7950GT: SCreen Blacks Out, GPU Fan Maxes Out - HELP!

Hi, gang:

I've been having issues with my "foolin' around" PC...

When running UBUNTU 9.1 64-bit, no probs whatsoever...

In XP, SP3, after trying to run Modern Warfare 2 the other day, the game starts, but freezes or blacks out, forcing a hard "with the switch" reboot...

After installing Win 7 64-bit enterprise-eval on a different plug-in hard drive, during the install process (and afterward, with the Win 7 desktop running), the screen blacks out and the 7950's fan maxes out, making a hella racket. These things happen simultaneously. My monitor shows its "no video" warning, but the OS or the game still keeps working...just with no video...until I have to hit the big red switch.

This machine has been flawless for more than a year. It has a 945 chipset on the Gigabyte motherboard (for Hackintosh compatibility), and mostly runs with its XP Home SP3 hard drive installed in the IDE cage. 4 GB DDR2-800, etc.

I've been reading here and there about a "killer driver" from nVidia... Don't know whether it's true, but the machine did recently install the 190-something driver on the XP drive (which was the first drive/OS to exhibit problems.

I got out the compressed air are tidied up a bit, but there was hardly any dust anywhere...and the temps and performance had been fine for months. The PC is mildly OCd, but the 256-MB 7950GT PCI-E is stock-clocked.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

--Kirk in MN

When you say "the game still keeps working", you mean you hear the sounds ? If so, does the sound continue normally or does it stutter constantly ?

If it continues normally, have you tried using the other DVI connector ?

Also, have you experienced any sort of artifacts (even in the desktop) ? If you have, your Video RAM is probably faulty.

When the PC continues on despite the fact that the screen has blanked out, there is no stuttering, etc. The sounds are normal.

I tried the other DVI connector -- same result.

No desktop artifacts otherwise. It just craps out when the card starts to get stressed in 3D games, etc.

BFG has RMAd the card...so in the meantime I have to fall back to an 8600GT I have laying around...

--Kirk in MN