News Nvidia Hacks Its Own GeForce RTX 3060 Anti-Mining Lock

[Admin]

Multiple reports allege that cryptominers have cracked Nvidia's anti-mining mechanism on the GeForce RTX 3060.

Nvidia Hacks Its Own GeForce RTX 3060 Anti-Mining Lock : Read more

 

[Exploding PSU]

Don't want to be "that guy", but it reeks sabotage for me. Some disgruntled mate probably released the driver out of personal reasons. But of course, maybe I've been looking at it for too much and it really is just a pure mistake on their part.

Still, local store asks 1000 AUD for one, far above MSRP, so performance or not it's still unattractive for me unfortunately.

 

[LolaGT]

It was just a matter of a very short time anyway, regardless how it got out.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

Don't want to be "that guy", but it reeks sabotage for me. Some disgruntled mate probably released the driver out of personal reasons. But of course, maybe I've been looking at it for too much and it really is just a pure mistake on their part.

Still, local store asks 1000 AUD for one, far above MSRP, so performance or not it's still unattractive for me unfortunately.

There's the alternative view: Nvidia did it on purpose, because it has a bunch of mining customers that wanted this fix.

"Oops, we accidentally posted a development driver that nuked our mining limiter. Sorry."

 

[bigdragon]

Completely expected. There was no way the mining limiter was going to stick. I had expected miners to publish workarounds and custom firmware and such. Seeing Nvidia themselves push an update to break the limiter reeks of malfeasance. Nvidia can afford to have testers for their tester's testers -- there is no excuse not to be checking the integrity of the mining limiter.

Mistakes happen, but this looks like a pattern now. Nvidia fails to have enough launch stock, fails to address stock shortages for 6 months ongoing, fails to address sales channel problems (quantity limits, bots, supply chain interdiction, etc.), fails to reign in their AIB partners, and now fails to test their own updates against the highly publicized mining limiter feature. Ebay and Amazon can step in to police the sales of Dr. Seuss books but can't do a thing about Nvidia GPUs?

Nvidia GeForce is for miners. GTFO gamers and content creators!

 

[blacknemesist]

Well isn't that nice! Why get a 3090 at 2400 euro when you can have the same for 3x less lol

Maybe AMD will be the bigger man and actually do something to protect their card in the next gen but they are so far behind it hurts : AMD RTX is lackluster and FXSS is worst that DLSS 1.0 :s still a long way to go but it is time to turn away from nvidia

 

[hotaru.hino]

AMD can't do anything either. Trying to prevent hardware from running software is a losing game. The only thing I can think of is to make GPUs with fixed function units again, which would basically roll back all GPU development by 18 some years.

And even then, I'm pretty sure said GPU would still be a good enough performer for mining.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

I really do think this was on purpose for a few reasons:

1) In order for a driver to get out into the wild, it would have to get approval of multiple people. If one person did go against that and release it, they would probably CERTAINLY be fired and face legal issues.

2) Nvidia is a company. The only thing they REALLY care about is making money, and they do not care if it comes from a miner or a gamer or anyone else. Releasing this would mean potentially more 3060 sales, and I cannot really fault them for being a business.

 

[Neuspeed]

Hmmm I don't see 370.05 Beta drivers anywhere online.

Update: So it looks like this post had the wrong driver listed. It's supposed to be the 470.05 Beta driver.

 

[cryoburner]

Oh, what a complete and total surprise.

It seemed unlikely that the whole "mining limiter" thing would be useful from the start. It's just a product of Nvidia's PR department trying to push the message that they are on the gamers side while simultaneously doing everything they can to appeal to mining operations. In reality, it seems pretty clear that the 30-series was designed first and foremost as a mining GPU, back when Nvidia was seeing how much mining was improving sales during the last crypto-craze.

Don't want to be "that guy", but it reeks sabotage for me. Some disgruntled mate probably released the driver out of personal reasons.

Removing the lock can only improve sales of the cards. Perhaps someone could have been paid off to release a driver with the limiter removed, but it could just as easily be that Nvidia quietly removed the limiter in a version of the driver to make the card more appealing to mining operations. Not that the limiter was doing much for the end-users anyway, since even with it in place, the cards were being sold for nearly three times their MSRP, just like all the others.

 

[atomicWAR]

There's the alternative view: Nvidia did it on purpose, because it has a bunch of mining customers that wanted this fix.

"Oops, we accidentally posted a development driver that nuked our mining limiter. Sorry."

Before I even started reading posts I was thinking the same thing. I honestly don't know if this is true, it could just be a goof. For a company like Nvidia who's greed comes off as immense, I find it far more likely this was all a PR stunt and intentional. I can almost hear the meetings break down in my head...

"How do we buy some good will from gamers during this crypto boom without selling the good will of miners?", says random exec A

"The way I see it sir is we release an unhackable handshake between the driver and the bios for new cards so they can't mine and we release old cards without display ports saying these will be for miners only...", says random exec B

"How does this not piss off miners?" responds exec A

"Well sir we wait a few weeks to see if our lock is foul proof. If miners hack it great but if not we 'accidentally' release a driver that breaks our own lock so we can keep selling these cards to miners," starts exec B, "Then as the crypto boom slows down we release a work around for mining only cards much like what happened in the last boom allowing users to tunnel display information out via their motherboards display port(s) so miners can sell their cards on the used market. While they will work for gaming, they'll be slightly less attractive on the used market which means more new sales but Miners can still sell some their stock to the more technically savvy gamers so miners can make back some of their profit margin. We sell more cards while decreasing the used market without eliminating it all together, upsetting both miners and gamers. It's a win, win sir."

"Is this technically feasible" As exec A looks to engineering who nods, "Great exec A and engineering get bonuses if they can make this happen in under 90 days..."

 

[InvalidError]

I had no doubt the hash limit would get cracked, likely sooner than later. I wasn't expecting Nvidia to be first though.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

Hmmm I don't see 370.05 Beta drivers anywhere online.

Update: So it looks like this post had the wrong driver listed. It's supposed to be the 470.05 Beta driver.

One line of text had the wrong number, but it was the correct link -- Nvidia has pulled the drivers it looks like. Pretty safe to say they'll pop up on other places though.

 

[atomicWAR]

@InvalidError Yeah Nividia really handed over the keys to the kingdom on this one...

 

[NightHawkRMX]

Nvidia kept them up for awhile, certainly intentional.

If they didn't want that those drivers would have been pulled WAY quicker.

 

[Why_Me]

Curious to see when this card is released and how it benchmarks vs the likes of the RTX 3060. It could help relieve some of the pressure off the gpu market.

https://www.techpowerup.com/279731/intel-xe-hpg-graphics-card-could-compete-with-big-navi-ampere

 

[Basic-Benchmark]

I get 24MH untuned with a Gateway Creator Laptop RTX 2060.... I get like 18MH when working on it. $659 on sale or $799 when it is not.... With scalping prices this is a better deal and has more uses still.

 

[Zerk2012]

One line of text had the wrong number, but it was the correct link -- Nvidia has pulled the drivers it looks like. Pretty safe to say they'll pop up on other places though.

Multiple reports allege that cryptominers have cracked Nvidia's anti-mining mechanism on the GeForce RTX 3060.

Nvidia Hacks Its Own GeForce RTX 3060 Anti-Mining Lock : Read more

Old news I posted that a hour before you and had known of it a week before.

Question - Bitcoin mining to be disabled on RTX 3080 Ti and 3090 Ti?

So bitcoin mining is going to be disabled through the hardware on the RTX 3080 Ti and 3090 Ti?

forums.tomshardware.com

If you look at my link do you really think it will take the hackers more than a week to crack any firmware or BIOS fixes for any card they release?

Their to much money involved heck if you were the first to crack it you could even sell the fix!

Only thing I looking at is the upcoming EIP-1559 and see how that affects profit.

EDIT. Do you really think they care who buys every card released the answer to me is NO, low supply high demand = more money.

If you look at the EVGA get in line system they already jacked up the prices. If you get your Email to buy before I think it was 4/16 you get it at original price if not the new price.

If I or you were EVGA would you send out anymore Emails till the price increase or let the stock set in a warehouse till you make more money?

I would send out a few just to look good then release most after the price increase. That would keep you from looking like the Grinch.

 

[InvalidError]

Well, according to the crypto-mining blog, the ETH rate limit is still in 470.05 and kicks in when:
1- the GPU is operating on a PCIe slot narrower than x8, which means you cannot use anything less than x8 risers
2- no monitor is connected
3- more than one GPU is detected in the system

Basically, it was likely intended to let people with a single GPU do whatever they want with it.

 

[atomicWAR]

Well, according to the crypto-mining blog, the ETH rate limit is still in 470.05 and kicks in when:
1- the GPU is operating on a PCIe slot narrower than x8, which means you cannot use anything less than x8 risers
2- no monitor is connected
3- more than one GPU is detected in the system

Basically, it was likely intended to let people with a single GPU do whatever they want with it.

Interesting...maybe Nvidia isn't totally screwing over their consumer base then. I had mixed feeling on the blocks for mining. We need more cards in the market but it isn't fair to tell a gamer they can't also mine IMHO. This sounds like a set up that may allow for the best of both but my guess is miners will still find ways to use these to mine crypto with multi-gpu. I guess time will tell how this will play out.

 

[digitalgriffin]

AMD can't do anything either. Trying to prevent hardware from running software is a losing game. The only thing I can think of is to make GPUs with fixed function units again, which would basically roll back all GPU development by 18 some years.

And even then, I'm pretty sure said GPU would still be a good enough performer for mining.

I get tired of hearing this. It is more than possible. You guys don't work closed systems so you are speaking from your tail. What happened as this was beta is they didn't have a secure digital signature. That would nerf every shader/compute unit program. So they enabled the "okay to mine flag" for everything.

I know what NVIDIA's next move is to disable this driver. I already figured it out. It's really in their best interest to unload older uArch and make fat margins in the process. Only people hurt are the miners who will have a longer term ROI.

But I'm keeping my mouth shut.

 

[danlw]

Ebay and Amazon can step in to police the sales of Dr. Seuss books but can't do a thing about Nvidia GPUs?

I think you're onto something here. This exposes the fact that Amazon/E-Bay/Newegg et al could shut down scalpers if they really wanted to.

If we could figure out a way to link scalping to a woke SJW cause, E-bay, Amazon, Newegg and all the other hypocritic companies would shut it down literally the same day. Somehow we have to make up some proof that scalpers are white supremacists getting rich off the backs of minority gamers. If we could link it to trans issues, all the better.

 

[bigdragon]

I think you're onto something here. This exposes the fact that Amazon/E-Bay/Newegg et al could shut down scalpers if they really wanted to.

If we could figure out a way to link scalping to a woke SJW cause, E-bay, Amazon, Newegg and all the other hypocritic companies would shut it down literally the same day. Somehow we have to make up some proof that scalpers are white supremacists getting rich off the backs of minority gamers. If we could link it to trans issues, all the better.

I know someone who has assembled a small arsenal of weapons and ammunition using proceeds from scalping dozens of PS5's. The coworker who was scalping GPUs bought a huge F250 pickup truck using the money. Scalpers are absolutely doing things Amazon, Ebay, Newegg, and friends would be uncomfortable to be linked to. However, I think they would continue to look the other way because of all the money they're making.

Reporting that scalpers made ___ amount of money probably isn't as helpful as saying what they're doing with the money.

 

[Krotow]

Returned on square one as expected. Real fix for market distortion problem and partially how to cut head of dark market financing is cryptocurrency ban and heavy sanctions and consequences for cryptominers. Hey, China, show us example. Round them up in fields for machine gunner practice.

 

[zodiacfml]

Thanks. This saved me the effort of thinking about this. They probably have seen complaints from users that they should get what they paid for or something like that. Sadly, the 3060 will never see good pricing until crypto crashes and the pandemic over

Well, according to the crypto-mining blog, the ETH rate limit is still in 470.05 and kicks in when:
1- the GPU is operating on a PCIe slot narrower than x8, which means you cannot use anything less than x8 risers
2- no monitor is connected
3- more than one GPU is detected in the system

Basically, it was likely intended to let people with a single GPU do whatever they want with it.