In the weeks after the unintentional leak of the NVIDIA GeForce driver that enabled cryptocurrency mining on the GeForce RTX 3060 GPU, miners found additional ways to get around the GPU / Driver handshake to break the hash rate limiter on Ampere GPUs.
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 hash rate limit is bypassed using fictitious HDMI, breaks the GPU / driver handshake and activates the total cryptocurrency mining rate
Therefore, we all know that NVIDIA accidentally published its GeForce 470.05 driver on its developer web page that allowed users to bypass the hash rate limiter, but later removed it. However, once the driver was deployed to allow for the full cryptocurrency mining fee of Ampere GPUs, it spread like wildfire and is currently available for download anywhere in public domains.
Surprisingly, new discoveries were made by the Hardwareluxx Editor, Andreas Schilling, who confirmed through his tests that the driver can still restrict the hash rate on the GeForce RTX 3060 when running multiple GPUs. For this purpose, the GeForce RTX 3060 was run in conjunction with a GeForce RTX 2080 Ti. The RTX 2080 Ti was used as the primary video adapter, while the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 was used as a secondary card. You can see that the hash rate limiter kicks in very soon, forcing the ETH rate to drop to 21-22 MH / s instead of up to 50 MH / s that this card offers.
This is definitely an interesting way to block cryptocurrency mining when running multiple GPUs, as it detects which GPU is being used as a video adapter while checking whether multiple GPUs are running alongside it and whether mining algorithms are being used. performed on them. In most cases, cryptocurrency mining platforms feature a low-cost or budget card as a video adapter when running a variety of GPUs for crypto mining.
I had to try it for myself, although it is very obvious. An HDMI mannequin bypasses the reduction in mining (#Ethereum) performance of # GeForceRTX3060 as a secondary card. pic.twitter.com/HbfvtyPI9F
– Andreas Schilling (@aschilling) March 19, 2021
To circumvent even this limit set by NVIDIA, all you need to do is get fake HDMI connectors that can lead the driver to think that the other cards are also running for video adapters and allow for the full mining rate. Andreas goes on to provide a demonstration of this in his Twitter feed and shows the same GeForce RTX 3060, which was limited to running alongside the RTX 2080 Ti, working on its total cryptocurrency mining hash rate.
Users in Korea have also demonstrated this by putting four NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 graphics cards to the test using the fake HDMI connectors. The miners confirm that there is no drop in the mining hash rate on Ethereum (or any encryption algorithm, to say) when using fake HDMI connectors. These fake HDMI connectors are readily available for purchase and are quite inexpensive, but as they can become popular after this news is released, we can expect a slight increase in prices. The miner also said that he has not yet tested the cards with fake DVI connectors, but that may also work. In addition, you also need a PCIe link of x8 or more to circumvent the limit.
Video cards like the unreleased NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti should also have the hash rate limit, but if modders can bypass the RTX 3060, it is sad to say that the limit will also be circumvented on the RTX 3080 Ti as well.
News sources: Harukaze5719 , QuasarZone