On Sat, 12 Jun 2010 22:13:51 +0000, Meat Plow ǝʇoɹʍ:

On Sat, 12 Jun 2010 21:43:36 +0000, root ǝʇoɹʍ:

New motherboards often have a small fan covering one of the bridge
chips. Likewise, expensive graphics cards have a fan on their
processor. These fans are cheaply made.

Is there protection for the MB/card to keep their chips from frying if
the tiny little fan fails?

No.

I'll revise that and say that if said fan is monitored then there can be
an audible alert set up if the fan drops below a certain RPM. The fan
would need to have three wires to be monitored. Also in BIOS there should
be a setting to alert if the mainboard goes over a set temperature limit.
The default limits are usually good enough to use.