Powercolor HD7970 Problems

[Aneuthanasia]

Hi guys,
I just bought an HD7970 second hand from a guy which was working perfectly in his machine.
I removed my HD6850 and installed the 7970 (which looks like it's in great condition) into my machine only to get a black screen. I changed back to my old card and did a complete driver clean with DDU. I reinserted the 7970 and got to my desktop. As soon as my drivers were installing however the screen cut to black again.
I have been fighting this issue the whole day and cannot tell if it's software or hardware related.
After many attempts of using different driver versions I left the black screen for an hour or two to see if it would fix itself. When I came back the screen was still black and once again I did a force shutdown.
Only thing is that now when I booted up, instead of a black screen I got a beige color screen with vertical black lines.
After sweeping drivers and manually installing only catalyst drivers in safe mode I managed to get the card to show up on device manager. As soon as I rebooted out of safe mode, I was once again greeted by vertical black lines, however this time a blue screen.
Can anyone give me any suggestions and realistically assess whether it's software or hardware related?
If it's the latter is there any thing I can try? Maybe clean the pcie connectors or bake the card?
One additional thing is that the card bends a fair amount due to its length. Apon lifting it up with my hand once, the fan spooled up to max rpm and made a hell of a racket. Could this suggests connector issues?
Thanks,
A.

 

[Theldy]

to me, it seems as if the card is dying (or dead already)

if you have these video issues even in bios, then its goodbye, if not, and only in windows I would do a complete reinstall of OS

 

[Aneuthanasia]

to me, it seems as if the card is dying (or dead already)

if you have these video issues even in bios, then its goodbye, if not, and only in windows I would do a complete reinstall of OS

Thanks for reply. Strange thing is that bios works fine, and in safe mode it all works. Going to inspect the pcie slot now!

 

[Aneuthanasia]

Slots seem fine, did however find that DDU didn't remove all of my AMD shite and so I used AMDs tool to remove it all. Only problem now is that I can't start the damn PC with the GPU plugged in. Either it hangs on black screen or the fan spins up to 100% and hangs. Any ideas (other than just stating that the GPU might be dead).
Thanks.

 

[Theldy]

to me, it seems as if the card is dying (or dead already)

if you have these video issues even in bios, then its goodbye, if not, and only in windows I would do a complete reinstall of OS

just do this with old card without installing drivers and repeat the process with DDU

 

[renz496]

Black screen issue is quite common with GCN based card. Have you tried Omega drivers? (12.14)

 

[Aneuthanasia]

Good day,
Thanks for reply. I haven't tried the omega drivers however I did try older Catalyst drivers. I installed them in safe mode and on reboot into windows I encountered a black screen again.
I took the card to my brothers place and tried it in his PC which also generated a black screen during driver installation.
When I took the card home again to try mess with it a bit more I could no longer get into the bios. I encountered strange artifacts and blurring and lines etc. Another try yielded a simple black screen immediately.
I figured that was the end and so I chucked the card into the over for a reflow but no success. I fear the issue is with VRAM. Does that sound about right?
Cheers,
A.

 

[Theldy]

well the card is the problem then... you could bake the card http://lifehacker.com/5823227/save-dying-video-cards-with-a-quick-bake-in-the-oven
it could help it, but there is high possibility that the card will die eventually in few months and you will have to rebake it and this will become more frequent