# Plugging in graphics card while computer is on?



## runevirage (Sep 13, 2010)

As a point of interest, what would happen if you plugged in the PCIe 2.0 connectors to a graphics card while the computer is on (assuming that there is an onboard GPU or another graphics card already running the OS in normal mode)? Thanks.


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## slyfox2151 (Sep 13, 2010)

option A.. nothing happens..

Option B... you blowup the video card AND/OR the motherboard as well.


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## CDdude55 (Sep 13, 2010)

I definitely wouldn't recommend doing that, but i doubt much would happen.


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## overclocking101 (Sep 13, 2010)

if your system is new it will simply freeze, older systems you run a risk of killing a part or all of it. but I have done it not thinking and it simply froze up.


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## mlee49 (Sep 13, 2010)

Couple things could happen:

A) Power surge to the card and blows the card

B) Power drop from the card could cause unstability to the rest of the powered components.

C) Power supply blows from large power difference.

D) Nothing, card powers on and windows needs a reboot to recognize it.

Wanna try and tell us how it goes?


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## erocker (Sep 13, 2010)

First and foremost you would probably be ridiculed by those who know better and exercise common sense. It can cause several issues as far as your hadware is concerned. Freeze up, blown capacitors, transistors, HDD corruption and other permanent hardware failure. I've accidentally done it with RAM before and nothing bad happened.


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## sneekypeet (Sep 13, 2010)

As a point of interest, what is so important you cant wait the extra 2-3 minutes to shut it down and reboot. Its going to need the reboot anyways to work.


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## AltecV1 (Sep 13, 2010)

your computer would froze and thats it


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## DaMulta (Sep 13, 2010)

It would power up, and if you go into device manager you can turn it on.

I have plugged in cards/removed cards while the machine is on a TON of times.

I use to flip people out in the old server room when I would pull/plug in cards without shutting down.

Of course you are going to have to have another card ON and plugged in while you do it.


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## wolf (Sep 13, 2010)

Nothing good will come of this, possibly nothing bad either, but definitely nothing good.

but hey, theres only two ways to find out


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## streetfighter 2 (Sep 13, 2010)

Umm... I'm going to agree with what just about everyone said.

If you still want to try it though, for the love god get some eye protection because you'll need to read our posts making fun of you *if* it explodes.


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## Batou1986 (Sep 13, 2010)

i bet it would be fine if i had an extra psu around id try it on the p5n-sli with an x800 and an x300


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## hat (Sep 13, 2010)

Well, certianly nothing BETTER then doing it the old fashioned way can happen.


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## Kantastic (Sep 13, 2010)

I tried it with RAM and my computer froze just like erocker's did. Never had the balls to try a GPU though... you go first.


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## angelkiller (Sep 13, 2010)

mlee49 said:


> C) Power supply blows from large power difference.


I've done it before and this happened.

It was an old Dell P4 machine and the card was an AGP MX 4000. I didn't realize the machine was on shadedshu) and I put the card in the AGP slot. There was a big spark/noise from the PSU and it turned off. Didn't come back on. Got a new PSU and the machine worked fine, including the graphics card.


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## runevirage (Sep 13, 2010)

Ok guys, well I tried it. And....

Nothing really happened other than the fan on the card went up to 100%. The card wasn't recognized in the control panel, Realtemp, or GPUZ. The fan speed went up to 100% even with only one PCIe power connector in, even though it normally requires two. 

The fan speed thing was kind of interesting, why would it default to 100% upon power initiation? Possibly to prevent overheating?


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## angelkiller (Sep 13, 2010)

runevirage said:


> Ok guys, well I tried it. And....
> 
> Nothing really happened other than the fan on the card went up to 100%. The card wasn't recognized in the control panel, Realtemp, or GPUZ. The fan speed went up to 100% even with only one PCIe power connector in, even though it normally requires two.
> 
> The fan speed thing was kind of interesting, why would it default to 100% upon power initiation? Possibly to prevent overheating?


Most cards run the fan at 100% at boot then it quietens down. No idea why.

But more importantly,

*YOU TRIED THIS???* Such a terrible terrible terrible idea. You could have lost several hundred dollars worth of gear in a second. Even if you were curious, that was a dumb thing to try. 
:shadedshu :shadedshu :shadedshu


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## DaMulta (Sep 13, 2010)

So you scanned for new hardware in device manager?


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## mlee49 (Sep 13, 2010)

runevirage said:


> Ok guys, well I tried it. And....
> 
> Nothing really happened other than the fan on the card went up to 100%. The card wasn't recognized in the control panel, Realtemp, or GPUZ. The fan speed went up to 100% even with only one PCIe power connector in, even though it normally requires two.
> 
> The fan speed thing was kind of interesting, why would it default to 100% upon power initiation? Possibly to prevent overheating?



Well at start up the fan ramps up until the OS can tell it to cool down.  Since the OS doesn't recognize the card it can't tell it to chill.


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## garyinhere (Sep 13, 2010)

angelkiller said:


> Even if you were curious, that was a dumb thing to try.



agreed


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## 3volvedcombat (Sep 13, 2010)

runevirage said:


> Ok guys, well I tried it. And....
> 
> Nothing really happened other than the fan on the card went up to 100%. The card wasn't recognized in the control panel, Realtemp, or GPUZ. The fan speed went up to 100% even with only one PCIe power connector in, even though it normally requires two.
> 
> The fan speed thing was kind of interesting, why would it default to 100% upon power initiation? Possibly to prevent overheating?



Do it again, looks like you need to, go right click on computer.

then select MANAGE.

Find device manager

Then go down to vga section, youll see the card, press activate, or enable, or turn on, because its disabled, and you should be fine!


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## DaMulta (Sep 13, 2010)

PEOPLE in this thread need to grow some balls lol


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## Easy Rhino (Sep 13, 2010)

setup your video camera, point it at your pc, turn on pc, plug in pci-e card. report back.


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## Perseid (Sep 13, 2010)

There are actually people suggesting someone DO this? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? Seriously. Think of how much power modern video cards use. Think of a new device suddenly asking for that power out of the blue. Now imagine the power suddenly shooting through some pins when other pins aren't connected yet because you didn't seat it 100%.


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## runevirage (Sep 13, 2010)

Damn, you guys are right, I should've tried to detect it through device manager. I guess at the time I was just too excited. Plus the 100% fans thing was freaking me out.

As to why I tried it? Some people live for danger 

Would try it again but my hands are still bruised from the last try. Damn PCIe 2.0 power connectors are so freaking hard to get out you practically need a pair of pliers. Anyway, might do this again some time, on another rainy night perhaps...

And as everyone has noted in the thread, this WAS a stupid thing to do, and I don't recommend that anyone else do it lol.


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## DaMulta (Sep 13, 2010)

I never said it was stupid 

one of PCi s design points was to be able to do this. AKA one Reason is some machines are NEVER turned off, and if they were they might not come back up.


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## angelkiller (Sep 13, 2010)

DaMulta said:


> I never said it was stupid
> 
> one of PCi s design points was to be able to do this. AKA one Reason is some machines are NEVER turned off, and if they were they might not come back up.


This is an intentional feature of PCI-E? Really? (very curious)


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## DaMulta (Sep 13, 2010)

just typed it into Google yep it is

PCI-SIG - FAQ - PCI Express
A1: PCI Express architecture is an industry standard high-performance, ... Support for new and innovative,* hot-plug/hot-swap add-in card and module devices *

http://www.pcisig.com/news_room/faqs/faq_express/


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## 95Viper (Sep 13, 2010)

DaMulta said:


> I never said it was stupid
> 
> one of PCi s design points was to be able to do this. AKA one Reason is some machines are NEVER turned off, and if they were they might not come back up.





angelkiller said:


> This is an intentional feature of PCI-E? Really? (very curious)



PCI Express® Architecture Frequently Asked Questions

Quotes from web page:

"Support for new and innovative, hot-plug/hot-swap add-in card and module devices"

"Q7: How does ExpressModule improve the way Servers and Workstations are built and serviced?"
"A7: The ExpressModule form factor provides Servers and Workstations with a modular I/O adapter that is closed chassis hot-pluggable. The design of ExpressModule frees the I/O adapter from direct connection to the system board, thus allowing greater flexibility in system design. Server I/O Modules can be placed in the front or back of system, vertical or horizontal, or above system I/O board. The Server I/O Modules flow-through cooling model increases system venting while providing adapter developers a know airflow scheme, thus improving reliability for both adapters and systems. The standard management features promotes remote service while the modular enclosure enables customer service and upgrades."

The system has to be designed for this capability from the start, I may be wrong, but I don't believe most consumer MB PCI-e sub-systems are.


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## DaMulta (Sep 13, 2010)

I think it's a simple standard that flows over all boards. Now if you looked up pci-x it could be different. Seeing that is more sever integrated so to say.


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## hat (Sep 13, 2010)

DaMulta said:


> PEOPLE in this thread need to grow some balls lol



What is there to be had? There is no gain, except the knowledge that you installed a graphics card in an unorthadox meathod, and fears that there might be some very strange quirkiness down the road even if it played out normally at first.


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## DaMulta (Sep 13, 2010)

now plugging in wires while your machine can be dangerous. all it takes is it to me a little misleading and a spark can happen. This is why you need to be fast like a ninja if your hot-swaping a hdd or dvd player....unless your using sata power wire which was made for that.


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## Arrakis9 (Sep 13, 2010)

DaMulta said:


> now plugging in wires while your machine can be dangerous. all it takes is it to me a little misleading and a spark can happen. This is why you need to be fast like a ninja if your hot-swaping a hdd or dvd player....unless your using sata power wire which was made for that.



honestly i hot swap hard drives (ide & sata) all day long at work when i virus scan customers computers. its not as dangerous as you'd think as long as your careful and not plugging it in backwards of course the worst that would happen is you can ground a pin thats not suppose to be grounded and the psu shorts. most modern decent psu's have protection against grounding and work just fine after a falt like that.


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## Steevo (Sep 13, 2010)

He probably has plug and play OS turned OFF in the BIOS, thus the new card would not be assigned any IRQ, or memory addresses by windows, as the BIOS never reported it. I have done HDD's, floppys, CD drives, old modems, and a few other items and never had a death, but I have not tried a GPU. I have had a user pull a low profile card out while in use, it cooked the card.


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## pantherx12 (Sep 13, 2010)

Perseid said:


> There are actually people suggesting someone DO this? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? Seriously. Think of how much power modern video cards use. Think of a new device suddenly asking for that power out of the blue. Now imagine the power suddenly shooting through some pins when other pins aren't connected yet because you didn't seat it 100%.




The power gets distributed through a few anyway I think, so this wouldn't happen.



In regards to DaMulta's post, I'm surprised people never clocked on that's what the "express" bit is for 

I've never done it with a main card just out of habit, but I poped my 3850/3870 out once at a time fairly often


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## LAN_deRf_HA (Sep 13, 2010)

I highly value my life and the stuff I spend my money on. As such, I turn off the pc, flip the psu switch and press the start button to discharge the capacitors before doing anything involving my limbs and the inside of a pc. Just because you can doesn't mean you should.


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## mdsx1950 (Sep 13, 2010)

Interesting thread. Someone with a 250W PSU should try doing that with an ASUS ARES or GTX 480.  Now THAT would be cool.


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## heky (Sep 13, 2010)

mdsx1950

lol


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## animal007uk (Sep 13, 2010)

I know a few people who do silly things like this, then they always moan at me because one of there dvd drives or graphics cards no longer works.

Now while it might be possible to add things to the pc when its turned on, I for one would just not risk it, If your rich and can afford to replace stuff then go for it but i think its a bad idea.


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## filip007 (Sep 13, 2010)

Older graphics used protection if not plugged in it don't even start, at lest Radeon. I definitely will not try that with Geforce that are usually not build to last.


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## _JP_ (Sep 13, 2010)

mdsx1950 said:


> Interesting thread. Someone with a 250W PSU should try doing that with an ASUS ARES or GTX 480.  Now THAT would be cool.


I have a 250W PSU! Quick, send me the ARES and I'll make the experience!
Oh wait, it's an old P3 type PSU...damn...so close...
But can try with a Incredi-cheap Halfmann 28.5€ 700W PSU or a 2HIX 500W, or any up to 20~30€ PSU that can support a  PCI-e board.
Guess what's left for me is too agree with all the others that stated that this was a stupid thing to do and just because you can doesn't mean you should unless your pockets go deep, you have no value for money and you like to pick fights with hobos, for the lulz.
Also, PICS/VIDEOS OR IT DIDN'T HAPPEN!


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## <<Onafets>> (Sep 13, 2010)

Performance boost* so immense that it would destroy the world in a matter of seconds.

*Only works with NVidia Cards, Sorry for the inconvenience.


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## mdsx1950 (Sep 13, 2010)

heky said:


> mdsx1950
> 
> lol



 



_JP_ said:


> I have a 250W PSU! Quick, send me the ARES and I'll make the experience!
> Oh wait, it's an old P3 type PSU...damn...so close...
> But can try with a Incredi-cheap Halfmann 28.5€ 700W PSU or a 2HIX 500W, or any up to 20~30€ PSU that can support a  PCI-e board.
> Guess what's left for me is too agree with all the others that stated that this was a stupid thing to do and *just because you can doesn't mean you should unless your pockets go deep, you have no value for money* and you like to pick fights with hobos, for the lulz.
> Also, PICS/VIDEOS OR IT DIDN'T HAPPEN!


Is that directed to me?


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## _JP_ (Sep 13, 2010)

mdsx1950 said:


> Is that directed to me?


Uh, what?...No!
No, no...it was meant for mr. runevirage and his ballz of steel.
Questionable ballz by now, since he did not either state what card did he used to preform such experience or posted pics/vids.
But you've opened my eyes and I should makes some changes to what I've said, since now I see it did not reflect entirely my point of view:


_JP_ said:


> just because you can *do senseless/possibly destructive/unnecessary/"for the kick of it" stuff* doesn't mean you should unless your pockets go deep, you have no value for money (...)


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## mdsx1950 (Sep 13, 2010)

_JP_ said:


> Uh, what?...No!
> No, no...it was meant for mr. runevirage and his ballz of steel.
> Questionable ballz by now, since he did not either state what card did he used to preform such experience or posted pics/vids.
> But you've opened my eyes and I should makes some changes to what I've said, since now I see it did not reflect entirely my point of view:



Oh ok cool.


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## uss ducky (Dec 15, 2015)

I'm going to necrobump this to add to the conversation and warn others.

I accidentally plugged my R9 390 in while my pc was on. It was dark-ish. My pc is silent. Didn't notice the fan. UGH. Anyways, plugged it in, there was a little spark at the front of my PCI-E 3.0 x16 port, and the 390 no longer is recognised in BIOS in any computer. Fans ramp up to 100%, so the leads are still working, but I'm assuming something inside the card is now toast.

DON'T DO THIS. PAY ATTENTION. Sad face.


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## 95Viper (Dec 15, 2015)

Welcome to TPU.
Sorry on the demise of your card...
hope the MB is alright.


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## Frick (Dec 15, 2015)

uss ducky said:


> I'm going to necrobump this to add to the conversation and warn others.
> 
> I accidentally plugged my R9 390 in while my pc was on. It was dark-ish. My pc is silent. Didn't notice the fan. UGH. Anyways, plugged it in, there was a little spark at the front of my PCI-E 3.0 x16 port, and the 390 no longer is recognised in BIOS in any computer. Fans ramp up to 100%, so the leads are still working, but I'm assuming something inside the card is now toast.
> 
> DON'T DO THIS. PAY ATTENTION. Sad face.



Excellent first post.


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## Aquinus (Dec 15, 2015)

uss ducky said:


> I'm going to necrobump this to add to the conversation and warn others.
> 
> I accidentally plugged my R9 390 in while my pc was on. It was dark-ish. My pc is silent. Didn't notice the fan. UGH. Anyways, plugged it in, there was a little spark at the front of my PCI-E 3.0 x16 port, and the 390 no longer is recognised in BIOS in any computer. Fans ramp up to 100%, so the leads are still working, but I'm assuming something inside the card is now toast.
> 
> DON'T DO THIS. PAY ATTENTION. Sad face.


PCI-E does support hot-swapping but, not with normal full slot cards by normal spec. Only special PCI-E implementations actually supports hot swapping PCI-E devices like ExpressBus and mobile PCI-E modules reliably.

Not that I want to be posting on a 5 year old thread but, PCI-E does support hot swapping, it's just that most normal implementations don't actually do it as it's not required by spec but there is spec to support doing it.


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## uss ducky (Dec 16, 2015)

95Viper said:


> Welcome to TPU.
> Sorry on the demise of your card...
> hope the MB is alright.



Thanks! And... thanks... Mobo is fine luckily. I was really worried I fried the PCI-e slot, but I've got the Fury X plugged in currently, so it all seems good.



Frick said:


> Excellent first post.



Yeah, I was searching for this issue to see if someone was able to fix the problem. The other guy from 5 years ago seems to have been able to get out lucky, but alas. Not me.



Aquinus said:


> PCI-E does support hot-swapping but, not with normal full slot cards by normal spec. Only special PCI-E implementations actually supports hot swapping PCI-E devices like ExpressBus and mobile PCI-E modules reliably.
> 
> Not that I want to be posting on a 5 year old thread but, PCI-E does support hot swapping, it's just that most normal implementations don't actually do it as it's not required by spec but there is spec to support doing it.



Yeah, I've read about hot-swapping, but this is obviously not what I was trying to do. Even if the slot did support it, would that be the same for the card, or would both devices need to support it? I feel like the card might have still died.


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## qubit (Dec 16, 2015)

@uss ducky thanks for letting people know what can happen and sorry your card died. It's all too easy to cross connect the pins in the slot with the card, especially when fumbling around thinking it's switched off and this is what likely shorted it out.

Welcome to TPU.


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