Nvidia Unhackable RTX 3060 anti-miners driver has just been hacked (this time for real)

[Wail3Y]

Summary

Mining Youtuber Brandon Coin found a way to bypass the Dagger-Hashimoto mining algorithm performance lock on the RTX 3060. He achieved this by using Nvidia's very own developer drivers (version 470.05). The card hits around 50MH/s with the perf unlocked.

Edit: The card's memory is overclocked but this is still a huge leap from the 20-25MH/s limit.

 

My thoughts

It was only a matter of time before the lock was broken, but for Nvidia themselves to slip up like this is hilarious.

The driver does require a developer account to download but as of now, verification is instant. Perhaps this driver can be reverse engineered to break the rumoured mining lock on the unreleased RTX 3080 Ti.

 

Sources

Original Video

Driver Download Page

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrkE7jfbzqzRlWKZ5DU5tXA

Edited March 15, 2021 by Wail3Y
Original post didn't follow format guidelines

[ZuppaSalata]

Summary

It's been less than 30 days since the launch of the RTX 3060 and Nvidia's anti-miners drivers have been unlocked (this time for real)

Now the card is able to reach 40/45 MH/s which is almost double the hashrate allowed by the stock Nvidia drivers. 

Phonix Miners Dev said that even tho this is a huge upgrade, the card is not working at its full potential, so we might see even higher hashrates in the future.

 

 

 

 

 

Quotes

Quote

PC Watch has today confirmed that the ETH mining restrictions have been broken. The editorial team has confirmed after contacting related parties. The site reports that no modifications to the driver or BIOS are required, which indicates that the restrictions might have been broken on a mining software level.

 

Quote

The mining restrictions hack does not appear to be limited to one mining software. We have also been tipped about this message on Github, coming from Phoenix Miner developers. They claim that they are working on a big update for NVIDIA kernels, some of which are showing ‘encouraging signs that 3060 hash rate lock could be partially lifted’:

 

 

My thoughts

As always Nvidia likes to make big claims. I'm curiosus to see what is going to be their next move with the 3070ti and 3080ti. Will they make another "unhackable" software ? I don't think so

 

Sources

https://videocardz.com/newz/pc-watch-geforce-rtx-3060-ethereum-mining-restrictions-have-been-broken

[SFFDesigns]

This will be fixed soon I'm sure. It isn't actually bypassed, one driver just doesn't have it. They'll probably just remove that driver and add a new one with the limiter.

[Wail3Y]

Just now, Hymenopus_Coronatus said:

This will be fixed soon I'm sure. It isn't actually bypassed, one driver just doesn't have it. They'll probably just remove that driver and add a new one with the limiter.

The drivers have already been downloaded by multiple people so it's pretty much game over for them.

[manikyath]

Just now, Hymenopus_Coronatus said:

This will be fixed soon I'm sure. It isn't actually bypassed, one driver just doesn't have it. They'll probably just remove that driver and add a new one with the limiter.

but as soon as there's one combination of hardware, firmware, and driver out in the wild... the gig is up.

[MageTank]

1 minute ago, Hymenopus_Coronatus said:

This will be fixed soon I'm sure. It isn't actually bypassed, one driver just doesn't have it. They'll probably just remove that driver and add a new one with the limiter.

Does nothing for the driver already out in the wild and in mass distribution on the internet. It's funny considering Nvidia themselves was very vocal that driver tweaks couldn't bypass this limiter and that it was baked into the silicon, yet this (if true) directly disputes that claim with Nvidia's own driver.

[Moonzy]

nvidia: fine i'll do it myself

 

wondering if the 3060 sales weren't satisfying?  

[Rauten]

Well, on the bright side, they can keep claiming it is unhackable!! 
Since noone is going to bother trying it hack it anymore...

[mikegray]

This pisses me off, seriously.

 

If you're a miner, and you intend to buy entire warehouses of these things, problem solved. Buy 10k of them, run them in a fairly closed system in your warehouse at the North Pole with this particular driver, and rake in cash until the market crashes.

 

OTOH, if you've a gamer who wants to make up a little money on a card you probably had to overpay for, you're going to want to update your drivers for games, security, etc. But if you want to mine, you're stuck with this one driver. 

 

Perfect example of why the program doesn't benefit the gamers Nvidia said they wanted to help.

[Kilrah]

Exactly, it's got the exact opposite of the desired effect now.

[Blademaster91]

Not surprised it was bypassed, but its already well known that the mining nerf doesn't block other algorithms.

 

[Wail3Y]

21 minutes ago, mikegray said:

This pisses me off, seriously.

 

If you're a miner, and you intend to buy entire warehouses of these things, problem solved. Buy 10k of them, run them in a fairly closed system in your warehouse at the North Pole with this particular driver, and rake in cash until the market crashes.

 

OTOH, if you've a gamer who wants to make up a little money on a card you probably had to overpay for, you're going to want to update your drivers for games, security, etc. But if you want to mine, you're stuck with this one driver. 

 

Perfect example of why the program doesn't benefit the gamers Nvidia said they wanted to help.

Personally, I'd just run a dual boot setup and have one Windows installation with the driver for Mining and one for gaming. Probably won't be able to do that anyway considering RTX 3060 pricing.

[mikegray]

2 minutes ago, Wail3Y said:

Personally, I'd just run a dual boot setup and have one Windows installation with the driver for Mining and one for gaming. Probably won't be able to do that anyway considering RTX 3060 pricing.

Gotta do what you gotta do, I guess - but that makes the whole experience waaaay more complicated than I would like.

 

I'm in my late 40s, have enough extra cash to waste a little - and I treated myself to a 3090 at retail back in mid-December. (Hey: At least I didn't by a convertible!) I've had the thing mining in the background 24/7 since early January - except when I run games or video/photo editing software. And it just ... works. Since I moved my box to another room (connected to my workplace by USB & DP extenders), I literally don't even notice the miner going, and it's about 2/3rds paid off, including electricity.

 

Except for the ecological issues, I can't think of a single reason why I wouldn't do this. 

 

If I REALLY had to, I guess I could reboot the PC every evening to "miner mode" then reboot to work mode again in the morning - but it would be a hassle.

 

All this to say: It's just a shame that other folks who probably need the money more than I do have to jump a bunch of hoops to do the same thing. I'm not saying Nvidia can't sell whatever they want however they want - but calling this an act of kindness to budget-restricted gamers just adds insult to injury.

[LogicalDrm]

@Wail3Y & @ZuppaSalata

Your threads were merged. Because the way merging works, the first posted leaves. However, @ZuppaSalata has correct format, with personal thoughts. @Wail3Y, please follow the formatting guidelines in future with your posts. This is not speed competition.

[Taf the Ghost]

Basically all Consoles get cracked, and that's just for the fun of it. When there's money to be made, I'm amazed it lasted this long.

[SFFDesigns]

It hasn't been hacked though, so technically Nvidia can keep claiming it's unhackable. They just put out a driver that doesn't enable the limiter haha, so there is now a clear way to bypass it.

[CTR640]

Let miners buy all the GPU's as it seems nVidia doesn't care at all and why they should care anyway. It simply won't get any better in near future but nVidia really gotta watch out because once the cryptobubble bursts...

[staticpage]

looking at this as a consumer walking into my store.

"Ya I'm not going to buy crippled GPUs." They cost an arm and a leg now it better do everything it can do. Like I have been doing oddball work lately lots of weird AI stuff like up scaling potato Dcam videos, makes me nervous that one day I'll try to do some work on it only for it to say "not allowed upgrade to a non gaming GPU/Titan".

These purchases and components are a long term thing now it better do all the jobs I need from time I buy it to time I upgrade, I still have a 1000 series as my main card with the rig it's in running over half a decade now.

[Apk.down]

It really piss me off..

Im on my way to saving money for my build

My first plan is buying 3080 , then price up changed my plan to 3070, then its up again, changed to 3060, my saving now is like 85% to common price of 3060 in my country which is around 900usd. Now this happen. Im sure the price will up again, my build will never done

[cwoodyard]

Looks like there is a guru3d thread with driver downloads that you can get it from since nvidia took it down https://forums.guru3d.com/threads/wddm-3-0-470-05.437043/

 

[elfensky]

And is anyone really surprised? Like it was obviously just a "marketing" move to placate gamers, a "look, we're doing something"-type of thing.
I doubt anyone really expected that lock to last any serious amount of time.

[countchrisdo]

Did they seriously think some driver blocking would deter miners? Saying it's unhackable is basically issuing a challenge out there.

[RejZoR]

I'm so glad I bought my RTX 3080 for gaming back in december 2020 for 990€. Stores are currently selling vanilla RTX 3060 for 1000€ and more. Absolute insanity. Also I hope this whole garbage crashes monumentally. And crashes so hard no one will think of or touch this mining idiocy. This is literally one of the dumbest things humanity has made up.

[MageTank]

43 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

I'm so glad I bought my RTX 3080 for gaming back in december 2020 for 990€. Stores are currently selling vanilla RTX 3060 for 1000€ and more. Absolute insanity. Also I hope this whole garbage crashes monumentally. And crashes so hard no one will think of or touch this mining idiocy. This is literally one of the dumbest things humanity has made up.

[JamesTheFolf]

7 hours ago, ZuppaSalata said:

Summary

It's been less than 30 days since the launch of the RTX 3060 and Nvidia's anti-miners drivers have been unlocked (this time for real)

Now the card is able to reach 40/45 MH/s which is almost double the hashrate allowed by the stock Nvidia drivers. 

Phonix Miners Dev said that even tho this is a huge upgrade, the card is not working at its full potential, so we might see even higher hashrates in the future.

 

 

 

 

 

Quotes

 

 

 

My thoughts

As always Nvidia likes to make big claims. I'm curiosus to see what is going to be their next move with the 3070ti and 3080ti. Will they make another "unhackable" software ? I don't think so

 

Sources

https://videocardz.com/newz/pc-watch-geforce-rtx-3060-ethereum-mining-restrictions-have-been-broken

Tbh I don't like that Nvidia did this. Because if I'm going to pay a lot of money for a graphics card, I will want to be able to use it however I wish. Even if that includes mining.