Ok So I upgraded my GPU i think the rest has to go...

So i just purchased a MSI Radeon HD 6870 Hawk edition got it for 175$ on craigslist and love it! Though i am having some freezing and it is recovering from errors is this my cpu or maybe Mobo PSU? i have a feeling its my Biostar Mobo or Rosewill 550watt psu the Cpu is a phenom 2 925 amd quad core. I want to eventually crossfire another Hawk will my cpu bottleneck? I really want to get an i5 2500k anyway so im thinking that processor and Dual hawk 6870 will that work out well?

Yes the I5 2500K will work well. 550watts should be plenty for your setup as is, make sure you do not have any driver issues and can you check the card in a different computer and see if it is a bad card.

What exact PSU model is that? Rosewills are bad in general. If yours came with the case, you should go ahead and upgrade to a non-free PSU.

Whether or not you get a CPU bottleneck depends on the game. Nearly all games can run just fine on a Phenom II x4 that's overclocked. Have you tried overclocking yet?

I feel like an i5-2500K isn't the best buy right now when you have no guarantee that the CPU is your issue and the Ivy Bridge refresh is right around the corner. Could you describe the problem in more detail? We should figure out what's causing your errors and freezing before you go spending a bunch of money.

So I can assume everything ran perfectly prior to hooking up the GPU?

Based off of what you said, it sounds like your driver is crashing. That can be caused by numerous GPU failures such as a bad overclock (too high) or maybe not enough power? A driver update may fix this. Radeon's website should have you covered and you probably won't benefit from downloading MSI's drivers.

Something you may find very useful though is MSI's Afterburner and Kombustor tools. Download and install those (Google to find them). See if the Kombuster (essentially Furmark) benchmark/burn-in tool crashes your driver. See if the crashing occurs in non-WOW games. You can use Afterburner to reduce your clock settings and see if the crashes still occur.

There's a possibility your graphics card is not stable at it's current speed and needs to be underclocked (essentially meaning your card is somewhat broken).

Once again, we still need your Power Supply Unit (PSU) information. We can use that to tell you whether your card is getting enough power.

Ok here is the thing. First thanks for all your input very much. Second I replaced a Nvidia GTX260 which was doing the same thing, GPU failed and has recovered from an error. Also the mobo is old and only using and supports ddr3 RAM im pretty sure the card is fine as i had my pick of the cards and saw his upgrade card. so i think its probably the PSU and MOBO. Im working on replaceing it and just gonna put my old GTX 260 back in and use the 6970 for a new build.

Exactly what I was gonna say. OP, it still wouldn't hurt to tell us what PSU you're using. Since you have opened up your case, it should be pretty easy to do. I think you're right about the PSU though. You can try installing MSI Afterburner and underclock the GTX 260 or 6850 (I think the 6850 uses less power) and hopefully your PSU will be able to handle it at the reduced power draw--but that's hardly a permanent solution.

XFX has a nice 650W PSU on Newegg that's $59.99 after rebate.

Stress tests: Earlier I mentioned MSI Afterburner and Kombustor. Download those and run Afterburner. You can run Kombustor stress test from the Afterburner interface. See if you get errors and stock clocks. See if you get errors at underclocked speeds (& reduced voltage if unlocked). It should use less power when underclocked, so if this gets rid of errors, you know it's the PSU.

So your PSU says 44A on the +12V rail? I was hoping you could tell us the exact model so that I could look it up myself.

First of all, have you tried uninstalling the drivers, booting into safemode running Driver Sweeper, then get rid of all AMD - Display drivers, as well as any NVIDIA PHYSX or the like, from there (just not the chipset drivers) (also have you tried updating the chipset drivers?)

then reboot, log into windows like normal, install newest drivers from amds website

So still having blackouts. Don't know what's been causing it. I've noticed that most of the time it blacks out is when i use mozilla firefox and/or starcraft. doubt that means anything but it could be a variable. any ideas?

i narrowed down the problem. it only blacks out when im about to load a match for starcraft ii. the online match will fully load for all players then when its about to jump into the game the screen will go black and wont come back again, forcing me to reset. ive ran Memtest for more than several hours.

Currently using Corsair DDR3 4GB RAM x2 on my set up. as for bios i havnt messed with that and if that could be avoided itd be best.

Just built the rig, so haven't set up any firewalls yet =/
i'll look at the data anyway tho and see if i find anything

checked all the log files and the only inconsistency i found was that the file DRVSTORE is in blue font while the rest in black. so i donno what that means...

inside it contained a folder named "usbfilter" with a bunch of numbers, and inside that was another folder named amd64, as well as 2 files named usbfilter as well, also in blue font.

Motherboard:
-Voltages
Value = 0.91V
Max = 1.42V
-Temperatures
-TMPIN0 Value = ~27 C
Max = 29 C

-TMPIN1 Value = ~30 C
Max = 31 C

-TMPIN2 Value = ~22 C
Max = 38 C

Processor:
-Temperatures:
Value = 10 C
Max = 27 C
*This was for all 6 Cores*

Radeon HD 6870:
-Voltages
-Value = 0.95 V
-Max = 1.18 V

-Temperatures:
-TMPIN0 Value = ~41 C
Max = 71 C

*C = Degrees Celsius

I really dont have the slightest clue what could be causing the light blue screen, but I suggest running memtest (or windows memory diagnostic) and uninstalling your drivers, going into safemode running driver sweeper (clean anything that says amd - display, then reinstalling them after rebooting into non safemode