsequent damage.
As a general rule, if you smell burning when using any electrical equipment you should immediately switch it off and leave it off until the cause can be determined and corrected. Failure to do so will at best cause further damage, and could cause a fire.