7950 crossfire woes

[zing321]

So, I bought a refurbished sapphire vapor-x 7950 to pair with my current vapor-x 7950. I installed the gpu booted my computer and my computer froze at the user login screen. Then i realized i forgot to uninstall the drivers, so i did that put back the 2nd card and the crossfire bridge and booted the computer. now it froze right after the windows loading screen completed, all i got was a black screen.

 

Odd...

 

My next thought was to try the 2nd card by itself. buuuut my sabertooth 990fx mobo's vga led error came on and the card wouldnt output any video at all not even the POST. WTF, isnt a refurbished card factory tested before it's put on sale?!? Believing that i put back my original card with the 2nd card and tried safe mode.

 

IT WORKED!

 

i could see the 2nd gpu in device manager  as radeon 7900 series, hope at last! though in safe mode there is no way to test the card. So then I tried a ubuntu live usb with both gpus to see if its an os problem or if the 2nd card really doesnt work.

 

Ubuntu logo comes up with the white and orange loading dots, woot! after 10 seconds the loading dots turn orange and freeze, D=. waited 5 min. still frozen. Reboot, all the loading dots light up orange after 10 sec. and freezes again.

 

*sigh*

 

This is my first experience with crossfire, so tell me guys is the refurbished card a dud, or am i missing something?

[Coombzy]

It must be it should work once you install the drivers and enable crossfire.

[Marvzl1357]

 

My next thought was to try the 2nd card by itself. buuuut my sabertooth 990fx mobo's vga led error came on and the card wouldnt output any video at all not even the POST. WTF, isnt a refurbished card factory tested before it's put on sale?!? Believing that i put back my original card with the 2nd card and tried safe mode.

That should be enough indication to deduce that it is a problem with the second card. 

Unlikely, but it could be a problem with the second pci-e connector. However, when you said you tested the second card by itself, I assume you moved that card to the first (topmost) pci-e slot and tried it. If you did, then it's 95% likely to be the card itself

[mk005]

When I had crossfire 7870's I had to remove the crossfire bridge to install updates/drivers.  Put the bridge on then enable crossfire then reboot.  Had to basically reboot 3 times to install a driver update...

 

edit: system power was off when crossfire bridge was removed and re-added.

[zing321]

When I had crossfire 7870's I had to remove the crossfire bridge to install updates/drivers.  Put the bridge on then enable crossfire then reboot.  Had to basically reboot 3 times to install a driver update...

 

edit: system power was off when crossfire bridge was removed and re-added.

ill try that out thanks!

 

That should be enough indication to deduce that it is a problem with the second card. 

Unlikely, but it could be a problem with the second pci-e connector. However, when you said you tested the second card by itself, I assume you moved that card to the first (topmost) pci-e slot and tried it. If you did, then it's 95% likely to be the card itself

 

yeah, i did... figured that the card was confirmed dead when i did that, but was hoping to find solutions before having to return it.

[zing321]

Yep, confirmed the gpu is dead, tried mk005's tip, the Catalyst installation hanged and froze the system at the driver install section. Also, the card shows this message in the device properties:
 

"The driver trying to start is not the same as the driver for the POSTed display adapter."

[zing321]

YEEEP... here they are without drivers, apparently the dead gpu has all the world's gpu memory 

 

working gpu:

 

dead GPU: