Nvidia’s latest update accidentally removed RTX 3060 Ether mining hash rate limiter. Nvidia had placed an Ether mining block on the GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card, bypassed with the software update.
The latest update was a driver update, and the code released was intentionally released to be used by Nvidia developers. This made the hash rate limiter to be removed.
From an interview done by Verge, a Nvidia spokesperson confirmed that the 470.05 driver update included a code that is used for internal development. This removes the hash rate limiter on RTX 3060 in some configurations.
To prevent an influx of demand by crypto miners, Nvidia was in control of the mining of the RTX 3060 series graphics cards back in February. Whenever Ether was being mined, the computational power would cut by half. Nvidia introduced a three-way handshake to separate the hardware, software, and firmware so that the card can easily recognize when it is being used to mine Ether and cut its power from 50 MH/s to 25 MH/s.
Even though Nvidia tried its best in everything, Nvidia’s software update let the cat out of the bag. As much as Nvidia took the measure to pull down the beta update, there are already versions of it that made it to the internet.
There are rumors that you have to do a custom edit for your computer BIOS to bypass the hash rate limiter. To prove this, Andreas Schilling of the tech website HardwareLuxx did a test. To his surprise, there are no further modifications needed as Nvidia’s driver had already removed the hash rate limiter.
With the code out there, it is an open party for Ether miners who will rush to consume GPU shipments’ available supply. On the other hand, gamers may be in misery as upgrading their graphic cards may not be a smooth sail. As much as miners will enjoy, a report done by Hexus suggests it may not be suitable for large mining farms as the affected driver can only unlock one RTX 3060 at a time.
Initially, people thought that with the hash rate limiter bypassed, one could mine Ether at full scale. There are, however, clarification done that suggests the specific card was not just meant for Ether but to mine Ravecoin.
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