NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Anti-Mining Feature Bypassed by HDMI Dummy Plug

[AleksandarK]

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.


View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[bug]

Seriously TPU, get rid of this guy. This is not news, this was part of the original driver debacle.
Even videocardz covered this better and more objective: https://videocardz.com/newz/nvidia-...-without-rtx-3060-ethereum-hash-rate-limitier

 

[AleksandarK]

Seriously TPU, get rid of this guy. This is not news, this was part of the original driver debacle.
Even videocardz covered this better and more objective: https://videocardz.com/newz/nvidia-...-without-rtx-3060-ethereum-hash-rate-limitier

Excuse me, could you explain the point you are trying to prove?

 

[HD64G]

Good to know how much BS was nVidia spreading the PC community with their "mining limitations"...

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

Excuse me, could you explain the point you are trying to prove?

Defence posture P(for precious) as ever.

Stop calling Nvidia out on they're excellent bios locking. / Unlocking efforts.

Think of the feelings man.

Massive sarcasm tag

 

[john_]

Nvidia never tried to stop mining in their cards. All this was just a marketing trick to minimize negative reaction from gamers. Nvidia probably considers gamers extremely stupid people, who will not realize that a leaked driver and a $6 trick to bypass that "anti mining" feature was intentional.
JMO

 

[qubit]

And so there was a trivially easy workaround lol. Who'da thunk it?

 

[Caring1]

48MH/s still seems low to me, or maybe I'm comparing with the 3080 which has a much higher rate.

 

[Chomiq]

Nvidia never tried to stop mining in their cards. All this was just a marketing trick to minimize negative reaction from gamers. Nvidia probably considers gamers extremely stupid people, who will not realize that a leaked driver and a $6 trick to bypass that "anti mining" feature was intentional.
JMO

They "accidentally" released unlocked driver just week after winning the $1 billion lawsuit.

 

[ShurikN]

They "accidentally" released unlocked BIOS just week after winning the $1 billion lawsuit.

It wasn't even a bios. It was just a driver. They even specifically stated on launch that the limiter wasn't just a driver lock but a "driver-firmware handshake". So much for that...

 

[nguyen]

It wasn't even a bios. It was just a driver. They even specifically stated on launch that the limiter wasn't just a driver lock but a "driver-firmware handshake". So much for that...

Well the BIOS is there to make sure you can't run un-official driver (like using modded older driver), so yeah it's BIOS+Driver handshake

 

[Imsochobo]

Well the BIOS is there to make sure you can't run un-official driver (like using modded older driver), so yeah it's BIOS+Driver handshake

You can run non nvidia drivers on them....
The bios does NOTHING to prevent un-official drivers to be run.

 

[nguyen]

You can run non nvidia drivers on them....
The bios does NOTHING to prevent un-official drivers to be run.

yeah and then you get a hashrate of 0 with non Nvidia driver.
Otherwise this hashrate nerf would be done in ages ago.

 

[SIGSEGV]

hilarious feature of the year 2021.
LMAO. seriously. I nearly died laughing to hear this news.

 

[Dux]

Well, i guess I'll upgrade again when this wave of mining passes. And it will. Got my MSI RTX 2080 Super Gaming X Trio on the cheap side when people saw that video of Jensen introducing RTX 3000 series, and everyone thought they're gonna have some normal pricing, so they started selling their RTX 2000 series.

 

[laszlo]

so nvidia got a butt plug

 

[64K]

I get the impression that people think that the shortages are due just to miners but they are not. The miners are making a bad situation worse but there are other large issues that need to be addressed as well:

Scalpers
Shortages of PCBs and components to go on PCBs
Pandemic caused issues with transportation

 

[bug]

Excuse me, could you explain the point you are trying to prove?

Your posts are usually tabloid-level quality and I can't filter them out.
I mean, take a journalism class or something if you're not doing it on purpose.

 

[Chomiq]

I get the impression that people think that the shortages are due just to miners but they are not. The miners are making a bad situation worse but there are other large issues that need to be addressed as well:

Scalpers
Shortages of PCBs and components to go on PCBs
Pandemic caused issues with transportation

Yup, that Scott guy from AMD mentioned shipping issues. At this point companies are so desperate they are willing to ship empty containers from US to China just to be able to ship something back from China.

 

[bug]

I get the impression that people think that the shortages are due just to miners but they are not. The miners are making a bad situation worse but there are other large issues that need to be addressed as well:

Scalpers
Shortages of PCBs and components to go on PCBs
Pandemic caused issues with transportation

One more guy that gets it, tyvm.
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.

 

[Vayra86]

Your posts are usually tabloid-level quality and I can't filter them out.
I mean, take a journalism class or something if you're not doing it on purpose.

Gotta keep the ball rolling...

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....

Basically the news section is now a glorified ad wall with stuff you can't buy.

 

[bug]

Gotta keep the ball rolling...

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....

Basically the news section is now a glorified ad wall with stuff you can't buy.

But the title is not even correct (not to mention the big typo in it): the feature is not bypassed by a dummy connector alone. The leaked driver only works if you use a dummy connector or a real monitor at the same time. On some cards. That are connected directly to the motherboard.

Simply using the dummy connector bypasses nothing.

 

[Vayra86]

But the title is not even correct (not to mention the big typo in it): the feature is not bypassed by a dummy connector alone. The leaked driver only works if you use a dummy connector or a real monitor at the same time. On some cards. That are connected directly to the motherboard.

Simply using the dummy connector bypasses nothing.

You know I've entirely stopped reading those nonsense articles for a while now. Driver fixes for mining goes straight to the bullshit bin here. All I see is that TPU wants to push that button daily to generate clicks from stupid people and push commerce along. That's what the news section is... for almost every tech site these days. Luckily there is some in-depth stuff here and there, still...

 

[Xaled]

Excuse me, could you explain the point you are trying to prove?

As an nvidia internet propaganda team member, he actually doesnt have any point to trove, he just has a duty to fulfill; Defend nvidia blindly.

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.

 

[bug]

As an nvidia internet propaganda team member, he actually doesnt have any point to trove, he just has a duty to fulfill; Defend nvidia blindly.

If you think the most basic fact checking counts as internet propaganda, that says more about you than it says about me.