Graphics My new msi 6950 isnt working!

Hello everyone, yesterday i bought an msi 6950 twin frozr III and it has highly disappointed me.
I was so happy to buy one but then its not working.
What happens:

I remove all my previous amd drivers or whatever i have so i that i make a clean install for it.
I install the latest driver from amd and once catalyst is installed along with the driver, it prompts to restart,so i do. Now, when i restart the welcome screen processes and after that its all black screen. Nothing comes after it. I waited for quite long but nothing happened. I tried everything,reinstalled windows(i'm using windows 7 64bit ultimate),check wiring and everything.
Also,i noticed that when i boot with the monitor connected to the 6950, i see irregularities in the letters that come up when we boot our systems(you know when it shows 8gb ram and all during boot). i also checked out bios settings,even there the letters are all wrong. Like a particular word would be like "advanced -se~tn" instead of "advanced settings" and this is for a lot of options that i see in the bios settings.
Now,when i take the 6950 out and connect it to the integrated graphic unit on my board,all the irregularities i mentioned in the bootup are gone and the system boots properly.
Is it possible that my graphic card is broken?

My specs:
Coolermaster 550gx
phenom IIx4 945
8gigs of ram
Gigabyte GA-880GM-UD2H

And i'm not sure if the psu should create any problems? What do you think?

 

What PSU have you got and can you try the 6950 in a different computer?

If it is faulty get your money back, just read the thread linked in my signature for help.

 

Blogins PSU is a Coolermaster 550gx.
AMD website recommend A 500 Watt PSU usually there spec are over the top.Bit techs review said at idle it about 130W load is 256W for an ATI Radeon 2gb 6950
http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/graphics/amd-radeon-hd-6000/hd-6950/Pages/amd-radeon-hd-6950-overview.aspx#3

I would try what blogins said hes a helpful panda and try it in another machine if you can.

Also maybe worth unloading all the drivers for it then boot with it see the result.When you rebulit windows did your use the integrated graphics?

Let us know how you get on dude.

 

I would say the Coolermaster 550GX is pushing it. Under load the 6950 can consume 256 Watts as shown on Bit-Tech...

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2010/12/16/ati-radeon-hd-6950-review/10

Could be too much stress depending what else is hooked up! I would have thought simply booting wouldn't present a problem however. In these instances it's best to eliminate excess power such as the DVD Drive any extra HDD and also the bootable HDD to observe if it'll simply boot to BIOS without the garbled text.

 

to be clear, the 256 watts is total system power draw from the wall

 

I think Bit-Tech actually subtract other components power draw to isolate the GPU itself.

 

How many monitors/tv do you have connected to the card? I had a 6870 which gave me funny lettering when the system booted and there was nothing I could do but replace it

 

The bottom of the charts say "Watts at socket" so is the power draw for the entire test system.

OP: Have you checked your VGA cable? Do you have another you could try? Do you use any convertors or adapters on the cable? Have you double checked the PCI-E power leads connecting to the graphics card to ensure they are seating correctly?

 

i will smite thee for thine lack of faith...


feel smited?

 

If that's the expression that defines the experience of drinking sickly sweet cherry cider then yes.

Well and truly smited!

 

Actually Blogins wasn't far off. A 6950 can draw as much as 200W under full load. It probably won't, but you should allow for the fact that it might.

 

absolutely...and under furmark could pull even more...

i wanna get smited...