Info about an upcoming LHR unlocker for the Nvidia RTX 30 series claims that the software unlocks 100% of the Ethereum mining hashrate.
Update: Do Not Download The Ethereum Hashrate Unlocker, It Contains Malware
A new hashrate unlocker for mining Ethereum and other coins on Nvidia’s RTX 30 series has surfaced up, and it makes some interesting claims.
As per its GitHub, the “Nvidia RTX LHR v2 Unlocker” by Sergey can fully unlock the mining performance of the Ampere cards.
The “Lite Hash Rate,” or LHR in short, versions of the Nvidia graphics cards come packed with a limiter that prevents miners from being able to use the full computing power of the GPU for mining Ethereum or any other crypto.
With the default LHR series cards, it’s only possible to extract 50% of the performance for mining. Last year, some miners were able to come up with some solutions that help circumvent this limit.
However, even with the latest version of NBMiner, the software that unlocks the additional hashrate, only 70% of the power can be used for Ethereum mining.
Now this new unlocker supposedly removes the complete limit, and lets miners make use of all the available power.
Unlocked performance of the various Nvidia RTX GPUs | Source: GitHub
“The first fully automated BIOS modifier for RTX cards with LHR v2 lock. Using it is simple, intuitive and requires no advanced knowledge,” reads the GitHub page.
Related Reading | Intel’s 1st Gen Bitcoin Miner Offers Just 1/3 Hashrate Of Bitmain’s Best Model
The software claims that before modifying and flashing the BIOS file, it also creates a backup. This means the process would be reversible in theory if things go wrong.
To actually unlock the entire hashrate, modified drivers for the Nvidia RTX cards also need to be installed, which the software also automatically handles if the user is on Windows.
It should be noted that while the developer claims this process is safe, you should still proceed at your own caution as modified BIOS and driver files may mean that your card could become incompatible with tasks other than mining, like gaming.
Related Reading | Ethereum Dominance Will Go Down As Competitors Emerge, Says Morgan Stanley
The intent behind Nvidia releasing these LHR cards was to discourage miners from buying their GPUs amidst a shortage that persists to this day.
However, it seems that didn’t quite pan out as Nvidia may have wanted since even with 50% hashrate, miners still found Ethereum mining quite profitable. And now, if what this software claims is true, all limitation efforts by the GPU company have been completely worked around.
Ethereum Price
At the time of writing, ETH’s price floats around $2.6k, down 16% in the last seven days.
Ethereum's price seems to have plunged down over the last few days | Source: ETHUSD on TradingView
Featured image from Pixabay.com, chart from TradingView.com