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So I picked up a 7970 the other day, dropped it in an open PCI-e slot I had on one of my rigs and expected to be able to install the display adapter and get it up and running...

Well fast forward 3 days and I've pretty much given up.


Initially I had a 5870 installed in the computer, with 11.12, in the 1st pcie slot. I put the 7970 in the 2nd, installed the latest 7xxx series drivers and rebooted. Couldn't get past the initial windows boot screen.

Then I decided that perhaps it’s because I'm not using it as the main display adapter, switched the cards around, no dice.

OK, so then I thought maybe the 11.12 drivers for the 5870 were screwing it up, uninstalled those, and only installed the 7xxx drivers... Nothing.

Finally, figuring there were some left over registry files or something, so I wiped the drive, fresh install of W7.  Installed ONLY the 7xxx drivers from ATI's site.  Still no go.

Read on the AMD forums that some people were having issues with those drivers on the site, so tried the drivers that came with the CD.

Finally, frustrated, I pulled the 5870 out and the 7970 worked smoothly.  Before you jump in and say Power Supply, it's a new PC Power and Cooling 950w, and I've run three 5870's on it without issue, so I highly doubt it's a power issue.

From my understanding, both cards should be able to be installed simultaneously without crossfire as independent display adapters... but hell if I could get it to work.

Any ideas?

Thanks

Did you use driver sweeper to wipe out the old driver installation?

Yeah, and formatted the drive with a fresh install, and used ONLY the 7970 drivers.

Oh, I see.  So does the 5870 work by itself with the 7970 drivers?

Need more details.

When you say "nothing".  What is nothing?  What exactly happened after the clean install of windows & drivers w/ both cards installed.

Just tried it for shits and giggles... 7970 primary, 6870 secondary w/ the 7970 drivers from AMDs site for windows and 11.12 for linux. works.

I have my 7970 installed in PCI-E slot 1 and my 5850 in slot 2.  I installed the 11.12 7970 drivers from the website right over the top of my previous drivers and had no issues.  Both cards worked.  I also tried some other beta drivers and ended up uninstalling everything AMD and re-installing the 11.12 7970 website drivers.  Again no issues with either card.  

No idea what is wrong with your rig, but I can definitely say it should work.  I'm using Win 7 64 Ultimate.  My monitor is connected to my 7970 using DP.

Sorry, stuck on the windows boot screen.

Clean install w/ 7970 drivers installed (both cards in) - Stuck on windows boot screen.



I'll have to give that a try.

I assume you have either a display connected to each card or a dummy plug in one of them?  Even without that I'd think that it should boot.

Well good to know it works, Thanks!  I was going nuts looking to see if anybody had gotten it to work.

The only thing I can think of is perhaps its my 5870 going bad, or some sort of wierd motherboard incompatability.  I'll do some swapping around with other cards tongiht when I get home.

Thanks for all of the responses.

I have a bad 5870 :(

Swapped in a different 5870 and it booted right up, checked with a 6950 as well and worked perfectly.

Odd thing is, with just that 'bad' 5870 in, it will boot and mine... who knows.

These things happen with multiple cards, very few people actually use more than 1 or max. 2 GPUs for everyday gaming and work.
When I connect one of my HD 5850s in slot1 and another (same model, etc.) in slot2, I'll be getting BSODs after half an hour of mining. When I switch the cards all works fine. In slot3 there is a 6850.