Some developer at nVidia probably got "too helpful" in making sure users who
have two cards installed don't accidentally leave SLI disabled.

Does this "feature" appear as a startup service in services.msc? Can you
disable it from there or set it to manual startup?

What if you just set the nVidia system tray icon to "always hide" in taskbar
properties?
ATi goes the other extreme. Crossfire is turned off by default under all
circumstances, with no notification, unless you manually enable it in the
control center. A new user who just spent $1500 on a Crossfire setup could
end up running in single-card mode for years without a clue...

--
"War is the continuation of politics by other means.
It can therefore be said that politics is war without
bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed."

"Larry Roberts" wrote in message
...
The new drivers have adware coded into them. When you try, and
disable the tray icon from within the driver control panel, it popsup
again at reboot with a message that one of your SLI cards was
disabled, even though you have only one card, or an AGP card. The
message ask you to click the bubble fr more info, which then brings
you to Nvidia's SLI website. This is nothing more than an
advertisement to get you to buy SLI. If you try, and disable it from
MSCONFIG, it reinstalls itself. Malware. The ATI products are now
looking better because of this.