Need assistance with freezing system.

[sic_inside]

First the specs:
CPU - AMD FX Vishera 9590
MB - ASUS Sabertooth 990FX R2.0
RAM - G.SKILL Ripjaw X Series 32 GB
GPU - ASUS Direct CU II Radeon R9 270x 2GB
PSU - Cougar GX1050
OS - Windows 8.1 Pro

So, about a week ago I got several display driver failure type black screens (with the odd uniform verticle lines). I Installed the new 14.9 AMD driver after using DDU to completely remove 14.4. I had read there were some issues with the normal removal of 14.4. But my issue only changed. Instead of the driver failure black screen, my entire system would freeze. Oddly enough the first time this happened the song I was listening to continued to play, but the next song never started. So I thought, this is a good time to install that SSD I bought. I wiped everything, complete format of all my drives. I'll save you some time (it turns out my SSD was bad). SO! Fresh install windows, start loading up all my goodies, and some time after my AMD driver install it freezes again. So after a couple retries at this, it has definitely sunken in. My system only freezes after I install my AMD drivers.

I can usually figure out my computer woes with my basic knowledge and my friend Google. But I'm out of my depth here. I am thinking it's the graphics card itself that is the problem, but unfortunately I don't have another card to test the rest of the system with. I can't pull any dump files, that is to say none have occurred as it doesn't go to BSOD (at least that's my understanding). So what can I do? Btw you are all incredibly handsome/beautiful and brilliant.

 

[Alpha3031]

Roll the driver back to the last working version.
And please have a descriptive title next time.

 

[sic_inside]

Roll the driver back to the last working version.
And please have a descriptive title next time.

I tried installing the 14.4 drivers on a fresh windows install and still got the freezing. Sorry I should have mentioned that, I tried many different things for many days.

 

[sic_inside]

Read about some Windows updates that have been causing issues (KB2982791, KB2975331, KB2970228, and KB2975719). I found and uninstalled 719, still freezes randomly.

 

[Alpha3031]

How about 14.0?

 

[sic_inside]

How about 14.0?

The next driver under 14.4 was 13.12 and it didn't help. I did notice that the freezing tends to happen less frequently when I don't install any Windows updates. But it still freezes when loading into a game or trying to run a few tasks at the same time. I also recently tried different SATA cables and different SATA slots for my HDD, just on the off chance, but no change. I have also tried another HDD, and no, not a help.

 

[sic_inside]

I got my hands on another video card and it still froze.

 

[sic_inside]

It only took me forever, but I think I figured it out. By swapping each stick of RAM into each slot and running the memory test everything was fine until I tested my last stick in the second to last slot. Boom, frozen in mid test. So I left that stick and another out and I ran a game for an hour with no issues. Thanks for the suggestions Alpha.

 

[sic_inside]

Well it ran fine all day until about 3 hours ago. It was so bad it would freeze immediately after logging in to Windows until I moved the sata cable to another slot (just a random thought). But it lasted longer before the freeze, so I tested all my cables in all my slots. It seemed completely random, but sometimes it would last longer before freezing and sometimes it would freeze immediately. I failed to mention I built this computer back in February and have not had a single issue until now.

 

[sic_inside]

I ran Prime95 to test the CPU for possible failure, and as i expected it freezes as soon as the test starts. This doesn't really narrow down the cause though. and i guess it is still possible that the PSU could be faulty.