SLI Failing for 970s

[fdo1415]

Motherboard: rog strix z370-e gaming
CPU: i5 8600K
Graphics: GTX 970 (MSI)
GTX 970 (Zotac)
I had posted recently about failing to SLI my two 970s but believed I had resolved it by needing to buy a flexible SLI bridge. I just installed the two "Asus 08G160001240 SLI Bridge Connector 70MM Flexible", but I still am getting the message in NVIDIA Control Panel that "to use maximum 3D performance, connect the SLI-ready graphics cards with an SLI connector".
What I have tried:
1.) Uninstalling and reinstalling drivers
2.) Using MSI Afterburner to make sure the speeds were the same
3.) Checking to see if both graphics cards worked individually
The control panel is clearly reading that I have two GTX 970s installed, but why can't I connect them? Thank you in advance.

 

[cin19]

What PSU did you have? From all the answers I don't see you mention the PSU at all.

 

[fdo1415]

What PSU did you have? From all the answers I don't see you mention the PSU at all.

I have "Corsair HXi Series, HX1000i, 1000 Watt (1000W), Fully Modular Power Supply, 80+ Platinum Certified".

 

[uppercut4u]

Did you try removing and reseating the cards? Try a different sli bridge? Make sure power cables are firmly attached.

 

[cin19]

but I still am getting the message in NVIDIA Control Panel that "to use maximum 3D performance, connect the SLI-ready graphics cards with an SLI connector".

1) That means the sli bridge may not work. Try other one.
2) Or the nvidia software bug, may try the old version driver too. Use the DDU to uninstall the driver, try the old version one.

Add: Or test the two in sli in other PC to make sure these GPUs work in sli, because the sli connector in the GPU may have problem too.

 

[fdo1415]

but I still am getting the message in NVIDIA Control Panel that "to use maximum 3D performance, connect the SLI-ready graphics cards with an SLI connector".

1) That means the sli connector may not work. Try other one.
2) Or the nvidia software bug, may try the old version driver too. Use the DDU to uninstall the driver, try the old version one.

Thank you for your response. I had tried the bridge that came with the motherboard and that didn't work, so I bought these two new ones and they also don't work. I will try DDU again and see if an older version of software works.

 

[fdo1415]

Did you try removing and reseating the cards? Try a different sli bridge? Make sure power cables are firmly attached.

Thank you for your reply. I have reseated the cards multiple times and just bought new SLI bridges because the first one didn't work. I have also unattached and reattached the power cables multiple times.

 

[uppercut4u]

Did you make sure both PCIE slots work, both cards work individually in both slots? Verify that Windows Device Manager is showing two identical graphics cards in the Display Adapters section.
Ensure that SLI is enabled in your BIOS settings.

I should have asked before but did these cards ever work in SLI?