A developer claims to have found a way to loosen Nvidia’s Ethereum mining limiter on the RTX 3000 graphics card series.
The latest update for the NBminer software promises it can unlock the Ethereum mining capability up to 70%, an increase from the 50% restriction currently found on Nvidia cards built with the “Lite Hash Rate” or “LHR” limiter.
For now, the update only works for Ethereum mining done over the ethash algorithm. The mining hash rate on an LHR card can now be set at 68%. However, a user can set the rate even higher, although it may cause the card to enter into a “lock state,” resulting in a lower hash rate.
“A good start tuning value is 68, which has been tested to be stable on most rig configurations,” the release notes add.
We haven’t tested the update, but it may undermine Nvidia’s efforts to dissuade cryptocurrency miners from buying up RTX 3000 GPUs sold with the Ethereum mining limiter. But on the flip side, existing owners of the graphics cards who mine on the side can now squeeze out a little more performance.
You can find out if a Nvidia GPU has the mining limiter by looking out for the “LHR” identifier on the product box or online listing. The company first introduced the limiter on the RTX 3060 before expanding it to select 3060 Ti, 3070 and 3080 cards.
However, it’s important to note Nvidia’s limiter only applies to Ethereum, not to any other cryptocurrencies. Hence, miners interested in other virtual currencies have been buying up LHR cards anyways. Back in March, Nvidia also accidentally released its own software update capable of cracking the mining restriction on LHR cards.