HD 7970 driver problem

[deliciousfanta]

This is a new build, details as follows:

- Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Extreme 4
- Video: Gigabyte HD 7970 3gb radeon (GV-R7970C-3GD)
- Memory: 16gb DDR3 2133
- CPU: i5 3.4ghz 1155
- Win 7 Enterprise 64

The system boots and runs fine until I install the video driver. After that it will post and show windows splash screen then the display goes dark. It seems similar to this post (http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/342034-33-7970-drive-issues) unfortunately the resolution in that post doesn't work with this motherboard. A few steps I've taken (note there were quite a few OS re-installs sprinkled in among these steps to get the display back again):

- Installed driver that came with video card
- Installed latest driver from the gigabyte website
- Installed latest driver from amd website
- Installed latest bios for motherboard from asrock website

As in that article the system will boot and display fine in safe mode, so I'm quite certain it's a driver issue. I'm wondering if I may have made an unfortunate choice in motherboards and these two guys are just not compatible or if there is some setting somewhere that can be adjusted to get this thing back in business? I didn't see anything like the options in that post in my cmos, so I'm looking for any assistance you might be able to provide!

 

[babernet_1]

Sometimes you must DELETE the old drivers before installing the new ones.

http://www.petri.co.il/removing-old-drivers-from-vista-and-windows7.htm

Let us know.

 

[ttcboy]

I know it sounds a bit too basic but just want to check.

1) Did u connect ur monitor to ur graphic card instead of motherboard?
2) Have u changed ur display to dedicated card mode in ur bios and turn off the built-in GPU from intel CPU?

 

[seekario]

Well When I bought mine 7950 .
I uninstalled the old nvidia drivers and install the new ones.
Now I have no problem, except some lagging in game , but I think its something else...

 

[bigcyco1]

That's impossible AMD drivers are as solid as nvidia these days! kidding glad you figured it out.

 

[aramisathei]

Also make sure you're using the latest official drivers.
A lot of people are using the 12.11 beta since they have much higher performance, but for me they resulted in constant blue screens, driver crashes, etc.

Switched back to 12.10 and zero issues to date.

 

[deliciousfanta]

After flashing the bios it went back to the A2 debug code and would show no video. I got a little frustrated so had to take a break, after getting back to it here are the results and responses to your posts:

A2 code: After trying a variety of things I unplugged then re-plugged the monitor power cord in and somehow that made everything work again. I can't even understand how this is even a thing...

babernet: I re-installed the operating system, I'm pretty sure that qualifies as deleting the old drivers. The old os files were put in an entirely different folder, and as I mentioned, after re-installing the os, it was able to boot and show video perfectly fine until I put in the new drivers again.

ttc: Basics are always the best place to start 1) It works connected to either the onboard vga/dvi or the video card dvi before installing the driver, after installing the driver it does not work in the video dvi and I didn't bother testing with the on board video because - what's the point? I can make it work with on board fine, the goal is to get the video card to work. 2) I don't see an option to disable the onboard video. The only thing I see is to set the primary video and that is set to pci express and not onboard.

aramisathei: Please read original post. I downloaded the latest official drivers from both gigabyte and amd. I did not get a beta.

Thank you all for your suggestions, it seems like the answer is still being elusive unfortunately.

 

[ttcboy]

Seems like the AMD driver have conflict with ur hardware for some strange reason.

One possibility i can think of is that ur PSU might not have enough amps on the 12V rail and unable to power ur graphic card once u installed the driver.

Can you give us the details of ur PSU.

On the other hand, if everything is still not working out, u can still RMA it since it might be hardware problem as well

 

[deliciousfanta]

Yeah, the motherboard support has replied and been very helpful but unfortunately the gigabyte technical support seems to be non-existent...

The psu: Thermaltake TR2 TRX-650M 650W ATX 12V v2.3 / EPS 12V v2.91 Modular Active PFC Power Supply

There are two different cables that go to the video card from the psu. Everything seems to fit and be plugged in right.

Yeah, unfortunately I think that's the only option left so I'm going to order another video card (which is good since I can get the ghz edition I didn't get last time!) and a motherboard just in case.

Thank you all for your help!

 

[ttcboy]

Hate to break the bad news to u but seems like Thermaltake PSUs have bad reps lately. Very mixed reviews as well. Some got good units without any problem while others have bad ones, more like russian roulette.

 

[deliciousfanta]

Really? Well that's actually good to know, I can get an extra of those too, and just return whatever winds up not being the problem out of this mess. Some combination of all these parts will have to work haha