I did a little bit of research and didn't find much on this but here goes.

Last night I was doing what I usually do (play WoW) and my computer freezes, shuts up. I restart, load back up thinking it's a fluke, same thing happens. I'm like awwwwwwwww @$^% my video card fan is being retarded or something is overheating down there.

I open up and case and lo and behold my video card is burning mah fingers. So I restart a couple times with a side off and notice that the video card fan starts up a little bit when I boot up my computer, then it just stops. From what I read one of the solutions was to system restore to an earlier time and the others say it's a faulty video card - but I've had the card for at least a year. Installing new drivers is a no because when I do that my computer goes berserk and starts hating me

So I ask you tech-massassi, is there any other way to save my card? It's a ATI X1950 pro 512MB.

tl;dr haaaalp

The fan is bad.

Try cleaning it out, or replace it.

You might consider solving whatever problem it is that makes your computer go "berserk" when you install driver updates first, though.

How do I go about cleaning it? I'm aware of how to do things the anti-static way and I don't care about voiding whatever warrenty I might have had (it's been awhile).

You should be able to unseat it from the heatsink. Then all you need is a can of air to blow it out.

It takes a pretty large static discharge to harm a personal computer. From 1994-96 (I don't remember when I first started taking computers apart) till now I've never grounded myself or taken anti-static precautions and I've yet to have a static discharge, let alone one that killed something.

Get a can of compressed air and blow the crap out of it. If it still doesn't spin up, time to get a new fan. Or a whole new video card while you're at it.

If you aren't going to take the fan off, blow it out at an angle. If you do it straight down you might pound dust down inside where it seats. I've seen it happen before.

Thanks, I'll pick up a can of compressed air from office depot tomorrow and see how it goes.

The cost of a can of compressed air as about the same as the cost of a new fan, I would just order a new fan from newegg and be done with it, that way you know the fan should last for a while and your problem shouldn't come up again.

If the video card fan isn't being powered by the card anymore you can always get a cheap 80mm fan that grabs power off a molex and splice the wire from it onto your video card's fan. That will cause it to run at full speed all the time.

Or if the video card fan is bad you can take it off the heatsink and get a slot fan to put next to the card. That's how I have my media center set up, because the slot fan is nearly silent.

oh c'mon man i'm not that good splice wut

lol, I'm entertaining myself by watching the fan try to turn itself forward, then it'll click back, and then repeat it's extremely depressing.

Sounds like your bearing's ****ed. Get a new fan.

Send it to me. Ill fix it and send it back for no charge.

yeah, sometimes the video card mfr will send you a new one, otherwise get a slot fan. don't run the card without the fan though, or you will be in need of a new video card very soon...

Not a GPU HSF. Depending on the requirements of the card, they can cost up to 50$.

You can buy just the fan.

Should I buy it direct from the manufacturer's site or can I get it from like Newegg?

I'll vouch for that too.. never had a problem

Just buy whatever's cheapest *shrug*