New 6970 lightning, Win7 won't boot after installing drivers

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metallicaband

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 3, 2007
Messages
484
Hello all,

I've got a new pair of MSI 6970s lightning series to hopefully run them in cross fire, I tried installing the latest 11.5 Win7 64-bit Catalyst drivers, at first I had issues with the catalyst install manager crashing but after looking around I found out that I had to install some c++ related files from microsoft.

After installing those files, I was able to install the driver successfully, but after rebooting windows gets stuck during the startup loading screen (screen doesn't go blank, it just gets stuck on the windows logo). Windows won't boot unless it's in safe mode or I restore to an earlier state.

This has been driving me crazy and I have no idea if it's related to my software or the possibility that my new 6970s are faulty.

Some more info:
- I've uninstalled my Nvidia drivers and used the latest Driver Sweeper to remove the remains.
- I've connected both of my 6970s to my motherboard and powered them up, but I didn't use the x-fire cable , I'm new to this and I thought I had to install the drivers first then lookup about x-fire later (I don't even know whether I should use 1 x-fire cable or both).
- Only 1 6970 is connected to my monitor (the one installed on the first PCI-E slot)., nothing is connected to the 2nd.
- Rest of system specs in sig.

Any help would be really appreciated.
 
Try it with only one card in first, see if you can get it running and add the other later.

FYI, you only need one x-fire connector but I use two as it doesn't hurt.
 
I just installed a couple of those in my computer last week. Had the same issues and the only way I fixed them was to reinstall windows. After that, no probs.

Also, install the xfire cable before installing the drivers.
 
Thanks for replying.

I was able to install the drivers and boot into windows when using only 1 card. Windows still gets stuck on startup when booting with both cards installed, I tried using the x-fire cable but still the same issue.

I was able to boot when using each card individually on both PCI-E lanes. There's one weird thing going on with one of the cards though, sometimes the screen is messed up with lines and stuff even with the startup boot options screen (that happened before and after installing the drivers), it even BSoD once while the screen was a mess.

Does that mean one of my cards is defective? Is there anything I can do like reset the card or something to check if that can solve the issue? Because dealing with warranty will be a huge pain for me because I imported those cards and shipping alone cost me around $100 each! (those cards aren't available where I live, prices are higher here for much worse cards).

My PSU PCI-E cable seems like it's loose too, I have no idea where to look at to solve this issue. I still see the green light powering up on the card, could the PSU still be the cause of these issues even if it's powering up the card?
 
you need to uninstall the driver's before putting both cards in and the crossfire cable. then boot into windows and install the drivers again. stupid and annoying but its the easiest way to make it work.

as far as one of the cards maybe being defective, the best option is stress testing each one with furmark or run 5-6 passes of 3dmark 11 and see how it goes.
 
metallicaband said:
I've uninstalled my Nvidia drivers and used the latest Driver Sweeper to remove the remains.
Click to expand...
Driver Sweeper used to remove critical Windows core files until recently. I know they created a fix to restore them, but I don't know if they fixed Driver Sweeper.
Basically, when removing unused Nvidia or ATI driver files, they also remove the Windows Nvidia or ATI files that ship with Windows. It prevented Windows from booting after installing SP1, for instance. Search for Driver Sweeper in the Windows SP1 threads, you'll find lots of solutions on how to restore these core driver files, if it's what caused your problem.
 
One of the cards is defective, I'm pretty sure that's the cause of the issues I've been having, so I don't think it was driver related. The card would randomly boot with artifacts all over the place even during the startup bios and motherboard screens (lines and all that crap), whenever this happens, windows won't boot. I was able to boot with both cards in rare occasions when the defective card loaded normally.

I checked everything from PSU cables, motherboard PCI-E lanes, case to check if there was electric shorts or whatever and the problem seems to be from the card itself, the other card functions fine so far. I backed up the BIOS of the functioning 6970 lightning then restored it to the one which is defective hoping that would fix the problem, but it didn't, everything remained the same.

The card wasn't even fully sealed like how the other card was, I didn't mind that as long as it was going to function normally, but unfortunately that wasn't the case. I'm forced to go through the return process with Amazon, since I'm an international customer I hope this won't cause too much of a headache.

I'm kind of disappointed with MSI if it was their fault and not Amazon's for offering a high end card in this condition.
 
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