strange 8800 gt sli problem

i just purchased a second 8800 gt to try out some sli. i hooked it all up and enabled it just fine, then ran a 3dmark06 test. i got about 17k with 13k being my previous score, woohoo! but then like a week later i got a funny feeling and decided to run the 3dmark again. now i'm getting about 11k., oh noes!

my system:
mobo - evga nvidia 750i
cpu - e8400 @ 3800 mhz
ram - 4 gigs gskill ddr2 800
OS: windows xp 64 bit

well there's the important stuff.

Did you update your drivers in that time? Maybe knocked the casing and the SLI bridge is not intact properly? Try doing multiple runs and see if the score goes up. Could also be that you forgot to close some background apps before running the test. (anti-virus and all that)

i tried switching the cards around making sure all connections were good i didn't change drivers, just kept the 175.16 or whatever. maybe an older driver would be better? no other programs were running, and i did i think 3 tests total all with same results. and it still says sli is enabled and everything, i enabled the cheesy visual indicator just to make sure it wasn't lying. do you actually have to use the SLI bridge? maybe i have a faulty one.

well i don't know what the deal is, but it's decided to start working again. thanks for the suggestions necro.

Do a fresh install of windows if possible...its probably the old drivers that are causing this. or just use softwares like drive sweeper etc to delete all drivers and install the news ones again.

i'll keep that in mind if it decides to screw with me again, thanks.