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Alright I just got a Diamond 7970 for gaming (with a little mining), and I need some ideas as to why I can't get it working. I have a Gigabyte 990FXA-UD5 motherboard, that I used to mine 3x 58xx cards, and then later 2x 5970s. I have a 1KW CoolMax PSU.

I was using just a 7770, and upgraded it to the 7970. I'm running Win7x64, with 12.6 and the included SDK.

Here's the problem: whenever I try to boot Windows normally, with an ATI driver, it goes through the boot animation, and then just goes to a black screen - it never gets to my desktop. I've tried 12.3, 12.4, 12.6, and even the 12.7 beta. I've tried moving the card to another PCIe slot. My monitor only supports HDMI, and VGA, so I've used both the HDMI and a DVI->VGA adapter.

I can boot to the desktop using safe mode, or by booting into safe mode and swapping the driver to the Windows "Standard VGA Graphics Adapter" driver. I've tried Driver Fusion, and the CCC uninstaller. I've also tried re-installing 12.6 and 12.7beta, both of which completed, but with errors (however, the XML report showed no errors(?)).

When it goes to this black screen, my Kill-A-Watt shows around 200W, and the card starts to get a little warm. Idle with the Windows driver is ~120W. The card's doing something, and using just under 100W in the process, but the fan never ramps up to compensate. I've only let it sit for no more than a few minutes for fear of damage.

I then tried switching back to my 7770, but with the 7970 still in the system. Even using my known good 7770, I can't boot to the desktop with the 7970 in the system while using ATI drivers - it does the same thing, drops to a black screen.

Anyone have any suggestions? Hints? Tips? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

-Crazy

Almost 100 views, and noone's got any clues or suggestions?

200W system consumption seems to be pretty normal for a card that is in high-power 3D mode, right after being initialized as might occur during the boot process.

How long did you leave it at blank?
Does your monitor go into standby on the LED?
What monitor do you have?

Do you have another computer? Could you try logging in via Remote Desktop Connection to see if the computer is just not displaying anything on the monitor or actually hung? (Make sure you can login via your 7770 first when you do this)

Watching as I am escrow on this deal.  I presume it is a dual output card.  Have you had this system working with other GPUs?  If it's not going to run - or too hard, you could return the card.

Just an update on this: I installed a new copy of Win7x64 SP1 onto a spare HD, installed a fresh copy of 12.6 drivers, and still no dice - it wont boot with the ATI drivers. My original install had all manufacturer drivers (chipset, NIC, etc), and the new install used all Microsoft drivers.

My only guess is that I have a Gigabyte 990FXA-UD5, with an up-to-date BIOS, but maybe there's some hardware incompatibility? Either way, it looks like I'll be returning the card.

Looks like your card is bad. I've started 7970 on old MSI AM3 board without any troubles.