Turns out you can easily remove the anti-cryptocurrency mining limiter on Nvidia’s RTX 3060 graphics cards—thanks to the company’s own software driver.
On Monday, Japanese site PC Watch reported it was able to mine Ethereum with an RTX 3060 card at full capacity, instead of merely at 50%. Most importantly, the mining occurred with “little effort,” meaning no need to hack the graphics card at all. Subsequently, German IT publication Hardwareluxx and Crypto Mining Blog confirmed you can mine Ethereum on an RTX 3060 simply by installing a newly released software driver from Nvidia.
The software driver, GeForce 470.05, has only been released on the company’s developer page, and users need to create an account to access it. But once installed on a PC, the driver will lift the Ethereum mining restriction.
We’re not surprised someone was able to remove the restrictions. We just didn’t expect the solution to come from Nvidia itself. Last month, the company introduced the anti-cryptocurrency limiter on the RTX 3060 cards to help dissuade Ethereum miners from buying up the product.
According to Nvidia, the limiter was also unhackable. “There is a secure handshake between the driver, the RTX 3060 silicon, and the BIOS (firmware) that prevents removal of the hash rate limiter,” an Nvidia spokesperson said at the time.
We’ve reached out to the company for comment, and will update the story if we hear back. But we’re wondering if this may have been a deliberate decision on Nvidia’s part. Crypto Mining Blog notes the GeForce 470.05 driver doesn’t completely remove the Ethereum mining limitation.
Instead, the restriction is only lifted when the mining occurs on a single RTX 3060 card connected to a PC monitor—a typical setup for a PC gamer. However, if your system uses multiple multiple RTX 3060 cards similar to a professional cryptocurrency mining rig, the Ethereum limiter will remain in effect.