Hi guys, I am going crazy over here and I can't tell you how upset I am since I was so excited to start gaming with this card. Long post coming up, I just want to make sure I thoroughly explain what's happening. I installed the card just fine, and it boots with no drivers installed and works just fine. However, as soon as I install the newest drivers, the computer will go to a black screen after POST. It will display the spinning "loading Windows" screen for a second or two, but then it immediately cuts to black, and when it does this I can see a few short lines of like distorted green pixels for a fraction of a second, almost like what you would see if you ripped the display cable out suddenly or something. After that happens, it just sits at a black screen and Windows never loads. I know this because I never hear the chime sound effect, so I know that Windows isn't loading in the background. I've tried installing the newest drivers several times and it's giving me the same issue everytime -- I even formatted the drive and re-installed a fresh copy of Windows to make sure it wasn't some kind of software conflict, and still doesn't work. After sitting at the black screen for a minute or two, the signal will cut and then the monitor turns itself off after detecting no input. Eventually I tried using an older version of the drivers, and then it kinda boots, but 1/2 the time the colors are all messed up once it loads Windows (looks like they are inverted or something). Then, it will lock up the computer within a few minutes, and either just freeze or reboot. Occasionally it will start up and the colors are normal on the DVI output, but the HDMI output is always full of artifacts and distorted. If I use DVI, the display at least looks normal, but it still locks up after a few minutes, and when it crashes the screen gets rows of like white blocks and just looks all crazy. The 3D actually works on the card, because I was able to run a game of World of Tanks for about one match before it eventually crashed (getting a great framerate with settings maxed too). This card is an RMA card -- my friend got it from EVGA when he RMA'd another card, and I bought it from him completely sealed in the box and it wasn't tampered with in any way. I was previously running an old Radeon 6670 in this computer, and it had no issues at all, so I am pretty confident it isn't any other component in my system. I have tried both new and old drivers installed with all the bundled software, and just with the driver files and nothing else installed, and it doesn't seem to matter. Card behaves the same way. I've also noticed that when I first installed the card, the card would spin up its fans all the way for just a moment and then I'd get the usual POST beep sound. However since I've started fiddling with it, and restarted a million times troubleshooting all this, it seems like the lag between the card spinning up it's fans and the POST beep has gotten like twice or even three times as long; there's like a good 5-10 seconds after hitting the power button and hearing the vid card spin up, and the POST beep now. Please help guys!
 
System specs:
CPU: Intel 4790K
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-Z97X-Gaming 3
RAM: 2x4GB Corsair Vengeance Pro (8GB total)
SSD boot drive: OCZ Vertex 120GB SSD
HDD: Toshiba 7200RPM 500GB SATA HDD
PSU: Antec VP550F PSU
Case: Old-school Antec SX1030B
Previous video card that worked fine: MSI Radeon 6670 GPU

Sounds like you might have bought some junk from your friend. Test the GTX 980 in your friends system and see how it does. Buy a new psu for your rig too as the one you're currently running isn't very good.

Yes, it should be enough to power up the system. Something else is going on with your system though as you can't hear the windows chime.

Sounds like a plan. 

Have you tried updating motherboard bios to f7?

Superfly, when did your friend buy this 980 FTW? It may have been before the time EVGA did not figure out that they made a huge batch of bad 980 FTWs.
 Regardless if the card was RMAd and never opened, the horrible batches still continued.

SuperflyTNT2
Hey Sajin, quick question. I formatted again doing more testing, and I still haven't found a solution. I am still going to take the mobo, RAM, and PSU back in the morning and exchange them, but in the meantime I accidentally deleted the .ZIP of the old drivers I found that at least somewhat worked. When I get the new components all together I will try the newest driver first, but if they don't work what old version would you say is the most stable? I think the one I got that kinda worked was like 347 something? Just curious. 

347.88

SuperflyTNT2
Well it's the card for sure folks. Took the mobo, RAM, and PSU back to the store and exchanged it for different parts. I now have an MSI Z97 Gaming 5 mobo, 16 GB of Corsair Dominator 2133Mhz DDR3, and an Antec Gamer 620W modular PSU. Got everything together without the card first, and it runs BEAUTIFULLY. No boot loops like the last RAM gave me until I enabled XMP -- this stuff is running at the low speed of 1333Mhz for now since I wanted to make sure everything is stable, and it's totally trouble free. So, I get all the drivers in, make sure it's all good and it's time to install the video card. Same exact thing as last time: boots fine with no drivers, but as soon as the newest drivers are installed it crashes on Windows load up. After displaying "loading Windows" for a second, it cuts the loading animation and creates weird artifacting/lines for an instant. then straight to a black screen where it will just sit forever until the computer is restarted. Then upon reboot, it'll just do the same thing, so Windows will not start at all. So, at this point I am quite sad, it looks like my only course of action remaining is to RMA the card. Two different sets of hardware and it does the same thing, so I think that's a sure sign the card is broken somehow at a hardware level. How long does EVGA take to RMA stuff? Are the pretty quick? I live in SoCal, and noticed they are in Brea, which is only about 1.5 hours away from me. I am hoping this means I can get the card back quick, but I am guessing I'll be a minimum of two to three weeks before I will be able to game with a working GFX card. God @&%$# dammit!!!! 

Go to their headquarters and ask for an rma. 

Thanks EVGATech_MDecker I appreciate the response. That's good news regarding the turn around time on the RMA. I probably won't do the collateral option, but also good to know. I do have a question though -- you mentioned that it would be good for me to upload a copy of my invoice. I bought it from a friend of mine, but we did do it through PayPal since he is away at school. Should I just upload a screenshot of the PayPal invoice? Would that be sufficient? Thanks!

Actually, as the second owner an invoice wouldn't be necessary. For the second owner, the warranty would be based on the date we shipped out the product. In the case of an RMA'd card such as yours, it will go off the original product's purchase date. This is all automatically tracked in our records, and can see how many days of warranty you have left by putting your serial number in on the Guest RMA page. 

SuperflyTNT2
Thanks EVGATech_JaesonW! Do I need to register the card first in order to do the guest RMA? I don't mind registering it, I am just curious. 

Nope, just go right here and follow the steps.