I bought the 970 GTX 04G-P4-0974-KR and every once in a while when I'm browsing the internet and come across a youtube link and click it, every once in a while, it'll crash my entire computer, unresponsive, no blue screen as I think the display driver crashed and I just get a black screen. My computer doesn't crash every time I click a youtube link, just every once in a while.
 
I upgraded from a 570 GTX, I uninstalled the drivers and installed new 970 gtx drivers from the nvidia website.
 
The 970 gtx seems to be working fine while gaming, I haven't tested it too much as I've only had it for a couple hours.  I was able to go through the whole 3dmark11 testing without a problem and got a respectable score so I'm not sure what's causing this problem.
 
I'm running windows 7 64 bit.  I am running an ASRock Extreme 4 Gen 3 with an i7 2600k so the pci express slots are still 2.0 but I didn't think that would be a problem. I don't think my power supply is the cause of the problem, I'm running an 850W power supply with only the 970 GTX.
 
I was running GPU-Z in one of the instances it crashed on a separate monitor which is running on my onboard monitor slot.  When my computer crashed, GPU-Z displayed a bunch of dashes instead of numbers where it was supposed to display information such as core clock, temperature, fan rpm, etc.  The second time it crashed, all 3 of my monitors went black (2 connected to the 970 gtx and 1 connected to the onboard). 
 
I'm thinking the problem has something to do with the stepping where it goes from relatively idle to loading up but I'm not really sure.

 
Install your old video card and use it for a while. If it truly displays no symptoms, then it could be your new GPU. It could also be your PSU. I don't think it's your drivers, but that's always a possibility. I just recently read a thread here where someone had an issue similar to this. +Sanjin gave him good advice to downclock the card to diagnose it further. It turned out to be his PSU though. 
 
http://forums.evga.com/Dr...t-clocks-m2219878.aspx

gizmo88
 
Install your old video card and use it for a while. If it truly displays no symptoms, then it could be your new GPU. It could also be your PSU. I don't think it's your drivers, but that's always a possibility. I just recently read a thread here where someone had an issue similar to this. +Sanjin gave him good advice to downclock the card to diagnose it further. It turned out to be his PSU though. 
 
http://forums.evga.com/Dr...t-clocks-m2219878.aspx

After replacing his PSU he is still having issues. He has decided to RMA his GPU.

Tropickz
Use your event viewer logs in windows 7 and scroll down to the time it crashed to find the culprit.

says kernel-power
"The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly."
but is that because i hit the restart button on my computer because the computer crashed or is that the reason the computer crashed?

inevitable7

Tropickz
Use your event viewer logs in windows 7 and scroll down to the time it crashed to find the culprit.

says kernel-power
"The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly."
but is that because i hit the restart button on my computer because the computer crashed or is that the reason the computer crashed?

It's because you hit the reset button on your computer.

inevitable7
I did a complete reinstall of windows and it seems to have done the trick.

I'm having the same issue. Mine has crashed during Watch Dogs and BF4. I've had the card for only three days.
ASUS P8Z68-V PRO/GEN 3
i5-2500k at 4.8ghz (h100i)
Antec HCG900-900w PSU
Corsair Vengeance Blue, 16gb DDR3 @ 1600mhz with XMP
EVGA GTX970 ACX2.0 SC
 
I upgraded from a Radeon HD6970. I used 3dguru's driver removal tool to fully uninstall the ati drivers. Still getting the same issues. I can't reproduce it since it seems to happen randomly. About to try doing Sanjin's cleanboot and reinstall trick and we'll see.
 
Scouring google it seems this is a common issue with the card affecting different mobos and different 970 variants.

it could be ur precisionX that causes the crashes.

Accidentally hit post, edited to show full message.

Seems I have a problem similar to yours.  I've had my ASC2 SC 970 for over 2 months and it worked great until 2 weeks ago.  I play Rift the most and I started to notice my system rebooting while in the game.  Sometimes it's right when I get to the character select screen and sometimes it happens while in the game.  I've narrowed it down to the card not able to handle the game as well as the 670.  With the 670 I could turn everything up but at a reduced FPS.  With the 970, it can't handle everything turned up.  The temps are fine, 60s to low 70s, but power consumption goes through the roof, sometimes over 100%.  The reboots occur during this increase and no other game I have does this.  Rift forums don't mention this issue.  I've tried using Precision X to increase it to 110% but it didn't matter.  So, I turned down the settings to Medium in Rift and so far no reboots.  Been like that all weekend.  I'll post my system specs just in case someone sees something.
 
I ran Uniengine for about 2 hours and it taxes the GPU pretty hard, but no reboots.
 
Asus P8P67 Deluxe
Core i7 Sandy Bridge @ 4.6 GHz
Gskill RipJawsX 16GB
3 or 4 SSDs
Corsair HX850 PSU 

I'm having the same issues, and i've tried clean driver installs, underclocking in precisionX, plain-old lowering graphics settings, and im getting crashes in WoW contantly. I am also using a gigabyte z77 motherboard. I have an RMA on the way and will get it monday. I'll report back with how the new card runs. 

Hmm, you are using the 1150 chipset.  I wonder if certain games have an issue with the 970s.  I received my evga 970 FTW the 1st week of January and have been playing the 3 games that were giving me fits with the previous 970.  So far no issues but I did find Precision X is not a good software (even though it is made by evga).  When I created my own fan profile, games crash.  No reboots, but game crashing to the desktop.  I thought it was going to be the same thing again so I decided to delete all fan controller software and use the gpu bios to handle the cooling.  Since then, no issues.  Sure the fans don't come on until 70C, but that's the highest temp I ever see no matter the game and settings.  
 
If you are having issues, remove all fan controller software and let the gpu handle the cooling.  If no more problems, then great.  If not, at least you confirmed it wasn't the software.  For me, it was the software for controlling the fans.