Radeon HD 7950 freezing issue

[atemxp]

So I'm having an issue with what I assume the GPU, which started off as a minor issue when I first purchased it a year ago, to a big issue. It freezes up the computer almost constantly. When I was using the stock graphics card in the Mac Pro I never had this freezing issue.

Before I wasn't sure when it would happen, but most cases was watching a YouTube video on a second monitor of mine (mind you both monitors connected at the time were less than a 1080p resolution). Now it seems to freeze at whim, or almost always when I attempt to play any sort of game (Wow, CS GO for example).

I'm not sure exactly how to fix this and It's definitely gotten worse over time. I've looked on the Internet for solutions and most seem to come from Windows users, who I'm not even sure are having the same issue.

Has anyone had this happen to them before? Seems like I should have gotten an nVidia card after all...

Specs
Mac Pro 4,1
16 GB Ram
2.66 Xeon Quadcore
250 GB SSD (Samsung Evo 840)
660 HDD

 

[owbp]

Who knows what the card's job was, since 7950/70 (R9 280/x) were most popular miners cards until a year ago (if you bought PC card).

I would take it out, blow out PCI slot to be sure all dust is out and clean the contacts one more time.
After, you could take off cooler to clean it and reapply thermal paste.

What does the Console says in the log when that happens?

 

[theitsage]

Take it apart to clean and apply new thermal paste.

 

[orph]

is it a pc card or the official mac card?
did you get it used?
have you ever cleaned it?

it may just need a clean like theirsage says :E i noticed my GTX 660 getting hot pulled it out and noticed lots of cat hair :3 cleaned it off and temps drooped a lot after

the 2nd slot tends to run a tad cooler if you have the card in the bottom slot which can help