In the weeks following the unintentional NVIDIA GeForce Driver leak that allowed cryptocurrency mining on the GeForce RTX 3060 GPU, miners found additional ways to bypass the GPU / Driver handshake to break the hash speed limit on Amper GPUs.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Hash rate limit bypasses using Dummy HDMI, breaks GPU / driver handshake and sets full coin rate for cryptocurrency
So we all know that NVIDIA accidentally published its GeForce 470.05 driver on the developer webpage that allowed users to bypass the hash limit, but later removed it. Once the driver was highlighted to enable the full mining rate of cryptocurrency from Ampere GPUs, it spread like wildfire and is currently available everywhere in public domains.
Surprisingly, new discoveries have been made by the editor of Hardwareluxx, Andreas Schilling, who confirmed through his test that the driver can still limit the hash rate on the GeForce RTX 3060 when using multiple GPUs. For this purpose, the GeForce RTX 3060 is driven together with a GeForce RTX 2080 Ti. The RTX 2080 Ti was used as the primary display adapter, while the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 was used as a secondary card. You can see that the hash speed limit will start soon and force the ETH rate up to 21-22 MH / s instead of up to 50 MH / s provided by this card.
This is definitely an interesting way to block cryptocurrency mining when managing multiple GPUs, as it detects which GPU is being used as a display adapter while simultaneously checking whether multiple GPUs are running on it and whether mining algorithms are being used on it. In most cases, the mining equipment for cryptocurrency has a cheap or cheap card as a display adapter, while a series of GPUs are used for the mining of crypto.
I had to try it myself, although it’s really obvious. An HDMI dummy bypasses the reduction in mining (# Ethereum) execution of the # GeForceRTX3060 as a secondary card. pic.twitter.com/HbfvtyPI9F
Andreas Schilling (@aschilling) 19 March 2021
To bypass even this limit set by NVIDIA, you only need to get dummy HDMI connectors that can mislead the driver into thinking that the other cards are also used for display adapters and enable full mining speed. Andreas further demonstrates this on his Twitter feed and shows the same GeForce RTX 3060, which was limited when he ran alongside the RTX 2080 Ti and works at his full mining hash rate.
Users in Korea also demonstrated this by testing four NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 graphics cards using the dummy HDMI connectors. The miners confirm that Ethereum (or any Crypto-algorithm to say the least) is no decrease in the hash rate in mining, if the dummy HDMI connections are used. These HDMI dummy connectors are easily available to buy and are fairly inexpensive, but since they may become popular after this news comes out, we can expect a slight increase in prices. The miner also says he has not yet tested the cards with dummy DVI connections, but it may work as well. Other than that, you also need a PCIe link of x8 or further to bypass the limit.
Graphics cards such as the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti that have not yet been released are also expected to include the hash limit, but if mudders can bypass the RTX 3060, it is sad to say that the limit is also on the RTX 3080 Ti will bypass.
News sources: Harukaze5719 , QuasarZone