At a loss, feel like Ive tried everything (Radeon 7950)

[P3ndrag0n]

OK, this will be long and wordy but please bear with me. I'm at a total loss and no longer know what to do. 2 weeks ago i was 30 seconds into my brand new Steam copy of GTA V when my computer froze mid cutscene. On restart my PC tried to boot into windows. Half way through boot process I notice a discernible difference in fan speeds (they get much quieter and immediately drop RPMS) and the computer tries to reboot. Only this time when it does, I get nothing but horizontal green lines.

Things Ive tried:

Reinstall windows on both HDD an SSD (issue remains)

Remove Video Card and run video from MB integrated video: (works just fine)

Take video Card (Sapphire Radeon 7950) and plug into friends machine. Windows booted just fine. We DID not download the radeon drivers as he normally runs a GTX. Machine ran fine however ad had no issues.

Tried secondary PCI-E slot on my machine with my GPU. Same problem as before.

Replaced power supply thinking it might not be putting out enough wattage for GPU. Went from corsair 600 watt to a Thermaltake 750. I know its overkill but got a good deal on the thermaltke. Problem remains the same. (this really chapped my ass)

Booted into windows safe mode with GPU plugged in but bios changed to display video from integrated. This allowed my machine to detect the Radeon card so I could download display drivers. On reboot, same issue as before.

Boot into safe mode with 7950 as primary video display. Now here's where it gets interesting. It seems to work just fine.

So long story short. What the hell could be the issue? I cant even determine if its a hardware or software issue at this point and I'm at a total loss.

Ideas?

Specs:
Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD4H MB
Sapphire Radeon 7950 GDDR5 GPU
Intel i5-3570k quad core 3.4GHz
1 x Corsair XMS 8gb DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
Thermaltake 80plus GOLD 750 semi-modular PS

 

[Obakasama]

Not much to contribute as you seem to have a good grasp of things, but let's go through it and see if (1) someone knows their stuff shows up or (2) find a solution through discussion.

I think you've eliminated the graphics card being faulty because you've tested it on another working PC, and can boot into safe mode with the graphics card in question without issue. To me, this leaves it as a software issue.

It sounds like you tried to reinstall drivers. While it might be a slight chance it may be worth considering performing a clean installation of drivers. It may get rid of a corrupt driver and its remnants which could be causing the issue you're having.

 

[P3ndrag0n]

Not much to contribute as you seem to have a good grasp of things, but let's go through it and see if (1) someone knows their stuff shows up or (2) find a solution through discussion.

I think you've eliminated the graphics card being faulty because you've tested it on another working PC, and can boot into safe mode with the graphics card in question without issue. To me, this leaves it as a software issue.

It sounds like you tried to reinstall drivers. While it might be a slight chance it may be worth considering performing a clean installation of drivers. It may get rid of a corrupt driver and its remnants which could be causing the issue you're having.

Definitely worth a shot. I'll report back after trying tonight.

 

[imrazor]

I'm not going to propose a solution, but point out a possible problem. Even though the card displays the Windows desktop in safe mode, that's not a good indicator of full functionality. In safe mode, the CPU is doing most of the rendering, not your GPU because it's using the Microsoft basic display driver. It'd be worthwhile to see if your friend is willing to load the Crimson (or maybe Catalyst for a card that old) drivers and see if it will actually play games on his PC.

 

[P3ndrag0n]

I'm not going to propose a solution, but point out a possible problem. Even though the card displays the Windows desktop in safe mode, that's not a good indicator of full functionality. In safe mode, the CPU is doing most of the rendering, not your GPU because it's using the Microsoft basic display driver. It'd be worthwhile to see if your friend is willing to load the Crimson (or maybe Catalyst for a card that old) drivers and see if it will actually play games on his PC.

I think you actually may be on to something. Using the advice of the other poster I was able to clean all drivers and reboot. PC booted just fine and display looked great using the generic Microsoft display driver. However, anytime I downloaded and installed any version of the amd (newest or older drivers) I get the green screen of death again. The one thing I did not do when testing on friends machine was install drivers. May try that next but beginning to think my card is shot by Unfortunatly.

 

[dontlistentome]

I concur that simply booting to your desktop, in safe mode or not, tells you next to nothing about your graphics card. All it says is the card has basic functionality, as in it will power up and output a video signal. You need to run a stress test to see what happens to it under load.