Monday, March 22nd 2021
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Anti-Mining Feature Bypassed by HDMI Dummy Plug
When NVIDIA introduced its GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card, the company also introduced a new feature to go along with it. As the card is priced well, it is positioning itself as a very good value offer for mining. Given that NVIDIA has now separate products for mining, it naturally would like to limit the number of gaming cards sold to miners. To achieve that, the company introduced an anti-mining algorithm that is essentially a handshake between the driver, RTX 3060 silicon, and the GPU VBIOS. This handshake checks those three components to detect if mining is going on, so it can limit the performance of the card.
However, even such a thing can be bypassed. Usually, miners put their GPUs in rigs where most of the GPUs don't use their video outputs. And the GPU can detect if it is connected to the monitor or not, triggering the anti-mining algorithm. A user from Quasar Zone forums has managed to bypass the restriction by simply installing a dummy HDMI plug. By using the dummy plug, the card thinks that it is connected to a monitor and thus runs normally. Using this workaround, the user was able to set-up a four-way GeForce RTX 3060 mining rig with 48 MH/s hashing power per GPU, for the total 192 MH/s hash rate. You can buy HDMI dummy plugs for as low as $5.99 on Amazon or at any other store.
Source:
Tom's Hardware
However, even such a thing can be bypassed. Usually, miners put their GPUs in rigs where most of the GPUs don't use their video outputs. And the GPU can detect if it is connected to the monitor or not, triggering the anti-mining algorithm. A user from Quasar Zone forums has managed to bypass the restriction by simply installing a dummy HDMI plug. By using the dummy plug, the card thinks that it is connected to a monitor and thus runs normally. Using this workaround, the user was able to set-up a four-way GeForce RTX 3060 mining rig with 48 MH/s hashing power per GPU, for the total 192 MH/s hash rate. You can buy HDMI dummy plugs for as low as $5.99 on Amazon or at any other store.
76 Comments on NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Anti-Mining Feature Bypassed by HDMI Dummy Plug
Even videocardz covered this better and more objective: videocardz.com/newz/nvidia-confirms-it-accidentally-released-a-driver-without-rtx-3060-ethereum-hash-rate-limitier
Stop calling Nvidia out on they're excellent bios locking. / Unlocking efforts.
Think of the feelings man.:p
Massive sarcasm tag
JMO
The bios does NOTHING to prevent un-official drivers to be run.
Otherwise this hashrate nerf would be done in ages ago.
LMAO. seriously. I nearly died laughing to hear this news.
Scalpers
Shortages of PCBs and components to go on PCBs
Pandemic caused issues with transportation
I mean, take a journalism class or something if you're not doing it on purpose.
Add to that the general shortage of chips that hits several industries. I mean, miners are certainly not helping, but it's not like if mining went away tomorrow the problem will go away as well.
Product announcements
Product availability changes
Product updates and patches
Meanwhile in the real world, nothing much changed, but that perspective is not for TPU. TPU Is about tech.... :ohwell:
Basically the news section is now a glorified ad wall with stuff you can't buy.
Simply using the dummy connector bypasses nothing.
On the: "NVIDIA confirms the ETH limiter on RTX 3060 was removed accidentally" headline by Videocardz!!!
Nothing can be more biased and unethical than such headline. In this specific case, nvidia is the least eligible side on earth to "confirm" the accident claim. Because it was its own claim.
Unlike Nvidia, AMD Doesn't Mind If You Use Its Gaming GPUs To Mine Ethereumfinance.yahoo.com/news/unlike-nvidia-amd-doesnt-mind-053530071.html
This kind of titles are all over the internet. "Nvidia doesn't want you to mine with their cards"
Yeah, right!