Gigabyte Radeon HD 7950 NOT WORKING AT ALL!

[imanwnms]

I know I posted this in graphics but I thought AMD forums would be better..

I purchased a new gigabyte radeon hd 7950 (GV-R795WF3-3GD) yesterday and I thought I would be happy about it considering the positive reviews I have seen online. Just the opposite.
I put the card into my Pcie 3.0 slot and powered it up with the two pcie 6 pin connectors from my PSU, and have been dissapointed since.
It booted up with those fuzzy colors that really old computers have (16 bit?). I thought that was probably because the drivers were not installed automatically.
I followed the general steps I normally do when installing a graphics card: go online and find the latest driver for the card. In this case, I went to AMD website and used the auto detect function to download and install the drivers and catalyst controller. After the download and installing, I restarted my computer as it asked me to and ....it's gone.
After the windows 7 animation, it does not proceed to the login screen, all I saw once or twice were random lines through the screen and flickering.
I went into safe mode and uninstalled the driver and catalyst controller and I was back to the lowest resolution 16 bit coloured graphics. I tried installing drivers from the gigabyte website and that gave the same result. I even reinstalled windows to see if it was conflicting with other drivers, but nope, same result.
To go back to my intergrated graphics that shows stuff properly, I had to go into BIOS and change my graphics output from PEG to IED so I could atleast login and try to fix it a few times.
I have yet to actually use the card properly. If any help could be provided, I would really appreciate it!
Motherboard: MSI Z77 G43
Processor: i7 3770k stock speed
PSU: Thermaltale 700W

I really need some help quickly because I didn't go on extended waranty and I only have 7 days to return it in case its a bad card.

Thanks,
Iman

 

[cliffro]

These are picky about what cables they work with. I had 2(original and an RMA) that refused to work properly with my Single Link DVI cable, replaced it with a Dual Link cable and it(both cards) worked fine after.

The problem I experienced was that It worked until the drivers were installed, once installed and loaded on each boot, it would make the monitor flicker on and off(LED changing from blue to yellow) really fast. If I booted in safe mode it was fine, if I uninstalled the drivers, it was fine. If I plugged in HDMI it was fine. If I took the "old" cable and used it with my old card reinstalled the cable was fine.

So before you return it, try a new/different cable. Make sure it's a Dual Link cable. And if you have an HDMI capable monitor, try that instead/as well.

It's kind of a long shot really, but hey if you can save the time for RMA by replacing a cable, it's worth a shot.

 

[imanwnms]

I'm already using it in HDMI and that's what I have been trying to use it on for the past day. I should have mentioned that. I don't have any DVI cables, so I don't know if that is a cable fault. It goes fine until the windows animation now, then it repeatedly restarts and flickers sometimes, when I do a hard reset.

 

[cliffro]

probably a bad card then.

 

[imanwnms]

So, should I get a replacement or go for another manufacturer? I see that you have the same card. What drivers did you install?

 

[cliffro]

I have 12.11 installed. I personally love the Gigabyte version, its relatively quiet while playing games, it stays under 60c during 99% of my playtime which means the fan never really ramps up.

I'm not happy that Gigabyte doesn't have any kind of a support forum, but I'm ok with it, since I got the card for free due to an RMA issue with the retailer. They refunded the money I gave them initially, when they received the card I sent back instead of not charging me for the new one. I waited for them to contact me to correct the issue, but they never did.

I looked long and hard at the different 7950's and would not choose differently if I had to do it over again. Though I might spend a bit more and get a 7970 instead if doing it over.

 

[imanwnms]

I have decided to return it. This was my first AMD card and I am pretty much dissapointed.

 

[cliffro]

Don't let it scare you away from AMD.

I'm no fanboy of either company, my last cards were GTX 560 Ti's. You will run into bad cards with every card maker.

I was seriously disappointed with my issue with my DVI cable, and even if I hadn't got an erroneous refund, I'd still be happy with the final result.