A few days ago it was confirmed that the beta of its next driver violated mine’s limitation, which NVIDIA eventually had to acknowledge and resulted in said limitation being returned to that driver. But what is surprising is how hackers can break this limitation, in a way that is as simple as it is surprising.
Adapter breaks NVIDIA mining limitation
The luck for NVIDIA did not last long, as hackers found a way to break this limitation and it was through a “dummy” HDMI interface, a type of interface that does absolutely nothing, but just fits. replacing an HDMI cable. NVIDIA’s limiter is based on the fact that Ethereum mining does not use the graphics pipeline, but rather the computer one. This is the first premise that the driver uses to find out whether or not we are mining.
The reason is that when operating multiple GPUs, the first of them is in charge of managing the screen from which the information is provided, while the others are in charge of mining. . As soon as the driver detects that the RTX 3060 is defined as a secondary GPU and therefore does not display graphics or mining, it is when the driver limiter is triggered, which halves or less the mining rate.
And how does the driver detect if the GPU is not sending images to the screen? Well, very simple, once we have connected an HDMI cable to a graphics card, the mechanism for sending images to the screen is activated. The solution is therefore to place dummy HDMI connectors, which are connected to the HDMI interface. With this, the display driver is activated and makes the driver believe that the GPU is not mining but generating graphics.
Did NVIDIA underestimate minors?
The fact that it’s so easy to break NVIDIA’s anti-mining limitations should turn on all the red lights, we’re not talking about something as complex as changing the EEPROM where the firmware is or changing the BIOS via software, but something as simple as taking a part that usually costs very little bucks and connects it to the HDMI ports on the card.
Considering that NVIDIA has promised that the following RTX 3000s are going to carry this measure, and we all know the RTX 3070 Ti and RTX 3080 Ti are just around the corner. This means that we will continue to have a stock problem due to the mining bubble.
It is surprising how NVIDIA underestimated the knowledge and abilities of miners. Especially if we take into account that we are talking about people who are experts at tinkering with their GPUs to a higher level than a normal user. All NVIDIA had achieved was to limit mining to ordinary users, but not to large mining operations. In any case, the fact that the limitation to be exploited can be broken with a simple adapter is surprising to say the least.
