Notes

to make this less confusing I'll highlight and distinguish between the 3 driver states and hardware states I am talking about.
(((Driver States)))
there is the native primitive driver that starts when you don't have any nvidia drivers installed which I will call
=== Driver - 0 === .
the driver I had installed originally before I changed the hardware setup
=== Driver - 1 === .
and the new drivers I installed once I had the both Graphic cards recognized by the computer just to update the ones I had before
=== Driver - 2 === .

(((Hardware States)))

the original hardware state before installation of the new graphics card. Where the orginal gtx 580 was installed into the second slot on my motherboard. with nothing occupying the first slot.

=== Hardware State - 1 === .

the state how I originally installed the second card with old in slot 2 new in slot 1 (((the computer would not recognize the new card in this state. not in bios or device manager.)))

=== Hardware State - 2 ===.

the state in which the original old card was put into slot 1 and the new card into slot 2 (current working state)

=== Hardware State - 3 ===.

(OLD SOLVED PROBLEM)

obviously the previous system specs:
OS: windows 7 ultimate
Graphics cards : 1 evga gtx 580
mother board: evga 58X ftw3
Processor: intel (R) core(TM) i7 CPU 960 3.20GHz 2.65 GHz
Ram: 12 GB

I recently acquired a second EVGA NVIDIA GTX 580 and went to install it

I had my first video card in the second slot on the board and went to install the second on top of it. (transition from === HS -1 === to === HS-2 ===

I couldn't get the computer to recognize the second 580 video card in device manager or bios even after updating and uninstalling drivers.

((((("not sure if relevant, but I am wondering if this is how things got messed up or is important in figuring out what went wrong"
(to test something I unplugged the power for the new card in slot 1 without taking the card out of the slot so still === HS-2-===)
I then for the first time while booting my machine saw the computer enter the system repair state automatically. I wasn't sure what it was and so I canceled the process in fear of messing something up and restarted the computer with === HS -2 === and the power plugged back into the new 580 card in slot 1.

the system repair did not come on this time so I didn't think anything of it.

the computer still did not show recognition of the new card in bios or device manager.))))

I then decided to see If I could get just my new card to work in either slots by itself. I tried the new card in both slots 1 and 2 to see if it would be recognized. with only the new graphics card on the mother board, not even the native drivers === D-0 === would run and I could not see anything on the monitor. it was the same with both slots.

so to test the first slot on the motherboard to see if it was still working I plugged my original working card into it and it worked.

( I assume this is what made the TS people think it was broken.)

the second new video card did not work in either of the slots with the same power cable but the fan did turn on on the card. and my dad who had gave it to me thought it worked so I knew it wasn't broken.

the answers I got from everyone was that my new card as far as they could tell was broken

(SOLVED)

what I had to do to get it to work.
I put my original old "working" graphics card into the 1st slot instead of the second.
and put the new card into the second. === HS-3 ===
the computer now recognized the second graphics card in bios and device manager and I was able to use sli in the nvidia geforce control panel. with and without the newest nvidia drivers installed. meaning in both === DS - 1 === and === DS - 2 ===

(NEW PROBLEM)

current system specs: only the additional graphics card is the change obviously
OS: windows 7 ultimate
Graphics cards : 2 X evga gtx 580 sli
mother board: evga 58X ftw3
Processor: intel (R) core(TM) i7 CPU 960 3.20GHz 2.65 GHz
Ram: 12 GB

NEW PROBLEM: for some reason my previously installed software does not recognize the change in hardware and it causes Maya 2016 and a newly installed maya 2016.5 (installed after SLI setup === HS-3 === === D -2 ===) to crash on startup. so even though it was newly installed with my dual Graphics Card hardware setup it still doesn't work.

which is why I think re installing software won't work. and now that I know photoshop also doesn't recognize the hardware I am fairly certain reinstalling software would not help and that it is more than likely a file path miscommunication problem or a bios problem ( not a computer wiz lol barely know what a bios problem would mean in this situation seeing as though it sees the new card now)

after getting desperate I tried doing a system repair in the hope that somehow when I got it automatically it just didn't fix what it needed to fix because of my cancelation. But that didn't detect any problems.
I then tried doing a system restore to the point before I had the second card installed === HS - 1 === while in === HS -3 === and it tells me that it wasn't able to do a complete system restore to that point and the drivers I had running while in === HS -1 === ((( === D -1 === )))) at this specific restore point, were not recognized while in === HS -3 === and it was in the === D -0 === state.

I am wondering maybe it has to do with the new card being in the second slot while doing the restore.?
but with no graphics card drivers detected (=== D - 0 ===) even though at that restore point I did have working drivers (=== D -1 ===) it allowed me to start maya properly (with only the native primitive drivers of the card === D-0 ===) redundancies are for clarity :-) I am trying to be as descriptive as possible.

But after reinstalling the drivers I had at that restore point === D -1=== maya no longer worked___ EVEN THOUGH IT WORKED WITH MY ORIGINAL GRAPHICS CARD IN SLOT 2 BEFORE in (=== HS-1 ===)______ the new graphics card being in that slot (=== HS-3 ===)(EVEN THOUGH IT IS IDENTICAL) somehow is affecting the programs.

I'm pretty sure if I were to do a system restore to the one before having installed the new card with the original card being in the second slot and my new card being removed (the original configuration of hardware === HS -1 ===) it would make it work again even with the drivers that causes it to break with the second card installed (=== D -1=== and or === D -2 ===). in fact I would be willing to bet that that restore point would start with the original drivers === D -1 === and not the native primitive drivers === D-0 === in the === HS-1 === configuration.

(((incase you skipped ahead))) to make this less confusing I'll highlight and distinguish between the 3 driver states and hardware states I am talking about. (see top)

and having done a decent amount of work rearranging desktop shortcuts and property settings and what not, I decided to go back to my latest restore point (the one I am on now) since I couldn't get the drivers to work at that restore point before installing the new card. I figure it is something I can change from this point anyway.

and it seems like every restore point I go to it says it cannot be fully restored so that might be something unrelated. It comes back just the same and I can't tell a difference even though it says that. that message came up mutiple times before I even installed the new graphics card as well. so I don't think that has anything to do with it, just an FYI. but not being a computer wiz I'm not positive.

so I'm not sure what to do. I feel like I can fix it without going to a previous restore but I don't know what to look for or what to change to get my software to be able to see my new hardware setup.

I have seen other people complain about this happening to their maya when they install a new graphics card but I haven't found a forum post that has been fixed yet and that is identical to mine.