Could the graphics card be causing my computer to not boot?

[wkselfridge]

I got this desktop belonged to my father, I got it when he passed away recently. Inside was completely loaded with dust, I cleaned it before I did anything.  It came with the Nvidia Geforce graphics card.  while working with it, I had a few times that the monitor would go blank, say no signal.  It would come back on if I powered off the monitor.  A few days ago, it did it again, but I couldn't get a picture back on, so I powered it off.  After it came back on, it got stuck in automatic repair, until I did a system restore.  After the restore, it would try to boot, but then the little dots going in a circle would stop, and it wouldn't fully boot.  At times the screen would still drop to no signal.  I tried another monitor I know is good. The fan on the graphics card was always  running full speed since I got it.  Could the graphics card cause this?  Also, if I remove the card, will the DVI connections on this motherboard work?

[wkselfridge]

Ok, I found out it's the problem, took out the graphics card, hooked my monitor to the motherboard, computer booted, unfortunately, I have no sound

[Hibb1]

Sounds to me like when you were cleaning the dust, the video card is now having issues in the slot. I reckon if you have an air compressor or can of air, blow the slot when the video card is out, and clean any dust on the video card connector pins.

Re-seat the video card and see how you go. If that still does not work, then maybe the video card is overheating due to dust.

Make sure the video card heatsink and fan are clean too.

Are you getting no sound now because you were using HDMI on the add-in video card and now you're using a different cable?

[wkselfridge]

I was using the audio output for my sound, My monitors only have DVI and VGA connections.  I had to reinstall all of my audio drivers and that fixed the sound issue, must have something to do with when I did a system restore.

I am going to remove and clean the heat sink and processor, reapply thermal compound and try the card again.  If it doesn't work, no big deal, I don't play games or anything graphic intensive, just use it for school.