Thanks, guys.
As I said, the card is an NVidia GeForce GTX 970 SC. I mentioned LED lights because they're common on motherboards, even though the average user can't see those, either. But in this...

Thanks for commenting.
The card is a GeForce GTX 970, not very old, AFAIK.
Perhaps you're right, although I would have thought there'd be an LED or two that'd light up when it was powered on.

If a modern video card is inserted into a motherboard's PCIe slot, and connected to power, but NOT connected to a screen, shouldn't its fans be spinning? Or would it sense that it was unable to...