Mint won't install using GTX 590? Works with HD 5970!?!

[Ints]

I'm trying to install Mint 12 with GTX 590 in the machine. It freezes when the install is detecting devices and says something about pci timing out. latest Ububtu does the same. I then tried installing Mint 10, and that works fine. Then I swapped the GPU for HD 5970, and its working beautifully, recognising multimonitor setup and everything! What on earth is going on???

The 590 is a new video card and has been working under Windows perfectly for a number of days. Is there something in new Mint/Ubuntu releases that doesn't like GTX 590s???

MB - Rampage Extreme II
12G ram (non identical)
1TB HDD
i7 930

1kW psu

I was hoping to upgrade from HD 5970 to GTX 590 or even GTX 590 SLI, it would be a shame if I couldn't use Mint anymore.

[bu99zy]

I think the default nVidia driver in Mint, Nouveau doesn't like SLi, since the GTX 590 are 2 GTX 580 sandwiched together the Nouveau driver reads it as an SLI setup.

Try installing Mint with your HD 5970, then install the nVidia drivers, you'll most likely have to install this manually as the "Additional Driver" won't detect it with your ATI/AMD card in there.

Then shutdown, replace the HD 5970 with the GTX 590.