Can't get my new 7970 to work

[sig606]

I purchased a new ATI 7970 vid card. My prev one was an ATI 5850. I'm having problems getting my vid card drivers/card to work.

Specs:
ASROCK X58 socket 1366 mobo, intel i7 920, 12 GB ram
Corsair TX750 W power supply. It has four PCIE power cables with the 6+2 pin connectors

Installation:
-installed a new Samsung 830 SSD system hard drive
-installed Windows 7 64-bit from scratch.
-did all Windows updates.
-the generic Windows vid driver works fine. It can drive my LCD at full resolution.
-downloaded the latest ATI Gfx drivers, Catalyst v12.6 and installed it, then rebooted

The screen is garbled. Lots of horizontal lines. The inputs (password input text box, for example) show up if you hover over them. I snapped a pic and uploaded it here.
http://i49.tinypic.com/2nl6643.jpg

I did a System Restore to a point prior to the 12.6 driver install and deleted all ATI/AMD folders on the drive and in the registry, then tried to install driver version 12.3. I got the same results.

I tried swapping the PCIE power cables to some molex-to-PCIE connectors and got the same results.

What other troubleshooting would you recommend?

 

[Silverforce11]

Re-seat your card on your MB, take it out completely n clean the dust from the PCI lanes with compressed air. If its still showing horizontal lines like that afterwards, you have a dud and get your warranty asap.

 

[chimaxi83]

That's either a bad cable or bad card out of the box.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Does safe mode work correctly? If not change the cable you use between the monitor and video card.

If so I recommend uninstall the AMD drivers completely. Then in safe mode use driver sweeper to remove all left over traces of AMD display drivers and such. Then boot normally and install the latest drivers.

If this doesn't work I think it's RMA time.

 

[sig606]

Safe mode works fine. The card is fine when using the default Windows video driver.

I've been running it w/ both sides of the case off and the vid card isn't hot to the touch, so I ruled out heat.

I tried these driver versions:
12.3 = black screen
12.4, 12.6 and 12.7 beta = same problem w screen artifacts.

I pulled the card and reseated it, same problem.

I tried a different monitor with diff cable, same problem.

I'm looking up the Tiger Direct RMA process next.

Thx for the suggestions.

 

[cmdrdredd]

There's a new 12.8 beta. Try those, but do a full uninstall and use driver sweeper in safe mode to remove remnants. That way it starts clean.

It is possible though that when the card is using drivers it is unstable at the clocks the drivers are telling the card to run at.

 

[hokies83]

I bought 2 7970s both had defects.. 1 worked cept with web surfing.. it would crash with hardware accel on.. the other.. had the worst choke whine ive ever heard on anything... Ones Asic rating was 63% the others was 65%.. To compare both the gtx 680s i replaced them with have 100% Asic ratings.

 

[cmdrdredd]

ASIC as read by GPU-Z is kind of BS. I never even look at it.

 

[hokies83]

With my cards it was not both overclock like monsters .. just limited by heat.. soon as the 1 fan is fixed it should do alot better the other im doing the antec 620 mod to.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

That definitely looks like a defective video card. Especially since this is a fresh install of windows and drivers, it definitely doesn't look like a driver issue. RMA that card IMO.

 

[cmdrdredd]

With my cards it was not both overclock like monsters .. just limited by heat.. soon as the 1 fan is fixed it should do alot better the other im doing the antec 620 mod to.

ANY card could do that, ASIC at or near 100% doesn't automatically mean you'll get 1250Mhz out of a 7950.