XFX 7950 Double D Edition - Random Black Screen/Vertical Lines

I seem to be having some trouble with my brand new 7950.

I upgraded from an XFX 6950 Double D which ran flawlessly but I wanted a PCI-E 3.0 card and decided on the 7950. Before installing my new card I wiped all the old drivers off of my system powered down and installed the card. Installed the latest AMD drivers 12.8 and was doing my normal reading of the [H] News and both of my monitors suddenly go black. I have to power down and reboot my machine to get back to my desk top. So I do a little bit of reading and learn that I need to disable Hardware Acceleration in Flash Player... So I take care of that and about 5 mins later black screens again.

So I'm thinking maybe the card isn't seated properly or the power connections are loose. Nope all good to go in that area. Check the DVI and HDMI cable, both secure. Decide to uninstall the 12.8 drivers and install the 12.4 drivers that came with the card. Same thing happens. So I uninstall the 12.4 drivers and install the 12.9 Beta drivers... same thing happens so I don't think it's a driver issue, though it still could be.

I boot up and decide to play a game and see if it will still crash. Load up Borderlands 2 and play for about an hour with no crashes. Cool maybe it just fixed itself. So I exit and go back to reading up on tech news and again black screens.

So the most recent thing I have tried is disconnecting my second monitor which is connected to the card via the HDMI to DVI adapter that came with the card. So far no problems of black screens but I've been running dual monitors for years now and would really hate to have spent the money just to go back to a single display.

My question is, is there a fix? After reading around it doesn't seem likely... I've tried just about everything short of RMAing the card but if it works fine on a single display there's something else I'm missing and just can't figure it out. Please help!

I had similar problems here with my XFX 7850 DD BE:
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1717097

It hasn't crashed since I disabled hardware acceleration in Opera. It crashed a few times when I downclocked and undervolted for day-to-day use. I thought maybe I throttled it too far down so I bumped up the clocks and voltages and it seems to have been stable since.

Have you overclocked and/or overvolted? I don't know what clock speeds and voltages a typical 7950 has but you should list them here and see what other 7950 owners are running at to get a baseline for comparison.

Edit:
Also, try going into CCC > Video tab > AMD Video Converter....and disable acceleration from there.

Currently running stock clocks. I have not tried tweaking voltage or clock speed yet as I wanted to make sure the stock settings were stable before playing around with that.

At present I am attempting to re-install 12.8 drivers but it keeps getting stuck at the "Enumerating blah blah" stage.

Haven't tried to go into CCC and disable the acceleration for the AMD Video Converter yet. Will try that once I get drivers installed again and see what happens.

So far still zero crashes with just one monitor.

I've been running dual monitors since I got my 7850. 1280x1024 + 1280x1024 originally, and now 1920x1200+1280x1024.

What web browser are you using?

Using Chrome currently.

The only thing I can narrow it down to is the HDMI port. I can run a single monitor off of the HDMI port w/ HDMI to DVI adapter or the DVI port but not both at the same time. As soon as I do it crashes... maybe some kind of conflict running off of two different ports?

Makes me wish I'd gotten the 7950 w/ dual DVI ports. Haha.

Also, I was going to try and update the BIOS on the card but apparently XFX has hidden their BIOS updates because I'm having a hard time find anything other than the utility to format my thumb drive into a DOS boot disk.

This isn't anything new with AMD its been going on since launch, and still hasn't been fixed...

I sent my 7850 back because of it....

Well, honestly I can't get my head around it. All I've been able to know for sure is that its some kind conflict between the HDMI and DVI ports. Going to see if I can't dig up the appropriate DVI splitter at work or get some Mini-DP cables and just run off of those and see of the results are any different.

So, I've been doing some more reading on my lunch break exploring specifically the issue with using the DVI and HDMI ports on 7000 series cards. Apparently it makes the drivers crash causing similar issues to what I've been experiencing. So after I get off work I'll pickup some Mini-DP cables and a DVI splitter to see if that solves the problem and post here when I figure it out.

Just bad drivers on AMDs part but at least it wasn't like the nVidia drivers that melted my GTX280 a couple years ago.

I am running:

Card:HDMI-------DVI:Monitor (1920x1200 as primary)
CardVI---------DVI:Monitor (1280x1024)

As soon as I get my Mini-DP cable I'll be switching to:

Card:mDP--------DP:Monitor (1920x1200 as primary)
Card:HDMI-------DVI:Monitor (1280x1024)

I've noticed that about 10% of the time when I turn my PC on, the drivers must not be loading because when I reach the Windows 7 login screen, the resolution is piss poor and I have to restart for it to correct itself. Now that you mention the HDMI port, I'm starting to suspect it for this problem.

Thats the only thing I can think of is that its a conflict in the drivers between the HDMI and DVI ports when they're both in use. Sadly I have to wait to test this theory as none of the stores in my silly ass town sell DVI Splitters or Mini-DP cables for some strange reason. Looks like I may have to drive 35miles and go to BestBuy or order one online. Haha.

Everything works perfectly now. Sadly in all the mess my 2TB HDD decided to sacrifice itself for the cause. haha.

Cool! my mini-DP cable shipment got delayed grrr...but at least I am more sure there is good news to look forward to! good work!

2TB HDD r.i.p.

I see the vertical lines pop up every once in a while while web browsing. Thankfully I've only once had my pc lock up and thankfully it wasn't with a black screen.