I had the EXACT same connectors and got your issue. I am installing a new certified 750W PSU this weekend.

I bought a new PSU (MicroCenter educated me on the rail issue-my old PSU had several rails, new one does not...I have two separate PCI-E connectors). Issue still happens. Runs OK for a few minutes, is not heating up, then hardlocks displaying a solid color. I have a ticket in with XFX. Not sure where to go now.

Have you swapped back to your old card to see if that is the issue? I would suggest trolling the Ati forums for if it's a common problem it will show up on a quick search. If you swapped cards are by chance the old drivers still installed or did they update when you changed?

A quick google found this:

http://www.overclock.net/t/1196856/official-amd-radeon-hd-7950-7970-owners-thread/8670

Google is your friend when you get new electronics anymore. It seems at times the release date is more important than a good pruduct and is rushed for the consumer to become beta testers. This is even more so in the gaming industry for anymore some games have recently been released that the hackers could play before the actual buyer for it was not ready and the crackers had to fix it.

Hope the link help and looks like your not alone so good luck.

Have A Great Day

i had to RMA my brother's XFX 5830, defective out of the box. they replaced with a 6850 which actually performed a lot better.


its possible your card was defective out of the box. at least your PSU has been replaced with a more eco friendly PSU that can drive your system better.

Also worth investigating AMD/ATI Powerplay. This is a power saving technology they use to dynamically change clock speeds depending upon load. The last couple of ATI cards i tested (both 7xxx series) suffered regular lockups and blue screens every time this happened. By tweaking a few files and/or the use of utilities such as Afterburner/Trixx etc, it's possible to lock the speeds. This solved the issues instantly. If you are running XFire, it will also have ULPS enabled which dynamically enables/disables the cards and can cause similar problems.

I've also seen lockups when the fans change speed. Setting a manual profile can help.

I'm not saying any of this is the cause of your problems, but if a new PSU doesn't help it could be worth some investigation.

The 7xxx cards are a nice piece of hardware but they were seriously rushed to market. AMD didn't even release an official driver until 3 months after release(!?) Could still be some time before many issues are worked out.

Thanks-I'll try some of these suggestions tonight. The fan idea sounds interesting, because it runs fine for a few minutes - maybe my fans are changing.

I ran just fine on the desktop when overclocking was enabled, but locked during games (keep in mind, I was not using proper a PSU). When I turned the overclocking off, I started getting the random crashes in general. Maybe I should turn the o/c back on at least to stay stable (if that works).

have you tried running Heaven Benchmark and Furmark?

if the benches run and the games dont, then its the games.

Running on it right now, manual fan speed at 50, overclock turned back on. I'll see how long it goes.

After turning overclock off two days ago, the lockups weren't just happening in games, just on the desktop or in chrome, etc. Happened once after I had left the room and came back.

Edit-just after I hit "send", it pixeled out and blinked off but came back ok and I got a "driver stopped responding but recovered" message. This was 7 minutes after startup, temperature in the green at 27 degrees. Not good, but better than hardlock/reboot. I'll let it run a little longer with these settings.

Hung up after the last post (sort of a caramel-colored stripey pattern this time-stylish!)

I restarted in safe mode and it's been running ok for about 15 minutes-longer than the other lockup period. Maybe this will indicate some sort of driver/software cause.

I got off the phone with XFX. He suggested that I put the old 5770 back in and if I had no problem, I should return the card. I ran the 5770 for about 30 minutes with no issue, so it looks like I'll be sending it back.