RMA that **** son

This

that does look similar to how mine looked but it was just a loose cable, you've tried it already but i'd just double check the thing

Yah I don't know about HDMI or DisplayPort, but bad VGA connections can sometimes look like that.

Didn't realize digital cables could do that

I tried it again to be sure, and it's not the cable. However, thank you for the suggestion. I know the HDMI cable I tried is fine, and it's the exact same problem. Card's bugging out.

Most modern TVs have HDMi if you want to double check that

Posted this elsewhere, but wanted to give the update.

Machine is up and running.
Final consensus:

Motherboard fried my old card and subsequently fried the new card that I bought.

So: I have new motherboard and a new gtx 970 and an 850 watt psu.

Since the 780ti that I bought was fried, I was forced to get a 970 which is about $130 cheaper and basically just as good as the 780, so I saved some money.

Woof! Sucks to have to go through that, but glad it's finally sorted

Yeah, was an all day ideal. At least they took back the card I fried, so that's nice.
3 trips to frys and 1 to microcenter

Has a few quirks, crashing and stuff.

Error codes are pointing to either over heating or power supply, but I doubt it is either. I'll do some checks later though, it's way too late.

What kind of error code points to a psu?

That's basically what happened to me re: the GTX 970, got store credit rather than an exchange for my 280x (not 290x, I'm an idiot), and just used that credit from the 280x August price to buy a GTX 970 for ~ same price. Happy this happened, all things considered.

HO HO

RAM was bad also, so lolol

So now.. after saying screw it. (Can return the mobo I just bought)
I bought new ram, mobo, processor today. So, this weekend, I replaced everything, except my case, my ssd, hdd, and dvd

Operating System
Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit SP1

CPU
Intel Core i7 @ 4.00GHz 34 °C
Haswell 22nm Technology
Specification Intel Core i7-4790K CPU @ 4.00GHz

RAM
16.0GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 799MHz (9-9-9-24)

Motherboard
MSI Z97-GD65 GAMING (MS-7845) (SOCKET 0) 36 °C

Graphics
VX2450 SERIES (1920x1080@60Hz)
VX2450 SERIES (1920x1080@60Hz)
4095MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 (EVGA) 54 °C

Storage
238GB M4-CT256M4SSD2 ATA Device (SSD)
931GB Seagate ST31000528AS ATA Device (SATA) 33 °C

Optical Drives
ATAPI DVD A DH24AYS ATA Device
ELBY CLONEDRIVE SCSI CdRom Device

Audio
Logitech G930 Headset

I don't understand the speccy dual channel @799mhz because I bought 2133 ram, but whatever.

Rage is settling in.

Still crashing after an hour or so of uptime.

Will change out sata cables and see if that's the issue. If not, then it's going to frys for diagnostics.

Literally, everything is new brand new and not refurb except my case, my ssd, my hdd, and the dvd drive

Get rid of this immediately

I have a G930 and I love it.

Yours don't cut out constantly and have the issue with sound loss in one ear when Surround Sound is on/off (forget which one)

Nope. Works fine

Formatted, SATA cables changed.

Running ok, no crashes yet. Will see if it lasts through the night while I download SP1 and other stuff

Hey, i once had my pc crashing and restarting all the time and it turned out that there was fluctuating electricity that caused it. So i bought a stabilizer to protect the pc from fluctuations. But if that's not the case then sounds like a HDD or SSD issue.

It could be fluctuating. I wouldn't know without downloading a program. Just gonna take it in and see. Brand new psu though

Ok.
So officially pc has been down since Wednesday.

How have I survived you ask?
Western digital tv: it's a media center that my s5 can share screen with and I watch streams on my huge tv in surround sound.

May have gone crazy without it

Holy Crackers, do radeon gpus really take like twice as much power for comparable performance?

Same build otherwise:

R9 290 - 1153 W
GTX 780 Ti - 503 W

performance chart