Not powering a graphics card?

[AG Renagade]

Just wondering what are the consequences for leaving in a graphics card on the motherboard and not providing 6-pin power connections.

Obviously I'm not intending on doing this or using a GPU this way but I was just curious, btw I'm referring to a GPU that's not in use. A second one that's just sitting in a PCI-E slot without power going to it.

Thanks.

 

[hunter315]

Depends on the GPU, sometimes it will cause the system not to boot because it throws a POST error due to lack of power, other times the system will work just fine without it, it wont damage the GPU, the GPU just wont function properly.

 

[AG Renagade]

Thanks.

What I was referring to is for example if I had my GTX 470 SC in my primary slot and it had full power and I just decided to throw in a lets say 9800GTX way at the bottom but decided not to power it because I wasn't using it, I would have it plugged in but without any juice. If the system would boot up fine, would I want to worry about leaving it in there?

 

[hunter315]

That raises the question, why are you leaving it unplugged? It will still be pulling 75W of power through the board, it wont pull too much from a PCI-e cable so you wouldnt gain much by leaving it unplugged.

 

[AG Renagade]

I'm not leaving it unplugged, just curious =D

 

[hunter315]

It shouldnt damage it or do anything bad, when undervolted or underpowered electronics just tend not to work, its when you start over volting it that you can run into issues.

 

[AG Renagade]

Yeah I figured as much, I was just wondering how a card that was not being used as a primary display adapter and not being powered would react.

Thanks for the insight.

 

[hunter315]

Well, it is still being powered, a 9800GTX can get the vast majority of the power it needs to fun at full load without the PCI-E cable, it just needs that extra little bit to be able to handle running at full speed.