Can't get my 7970 to work

[sigpop]

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?

 

[Smeg45]

RMA the card. Looks like its broken. Try the latest beta driver first though.

 

[paddys09]

You seem to be on top of it... I would try the card on another pc if possible, thats all I can really think of. at the moment.

Edit: just noticed you said the windows catalog produced drivers that worked. They are usually early ones. No too sure but whats the earliest version of catalyst that works with the 7970? you could try that.

 

[paddys09]

Yea or give 12.7 a blast!

 

[madbiker]

uhhh, it sounds like it is "overscanning" your monitor, make sure it's set to 60Hz, try a different monitor/tv if you can.

 

[sigpop]

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.

Unfort, the only thing I can't really try is dumping it in a different computer.
I'm looking up the Tiger Direct RMA process next.

Thx for the suggestions.