AMD Radeon R9 270x - Black Screen after driver installation Win7-64bits

I know that this is an older post but I just wanted to chime in with my experience with this exact same issue. Allbeit with a different AMD card.

I have an AFOX single slot HD7850 that I got from a friend that had the same exact symptoms.
In his case he used it for years without issue then one day installed newer updated drivers and it displayed a blank screen after the restart. He toyed around with it and noticed it would enter safe mode just fine... but every time he reinstalled drivers and restarted black screen.

And that's where I came in.
I truly believed I could fix this card as it actually displays perfectly using the basic VGA drivers before the radeon drivers are fully loaded. Unfortunately this isn't the case.

I have tested the defective card in 3 different machines (2 with win10 pro x64 one with win7 pro x64) all with the same results. All are different configurations and types. Dell E520, HP z400, and Homebuilt AMD FX-8320. I am very familiar with dedicated GPU's and troubleshooting issues whether AMD or nvidia for most of my computing life now all the way back to riva TNT. That's why my friend gifted me this wonderful POS card because he knew I would lose many man hours struggling over it as he enjoys gaming on his new 4gb rx460.

One of my PC's (the HP z400) already has an hd7850 2GB so I was attempting to see if it would at least run in a xfire configuration in the second Pci-e 16x slot. No dice. Even with the good card as the main display card in the first slot and driving the display the system would go to black screen on restart. With each and every machine the Black screen starts right where the cursor would usually come up on screen after the windows loading splash screen for win7 or the rotating white dots for win10. Exactly when the display would initiate it seems the screen stays black yet the display appears to still be active. Everything up till this point appears that windows is loading as usual. 2 monitors I have which will usually go to sleep with no input detected continue to stay on... though with black screen. The z400 which is on a Samsung TV displays the proper video resolution for a short time in the top left of the screen as if the display has initiated properly but as well stays on but with a black screen. This is unusual for all these displays as they usually will detect no signal and eventually return to standby or turn off.

None of the PC's appear to be functioning as they should when this behavior takes place because a press of the power button regardless of whether there is video displayed or not should initiate the shutdown sequence which all of my machines are configured to do and this doesn't work. I have to hard shutdown the PC at this point. So it tells me that more then likely at a hardware level the card has some issue conflicting with the PC through the pci-e slot. They are not working at all once the OS has initiated the video card and it's drivers are completely in effect. This takes place on all 3 systems.

It's bewildering that the card would work at all when in safe mode or with a standard display driver running... but it does this just fine on every system. This is a new one for me in any case. It led me to this post and I thought I'd add to that which I cannot comprehend completely. Maybe someone else can get some use from this information???

I have even resorted to trying a fresh install of win7 on the Dell E520 with loading various older Legacy Catalyst Control Center as well as Crimson drivers with absolutely no difference in behavior. I even attempted a Vista x64 driver which I believed fixed my problems as it rebooted perfectly... until I realized it was because the drivers never really took and the generic windows display driver was still in effect. So in my situation though it may be different than Christian_66's altogether was not solved in this fashion. Though I don't have the original driver disc that came with the card it appears trying to use older drivers is not the answer. At AFOX's website it links you directly to AMD's official site for drivers as well... so I don't have the option to try an original supplied graphics driver from the manufacturer for this card to test the theory exactly.

Initially I started to think this was a Bios issue... and I'm still not 100% on this. I have never attempted to edit a Bios myself so I haven't gone this far yet. It appears there are some bugs with the specific bios loaded on this card as the bios for the AFOX card I have when I look it up through gpu-z points me to this card as being linked with the specific Device ID for this other manufacturers card here ---> https://www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/b478/vtx3d-hd-7850-x-edition-2-gb
The actual physical card is this ---> http://www.afox-corp.com/en/products_details.asp?proid=208
I have unsuccessfully attempted loading various Bios found at TechPowerUps bios list for HD7850 2GB from other manufacturers all with the card not even registering properly or working any further at all (aka bricked). So I managed to reload the original Bios that I backed up using GPU-z and it is at least registering and working as the good old malfunctioning HD7850 again.

I know that my specific AFOX single slot HD7850 is not the standard run of the mill PCB because it is a condensed layout for a slimmed down heatsink and fan and is not similar to any of my other HD7850's as far as the PCB layout is concerned (Gigabyte, XFX). So this might have something to do with possibly a modified Bios from standard and other manufacturers bios flashes not taking.

The bios under gpu-z for the AFOX card is showing as


This is the most recent install on this machine. I have already installed and tested the latest Crimson drivers here again without being able to restart... so this is after returning the the Bios on the card to the original and after uninstalling the HD7850 drivers in Safe Mode and then restarting on the generic graphics driver. When I am in windows for a bit this way I recieve the following error usually 10-20 minutes in depending what I am doing.

This could be just because of the fact the generic driver has very limited functionality compared to what you would usually have for windows aero? I'm not certain... just thought I'd be thorough and list it as well here.

For comparison I am also showing the gpu-z screenshot of my usual HD7850 which resides in this PC. This is after a quick power down and swap out of the AFOX card to the functioning Gigabyte Windforce 1GB card. The Radeon Drivers are still not loaded so you can see the similarities of the 2 when a basic video driver is loaded and what is shown under gpu-z for a functioning vs the malfunctioning card. Not really anything different.

I am still attempting to learn the process of modifying the original Bios... It would be awesome if there were some sort of diagnostic software which could pinpoint the exact fault of the card but alas it seems what I have learned thus far through this process is that there is more than likely a failed component on the video card itself which creates this issue... maybe RAM or some other nuance of the card which when broke won't let it function properly yet allows it to display through the stunted windows generic video drivers. So these cards for those who aren't skilled in electrical engineering techniques for troubleshooting and repairing small surface mounted components for all intents and purposes is broken and no longer able to function as a working dedicated graphics adapter. It just still for some reason kinda works ...just not as intended. LOL

I only went through all this effort because I really enjoy fixing things others consider broken... well this one thus far has eluded even me.
So even if it's a little late I believe I can say devikn your r9 270x is more then likely officially caput.