4870x2 hardware/driver issues in Windows 7

Hi

I am having difficulty with my video cards (2 4870x2 crossfire) and ATI drivers. What happens is when I boot the computer, it gets to the loading screen and I assume where it loads the video driver and it hangs before it can get to the windows welcome screen. If I reboot, it asks me to start windows normally (or in Windows 7 to repair boot).

After the reboot or two I can sometimes get into windows, it will say that there was a driver failure. I have tried installed Catalyst 9.7, 9.8, 9.9, and even 9.10 beta. I have the same problem with all of them.

I have tried using the default windows drivers for games, and updating through windows update but the update always fails.

I have gone back to install Vista, did a clean format and install. I was in the middle of installing 9.9 before I did anything and my computer had a blue screen and rebooted.

I'm currently trying to reinstall XP on my machine to give that a go. I'm thinking its probably a video card hardware issue, or maybe a Ram issue, but don't know how to go about to verify.

Here are my last working specs on xfire. My computer hasn't been stable for over a week now.

Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q9550 @ 2.83GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.8GHz
Memory: 8192MB RAM
Hard Drive: 1 TB
Video Card: 2 ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 in Crossfire
Sound Card: Creative SB X-Fi
Operating System: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit (6.1, Build 7600) (7600.win7_rtm.090713-1255)
Motherboard: Asus PQ53 Deluxe

Any suggestions? :confused

 

I forgot to mention that after the several reboot attempts, when i am in windows, the computer will freeze, or go to the BSOD after a few mins, or I can force it by launching a game.

 

Can you test the system by removing 1 of the cards and seeing if this makes a difference?

If not, then put the 2nd card back in and keep pressing F8 right before the computer launches the Windows 7 startup screen to get into a series of menu options. One of these should be safe mode. This will load the system with as few drivers as possible. If the system loads in a stable way in safe mode then there is a driver problem. If it does not, then there is a hardware problem.