GTX 680, SLI doesn't show as option after reboot

[lastof]

I'm pulling my hair out here, and have tried everything I can think of.

 

I have two identical GTX 680s which have been working perfectly in SLI for the last few years. Noticed today my SLI wasn't activated, assumed I just forgot to toggle it back after the most recent driver update, but going to switch it on in the NVidia Control Panel it didn't show as an option.

 

After reinstalling both the latest (358.50) and previous (355.98) versions of the drivers, including a complete uninstall/reinstall of the drivers, removing and reseating my cards, swapping out my SLI Bridge for one never removed from it's plastic, and then finally resorting to a clean install of the OS I've narrowed down the issue, I just can't make any sense of it.

 

SLI shows up fine in the NVidia Control Panel after installing a driver, activates, and based on frame rate is working. However once I restart it no longer appears. If it wasn't active before the restart all other options still show, it just leaves out the SLI option as if I only had a single card installed, but both cards are still availible for dedicating to PhysX. If it was active before rebooting the Nvidia Panel only shows the 3D options, nothing else.

 

Looking in GPU-Z/testing in game, if SLI was activated before a restart, it still seems to be active after, NVidia's control panel just isn't offering it (and seemingly breaking and not offering anything if it is active even though it doesn't think its possible).

 

Any sugestions of what I could do to try to fix this/narrow the issue? Anything I can do to work out which card it is, or if it's the Mobo, if I'm seeing the early stages of a hardware failure? Anything it could be software wise (after a clean install I doubt it, but can always hope)?

 

Thanks!

 

Extra Details:

OS: Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit, 

CPU: i7-3770k

GPUs: 2x GTX 680 2GB

[dragoon20005]

go to the PC and buy a cheap SLi bridge

 

i may suspect its faulty and not giving the correct contact

[lastof]

go to the PC and buy a cheap SLi bridge

 

i may suspect its faulty and not giving the correct contact

 

As mention I already tried a different bridge fresh from it's plastic, no help. Have now tried a third, still no change.

 

Further testing today has shown that OpenGL doesn't see the cards after a restart with SLI enabled. Direct X and GPU-Z do, but I suspect whatever is causing no options to appear in the Nvidia control panel if I activate it then restart is cause by the same thing, likely they aren't being seen by everything.

 

Managed to borrow a pair of 560s and try them in SLI, exact same behaviour. So, 3 bridges, completely different cards...

 

I'm getting a bad feeling that I might be in the market for a new motherboard soon and am just seeing the first symptoms of death.

[ApolloX75]

As mention I already tried a different bridge fresh from it's plastic, no help. Have now tried a third, still no change.

Further testing today has shown that OpenGL doesn't see the cards after a restart with SLI enabled. Direct X and GPU-Z do, but I suspect whatever is causing no options to appear in the Nvidia control panel if I activate it then restart is cause by the same thing, likely they aren't being seen by everything.

Managed to borrow a pair of 560s and try them in SLI, exact same behaviour. So, 3 bridges, completely different cards...

I'm getting a bad feeling that I might be in the market for a new motherboard soon and am just seeing the first symptoms of death.

It's probably Windows 10. I had SLI working fine with two 970s and after a hour of testing Windows 10 decided to try an update. Afterwards no matter what I did nVidia drivers would not install properly and the SLI option was gone.

Switched back to Windows 7 and everything was fine.