Can a dead video card still have a working fan?

Question

My video card was fine this morning. I turned off my computer, went to class. When I returned and turned it back on, nothing. The fan is working on the video card but there is no output to my monitors.

I unhooked one of my monitors and plugged it into my motherboards integrated card; it works. The computer is booting no problem, there is just no output.

I tried cleaning the dust of it, nothing. Rebooting (many times), nothing. I even tried taking it out, blowing on it and then plugging it back in, but even the tried and true NES method did not work.

Can anyone tell based on this information whether it is dead? Is there a voodoo rain dance I can try to see if it works? The only hope I have is that the fan on the graphics card (which receives power from the PCI-E slot, no 6-Pin connector) still works.

Answer 1

Power to the fan is no indicator that the card is functioning. My final check would be to deliberately disable the integrated video completely in the BIOS (to ensure that video isn't somehow being forced to the integrated chip only), make sure that the monitor and cable used for a successful test on the integrated video are what you use for one last test of the video card.

If you get no display, reset the BIOS on the motherboard (since at that point you will have no way to see the screen at all) and live with the integrated chip until you can buy a new card.

If you have custom BIOS settings that would be inconvenient to remember, be sure to write them down first.

Answer 2

yes it could be that you are getting power from the bus, or the PCI-E power adapter from the power supply. But this could also be the computer confused about which video card to send video to.

Enter your BIOS and look under an option typically called "Integrated Peripherals" for your integrated video, if there is an option to disable it then do so, otherwise set it to automatic. Save your changes (even if you didn't make any) and boot again.

If you can see BIOS information from your PCI-E vid card, but not when it switches to windows, then Windows is confused about which video card is default.