AGP?

I'm using a GA-7N400 Pro2 mobo with a quadroFX 3000 video card. I have had a
few incidents where the picture went all crazy and thought it was the card
going. Today I plugged my USB flash drive in and the computer froze. Had to
soft off. Now when I try to boot there is no video signal at all. No bios
info or anything at all on the screen. The computer acts like it is booting
but I can't tell. Then I noticed the fan is not running on the quadro which
has it's own 4 pin power connector. I changed video cards and still nothing.
All the other fans are running. Can an AGP slot go bad?
Rudy

Sorry for all the repeat posts. I went to a new provider and got messed up.
....

Rudy wrote:
I'm using a GA-7N400 Pro2 mobo with a quadroFX 3000 video card. I have had a
few incidents where the picture went all crazy and thought it was the card
going. Today I plugged my USB flash drive in and the computer froze. Had to
soft off. Now when I try to boot there is no video signal at all. No bios
info or anything at all on the screen. The computer acts like it is booting
but I can't tell. Then I noticed the fan is not running on the quadro which
has it's own 4 pin power connector. I changed video cards and still nothing.
All the other fans are running. Can an AGP slot go bad?
Rudy


It depends on what power rail the fan is powered from. You'd think
some of that power would feed the power converters on the video card
as well. So even if some contacts got bent in the AGP socket, it
should have some other side effect as well. Possibly preventing the
computer from booting up when it happens.

It could be that the fan has flat out failed on its own. If you know
for sure what voltage it uses, you can connect a separate supply to
the fan and test it outside the computer. Possible operating voltages
might be 12V (common on larger fans) or 5V (used on some smaller
fans). Maybe someone else knows a way to figure out which is which,
but unless the requirements are printed on the fan hub, I usually
don't take a chance on it.

For 12V case fans, I keep a 9V transistor radio battery handy, plus
one of those snap on battery clips. That gives me a bit less voltage
than the rated value, but it will spin the vast majority of 12V fans.
The three pin fan connections are typically labeled in a motherboard
manual, if you need a reference to look up the wiring. For a smaller
fan with two wires, I'd guess the red wire is positive, and the black
is the ground connection.

You could start with a 5V supply (three dry cells in series) and move
up to the 9V transistor radio battery. So you could test in stages,
to reduce the risk of damaging the fan.

Check the rotor of the fan with your finger. If the sleeve bearing
has failed, and you notice a lot of friction and difficulty moving
the fan blade, that will save your the effort of testing it with
a battery. The fan blade should be free moving. It could be that
the blade has snagged on an obstruction.

Without a fan, that'll cause the video card to overheat, which
isn't good for it.

Paul