ATI Radeon 9800 fan dismembered
 

I got this card back in '03, and I've been taking care of my computer since until this year [since I've been away at college.] Last night I decided that I should clean the innards of my machine because it was due for it.

I noticed that there was a dismembered fan on the floor of my tower, and it belonged to my ATI Radeon 9800 video card. The fan seemed to have computer chip transistors [whatever they're called] on it, and seemed like it's important to the system. I couldn't put it back on, it seemed to be completely broken off and impossible to fix.

I haven't really noticed any difference in performance on my computer [although I don't really play computer games anymore.] Should I be worried? Is there anyway to check the exact effect this has on the card? Has this happened to anyone else? Should I fix it? etc.

If it's not causing you problems, I wouldn't worry too much about it. There really isn't any way to see the real effect of the loss of the fan since your card probably doesn't have a temp probe, so you can't check the temperature. If you start to play games again you notice problems (artifacts, etc.), then it's probably the card overheating and you should either replace the cooler or replace the card.

I had a 9800 previously, and the model is made to be able to run extra hot, but not having a fan on it sounds like a death wish to me.

Get ATI's tools and see what the idle temp is, then make your call. (Mine ran at about 79-80 degrees C when idle.)

When the fan of my Radeon 9600 PRO went kaput, I just ran my PC for a few weeks without it. I avoided any form of stress on it though, but it ran fine.

Eh, I bet the "transistors" are just the heatsink. The cooling unit is usually attached to the chipset (the square, black thing). You could probably just pick up a VGA cooler and snap it back on.