Starwaster

I can't enable SLI for my two 8600 GT cards except by using the drivers on the CD that came with it. That means I can't update my drivers when necessary. (as it is when certain games come out or for general performance improvements)

When I do 'rundll32 nvcpl.dll,LaunchMultiGpuApplet' at the command line, A window pops up telling me that although I have SLI capable cards that my motherboard is not compatible.

This is of course not true, the board is an EVGA 680i SLI ready board. I very strongly suspect that this is happening because of nVidia's overaggressive attempts to lock out non-nvidia hardware and that my board is not being detected properly.

Using the new drivers:
If I run the older control panel, the SLI option shows up (it was missing) but when I enable SLI, it returns to the disabled default when I hit apply.

I've been experimenting with trying to patch in nvidia control panel elements from the older driver in with the new drivers but I get this message:
The Nvidia Display Panel Extension cannot be created.

Possible reasons include a version mismatch.

Anyone have any ideas about this? Am I going about this the wrong way? What can I do to fix it?