[Software] NVIDIA "fixes" LHR in the RTX 30 by drivers, although it no longer works

[FNX Magokiler]

A few days ago NiceHash was updated to unlock NVIDIA LHR and thus obtain more performance in Ethereum mining. That this measure has been circumvented has not been liked by NVIDIA, who claims to have corrected it. It appears that the GeForce 512.95 WHQL driver re-enables LHR, causing the power in the Ethereum mining process to drop to half again.

The NVIDIA LHR solution was introduced to the RTX 30 Series to prevent it from being used for Ethereum mining. A solution developed after complaints from users who claimed that gaming graphics are used for other purposes.

It seems that NVIDIA has managed to patch LHR in its latest drivers
It was at the end of last week when NiceHash updated its Ethereum mining software. The update adds a system that skips virtually all of NVIDIA LHR v3. This mechanism is in the 8 GB RTX 3050 and the 12 GB RTX 3080. As indicated, they had managed to get the graphics card to give 90% of the possible hash rate for Ethereum mining.

The latest NVIDIA driver, the GeForce 512.95 WHQL, what it does is re-establish a limit on mining. It seems to "reset" LHR and revert to 50-70% clipped hash rate on all graphics cards.

Although this is positive, the truth is that it will not keep those who are dedicated to mining Ethereum awake at night. As simple as not updating the drivers and that's it.

 

 

Who has detected that LHR has been restored has been the youtuber Juliano Caju. He has reported on his YouTube channel that the new NVIDIA GeForce 512.95 driver cuts back on mining power. With the RTX 3060 he was getting a rate of 46 MH/s, which is not bad at all. Later, after updating the controller, the power becomes just over 25 MH/s with the nbminer software.

Although it is a solution, it is clearly not a great solution either. Simply by not updating the drivers, the miners can continue with their tasks without problems. This affects more the occasional miner who, in addition to mining, uses his equipment to play.

The only real solution is Ethereum 2.0, and there's nothing left
NVIDIA can try to put as many gates into the field as it wants, that there is no 100% safe way to limit Ethereum mining. The only solution is not in the hands of NVIDIA, but in the hands of the Ethereum Foundation.

Work has been going on for years to migrate Ethereum from proof-of-work (PoW) consensus to proof-of-stake (PoS). This means that much less hardware is needed for the generation of blocks and, therefore, less energy consumption.

But not everything is so pretty in Ethereum 2.0. Access to be a validator node will require certain hardware and at least 32 ETH. It is alleged that this can generate a lot of centralization, which many do not like. The second problem is security, which is considerably reduced by moving to a system that makes "cheating" less expensive.

In addition, the umpteenth delay for the software deployment for Ethereum 2.0 has recently been indicated. It seems that there are still many problems when segmenting the blockchain. Nodes that do not communicate, information that is duplicated and different stability and security problems have forced a new delay in its launch.