Gigabyte HD 7970OC 3GD not working with (any) catalyst drivers

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mfitze

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Feb 15, 2012
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First of all:

Mobo: Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 (Rev 1.1)
CPU: AMD FX 8350
GPU: Gigabyte HD 7970OC 3GD (Windforce) + MSI R9 390
RAM: 16gb (4x4gb) GSkill Ripjaws 1600
PSU: EVGA 1300 G2
OS: Windows 10 (pro) 64 bit

When I have my MSI R9 390 gpu installed alone, everything works great!

When I install the Gigabyte HD7970 card, either by itself or with the MSI card, my screen goes to black when the catalyst/crimson driver starts to load. That is, the OS boots up fine, up to the point where the catalyst/crimson drivers load, whereupon the screen goes to black.

The HD7970 card works fine in safe mode, it also works fine under the default windows 10 driver.

I have tried installing different versions of catalyst/crimson going back as far as 15.12. (I run AMD cleanup utility and clean the registry before any catalyst/crimson installation). Installing any version, I get the same behavior: The catalyst/crimson installation goes as far as installing the driver, whereupon it goes to a black screen. When I force a restart (holding down power button), The os boots back up under the default windows 10 driver as if no catalyst/crimson installation was attempted (except for the extracted files in C:/AMD, and apparent driver files under Program Files/AMD).

I have tried extracting the catalyst/crimson package and installing the driver from the device manager - same result as above. Screen goes to black after driver installation.

I have tried to delete the UpperFilters and LowerFilters registry values to no effect.

I checked the Gigabyte website for updated vbios, but nothing new has been released for years.

AMD webpage indicates the HD7970 should be supported under win 10 with the same drivers I use for my r9 390. (currently whql-win10-64bit-radeon-software-crimson-16.9.2-sep29)

Any help would be much appreciated.
 
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Justinsanity

Justinsanity

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I have a similar rig. I think you have corrupted files somewhere. Last time this kind of stuff happened to me, uninstalling and reinstalling drivers didn't fix it. I had to wipe my hard drive and reinstall Windows. I'm not sure if you're ready to do this, but it usually fixes the problem 99% of the time.
 
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mfitze

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I appreciate the response. I should have mentioned that I am already working with a fresh install of windows 10. But I will definitely try that again as a last resort if nothing else works. Last time I reinstalled, I had only the MSI card seated. I guess I could try with both cards seated, but I am not overly hopeful that that would be a fix.
 
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mfitze

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I am wondering if anyone thinks it could be a hardware problem with the HD7970 card. Common sense suggests that if the card works fine under the default drivers, the hardware is fine. Perhaps common sense fails me here? Is it possible that a hardware problem could allow the card to work under default win 10 drivers, but not under catalyst/crimson drivers?
 
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mfitze

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I thought I would report back. I finally got around to reinstalling windows 10. I did it with only the 7970 seated. Fresh install on a formatted drive. Only one drive conneted to mobo. Windows 10 installed the default driver and the card worked fine. As soon as I installed the catalyst/crimson drivers, the screen went black and stayed that way. To make a long and frustrating story short, the card behaved the same as described above even with a fresh windows 10 install.

I started over (fresh win10 install on formatted drive) with the r9 390 seated, and everything works as expected with the catalyst/crimson drivers.

I'm thinking maybe the vbios is somehow partially wonky? I will reinstall vbios in position 2 (thankfully the card has a dual bios with a physical switch to change between them). I will report back after I do that. Tomorrow... or so...
 
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mfitze

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To report back, I tried reflashing the VBIOS with the recommended VBIOS - for my card it is F10. But I saw no improvement - the card still fails to install the latest catalyst/crimson drivers. I should mention, there is no alternative VBIOS for this card - at least not any recommended by Gigabyte.

At one point, I was able to get the card properly recognized in the device manager and CCC by 1) only seating the r9 390 2) cleaning GPU drivers in safe mode 3) shutting down and seating the HD7970 4) Rebooting in safe mode - HD7970 properly recognized in device manager (i.e., device manager reports both GPUs correctly) 5) rebooting in normal mode - can now see both cards in Catalyst Control Center (CCC) properly 6) Sadly HD7970 crashes drivers when stress-testing. To stress-test, I started mining Ethereum - I could see the HD7970 fail while the R9 390 kept pumping along. Temps on the HD7970 were low (50 degrees Celsius) when the drivers failed.

It was late at night when I got these results. When I tried to repeat the procedure the next morning, I couldn't get it to work again! That is, I could not get the HD7970 recognized by device manager nor CCC by repeating the same procedure that had worked the night before!

I am starting to think there is a hardware problem, but it does seem strange that it works fine with win 10 drivers.

I should also mention, I tried re-pasting the stock cooler, and I tried installing Kraken G10 + Corsair H90 (needed to use a 1mm copper shim). But this did not seem to help - I am thinking heat (by itself) is not the problem.

Well, I am feeling like I am ready to give up on the card, but if anything changes I will keep you posted.

I am still open to suggestions.
 
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mfitze

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Yeah, I call them "Catalyst," but I guess I should say "Crimson." Yet I still get the CATALYST Control Center (CCC) - which is why I guess I still call the drivers "Catalyst.". Sorry for the confusion. As I mentioned, I am currently using whql-win10-64bit-radeon-software-crimson-16.9.2-sep29

To make it clearer, I have edited my previous posts to refer to catalyst/crimson drivers. Thanks for pointing this out.
 
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Justinsanity

Justinsanity

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That is very strange. If it works in safe mode it shouldn't be a hardware problem, but you said the drivers still don't work after you reinstall Windows 10. How long has it been like this, and was there anything you can think of that prompted this issue?
 
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