M18X R2 7970M: Black Screen after Windows 7 Splash Screen

I was browsing youtube last night when the screen froze with nothing on the display but blue columns. I was not able to recover by keyboard, so I was forced to power down via power switch.

Upon rebooting, the boot process froze after the W7 splash screen to a black screen. again, was unable to reboot and had to power cycle.

Removed the battery, held power switch for 1 min, same result.

Booted into safe mode, and uninstalled the 7970s through device manager, rebooted.

Followed this process:
First part:

1. Uninstall old drivers via Control Panel -- ATI Catalyst Install Manager.

2. Boot into safe mode and run DDU. Reboot.

3. Clean registry with CCleaner. Reboot.

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These are the minimum requiered steps, but if you want to ensure a clean install follow with these before installing your new drivers

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4. Check that c:\Program Files\ATI Technologies\ is empty.

5. Check that c:\Program Files\ATI\ is empty.

6. Check c:\Windows\Assembly\ to see if there are any files with Public Key Token of "90ba9c70f846762e" (Sort by Public key token to get a easier view). If any exist, uninstall by right clicking and selecting uninstall (can be done on multiple files at once).

7. Check that c:\Users\[User Name]\AppData\Local\ATI\ACE is empty (requires modifying folder settings to temporarily show hidden files and folders).

8. Using Regedit, assure that these registry locations are empty:

HKCU/Software/ATI/ACE

HKLM/Software/ATI/ACE

9. Reboot.

10. Install Catalyst driver package.

This process has worked in the past to upgrade CCC and drivers but to no avail. Finally found this thread:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...-screen-after-windows-7-splash-screen.780069/

and followed the process of creating a boot usb, installing GPU-Z and then copying both cards' VBIOS. I was unable to flash however, the ATIFLASH utility on USB bootup found the VBIOS is working on both cards. GPU-Z results attached below. Any suggestions before I wipe and reinstall w7 in a vain attempt to recover? I'm thinking one card has failed.

 

Your 7970M is dead. Black screen after splash is failure to hardware-accelerate graphics in windows 7. Sorry mate.

 

Yeah I figured as much. Too bad a replacement costs so much. Time to go component shopping...

 

Go with a 780M

 

I appreciate the advice, and I would gladly take it and see about replacing them myself; am I looking in the wrong place or are they $400+ apiece? Does anyone have a good source where I could get a replacement 7970m or, as Raidriar says, a pair of 780M? This laptop has failed three times already (mobo) and the warranty just ran out on it in July.
Otherwise, is there a way I can simply disable the (assumed) single bad card so I can gimp it with a single 7970m? The CCC doesn't want to start; I am researching a way to turn off crossfire so that perhaps one card will still go.

 

I'm going to guess your primary 7970M is dead. You can open take the left card out and swap it with the right, but make sure you run DDU beforehand, then install CCC drivers. 7970Ms still run about 200-250$ a piece. On ebay GTX 780Ms are about 350$ a piece, give or take.

 

OK, I'll see about finding a pair of 780Ms since it would appear the life of a 7970m is limited in comparison, at least what I read on these boards. Are the sellers from China selling poor quality boards? Would I do just as well to avoid those sellers? Anything I should be specifically avoiding, or looking for so I'm not out $700+? Do the 780s use the same heat sink/mounting as the 7970ms?

 

We never really understood what AMD's problem was with the 7970M. Sometimes it was just a bad solder joint, sometimes it was a failure within the GPU die itself. 7970M just has a strange lifespan and is notoriously unreliable, and its not confined to Chinese suppliers. As for the 780M, they seem to be well made cards with few reported failures. Same goes for the GTX 680M. You can re-use your heatsinks from the 7970M, but you will have to remove the black tape around the contact area of the heatsink since the die orientation is different on nVidia cards. Just pick at it and pull it off. You will need to get nVidia x-brackets if they cards you purchase do not come with them already since the die/capacitor/transistor orientation is different from AMD cards, you would be crushing components if you reuse the AMD bracket. You will need an nVidia SLI cable if you want to run more than one card, AMD uses a different cable type.

 

Excellent, that was the info I was looking to find out. I'm going to do some shopping here and elsewhere to see about getting a pair of 780M for installation. Thank you very much, I'd rep you again if I could!