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one of my 5970's had the little tab ripped off that is used to lock it into the motherboard.  This would not appear to be a problem as this doesn't have any electrical connections on it, but now it hangs loading windows 7.  It displays the windows 7 loading logo pulsing forever without loading up the desktop.  Should I just throw this card out or is there something I can try?

That "tab" wouldn't be causing that.  However whatever physical trauma ripped the tab off may have damaged the card in other ways.

...or the PCI-E slot.

Agreed.  More likely the slot then the card.

Reseat the card, and reseat the memory..

if its just the retaining clip, to hold the card, I wouldnt worry about it.

I have snipped many off just because they are that annoying..

Looks like a PCI Express connectivity fault. These are the steps I would take in that order
a) Remove card
b) Inspect Card for damage to the PCI-E connectors. Inspect motherboard for damage to the PCI-E connectors
c) If ok, reseat card and try
d) If not ok, use another 16X PCI-E slot
e) If not ok, use a PCI-E riser cable, and try a few PCI-E slots
f) If not ok, try another motherboard.
g) If ok on another motherboard, boot windows in safe mode and remove all catalyst drivers
h) Reinstall catalyst drivers
i) If it still fails, try Linux
j) If it works in Linux, then it's a Windows issue.

Another option if you notice damage to PCIe connector is to tape up the damaged connectors and turn the card into a PCIe 1x  device.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/sli-coming,927-2.html

If the you notice damage at the "front" of the connector those are the power connectors and PCIe 1x pins so you are SOL.