PSU fail? No clue!

[wildfire4]

Hi all, long time since I needed help from here with a PC issue

I've been playing TF2 for awhile now and actually made some pretty nice cash from trading/selling hats/unusuals so I decided to build a 'free' computer. My old e8400+p5q-e+ other parts just weren't cutting it for me anymore so I threw this build together...

1 MEM 2Gx2|G.SKILL F3-12800CL9D-4GBXL


1 CASE NZXT| PHAN-001WT RT


1 VGA XFX|HD-695A-CNFC HD6950 2GB R


1 MB MSI|P67A-GD65 P67 LGA1155 R


1 CPU INTEL|CORE I5 2500K 3.3G 6M R


1 WIN HOME PREM 7 64-BIT ENG 1PK DSP - OEM

OLD BUILD

Antec Earthwatts 650w - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371015

22" Samsung monitor (2232bw)

Peripherals - Razer Tarantula Keyboard, G9 mouse, amBX, logitech 2.1 speakers (not connected still)

Loving the Phantom case, amazingly airflow and huge interior! Plus the cable management is extremely easy to use. Also the 6950 is a beast of a card and I also flashed it to the 6970 as well...

The problem I'm running into comes in 2 different forms. FIRST problem is the system hangs on startup randomly. I'll boot and it will go into windows fine no problems at all. If I install an update and restart or just restart for no reason then to test it, it will hang on the windows logo. The logo will pulsate a couple times and then just freeze. Leaving it alone for a few hours does nothing so I'm forced to reboot every time. Random google searches said the Tarantula 2.1 drivers could be the issue but I have no clue why keyboard drivers would stop windows....

The second problem lies with the flashed 6950. I got the latest drivers 11.1 and did a clean install since the system was built the past weekend. I played Crysis on max settings for like an hour and it's BEAUTIFUL but then I got the amazing 'ati display driver stopped responding and has recovered'. Google search really quick and found that the 11.1a drivers had been released and I tried those with no luck. I had the same problem with my old 4850 but quickly fixed it with drivers. The 5770 I replaced with had no such problems either.

Fail attempts
Tried resetting the GPU just in case
Tried 2GB ram instead of the 4GB
Old drivers (not sure how far back the 6xxx series go for drivers..)
Windows reinstallation (will do this again to fix either issue...)


The reason I bring up the PSU as fail?!!? is because I'm not sure if that could be causing the issue. I know the i5/7 series require a certain amount of power as does the 6950 (2 6pin both connected) but I'm not sure if it could possibly be the link that's messing everything up. Old PC worked fine besides a couple USB ports that had failed a month ago. I've built 5 PC's in the past 2 years so I know most of what I'm talking about but ANY help would be amazing

 

[sandybridge]

Did you reset cmos? Did you turn off overclocking button in bios? MSI P67 mobos turn on overclocking by default but it crashed my Windows randomly.

Flashing HD 6950 to 6970 doesn't guarantee your card will be stable. This may just be the culprit. You can repost the gpu problem in:

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/forum-33-210.html

 

[banthracis]

Most likely issue is that you flashed it to a 6970. There's a reason those shaders are disabled in the 6950.

Most 6950's are chips that have bad shaders, instead of throwing them out, AMD disables them and sells them as a lower priced product.

However, sometimes there aren't enough of these bad chips around to fill out demand for the cheaper product, and AMD instead takes perfectly good chips and disables working shaders and sells it at the lower price point.

The 6950 just has a higher than normal number of these chips being used. Still doesn't mean every 6950 can be flashed to 6970, maybe half of them.

Restore the GPU to its default 6950 bios and it should run fine.

 

[wildfire4]

Turns out the flashed card was the problem, I feel like an idiot

Thanks guys, games are running perfect again!

 

[wildfire4]

Best answer selected by wildfire4.