XFX 6970 Problems, Are both of my cards dying or is there something else at work here? Pictures...

Ok, this is the computer in my sig. I've noticed these cards running what I would consider pretty hot, but from what I can find on the forums here it's about normal. They seem to stay in the mid 70's when playing games, and has hit 95+ in furmark. I am using the stock air cooling. Recently I started having driver crashing issues and then started getting artifacts and BSOD's that said it timed out attempting to reset video driver. I've tried different drivers and they all seem to do it. I also just replaced PSU and Motherboard for other reasons, and the cards behaved for about 2 weeks and went right back to the same problems. So I took one card out and all was well for a few days and the problems came back again. At this point regardless of which card I have in or both I end up with artifacts at times, ATI driver crashing frequently, screen orientation seems to move(don't know if I'm explaining that right or not, basically the left side of the screen is on the right, and the right is on the left) and I only use one monitor. With one of the video cards I get artifacts through the Bios splash screen, the other I do not. Sorry for the book here, but I'm trying to give as many details as possible, and am trying to figure this out before wasting my time with an RMA. It just seems odd to me that both cards would fail at basically the same time. Just wanting to get some opinions if anybody knows what could be causing this or if I just was lucky enough to get two bum cards. Also I noticed on them, the metal on the exhaust near the monitor connectors is discolored from the heat. I have not overclocked these at all. And I think that's about everything. Thanks for reading.
Edited by BlackIce05 - 4/25/12 at 12:10am

Yeah I was pretty certain that one is shot, but the other one I didn't know if it's bad too, or if there's something else going on that may have cause the other one to die and is now hurting this one. Or maybe the one that died might have cause an issue somewhere. I don't really know, I haven't had any luck finding any mention of these problems online, and it seems odd to me that both cards would be bad.

I'm currently using 12.3, but I've tried several different ones I've seen recommended on here as being the "best". Yes I did a completely clean install of OS when I put in the new mobo and psu (also went to a new SSD). With that it worked flawlessly for about 2 weeks, then the one card I believe totally died since it has problems before windows even starts to load. I can try wiping the drive and starting over again tonight with the 2nd card if you really think that'll make a difference. I also thought it was a driver issue at first but I can't see that it would follow over multiple drivers. Also I didn't change the driver until after it started having problems. It went from warm but perfect to fubar with nothing changing other than windows updates, but it had been a few days since the last windows update so I don't really think that's the culprit either.

I hadn't considered the ram, I haven't changed it, but again why would it stop for a couple weeks on changing mobo, psu, and fresh install of windows? I do have it OC'd a little, I'll try changing it and see if that makes a difference. Thanks for the suggestions

Since I'm not 100% sure of some of my terminology I thought I'd post some pics, I reset bios to default and there was no improvement. Actually now the 2nd card is having problems from the second the screen initializes. Anyway here's a couple pics, maybe they'll help.

Bios Splash Screen


Bios


Boot Loader


and finally BSOD

It seems as though I had a bad stick of ram. I'll try adding the other card back in later and see if that was the entire problem. I wouldn't have ever guessed it. I'm glad I decided to try here before RMA. Thanks a lot for the help
Edited by BlackIce05 - 4/25/12 at 3:29am