EVGA / Nvidia
Each Nvidia and AMD have made modifications to their gaming GPU lineups in an effort to make them much less interesting to cryptocurrency miners, together with releasing mining-specific GPU fashions and making entry-level GPUs with specs that are not adequate for mining. Probably the most important modifications got here in mid-2021, when Nvidia launched “Lite Hash Charge” (LHR) variations of its RTX 3000-series GPUs that halved their efficiency when mining Ethereum or related cash however did not have an effect on their gaming efficiency.
Cryptocurrency miners have tried to avoid the LHR limitations in a bunch of how since then, together with by utilizing non-LHR drivers that Nvidia leaked (oops!) and flashing the BIOSes from 3090-series playing cards onto 3080-series playing cards to bump up the hash-rate restrict. And earlier this week, a hacker by the identify of Sergey launched an “Nvidia RTX LHR v2 Unlocker” that promised to take away the hash-rate limits on most Nvidia playing cards utilizing a mixture of BIOS updates and specifically modified drivers.
Stunning nobody, the sketchy drivers with the too-good-to-be-true efficiency guarantees turned out to be filled with viruses. An in depth report exhibits that the software program package deal modifies Home windows Powershell insurance policies, deletes and creates new recordsdata in system directories, and causes abnormally excessive CPU utilization, amongst different issues.
I will not say there’s by no means a purpose to put in a modified driver in your pc—typically these drivers are one of the best ways to grow old {hardware} working in newer variations of Home windows. Different instances, as with this well-known AMD driver package deal for Macs operating Boot Camp, it is one of the best ways to get constant driver updates with the most recent fixes and efficiency enhancements.
However you ought to use frequent sense when downloading and putting in this type of software program. If mysterious drivers from a beforehand unknown third social gathering promise a silver-bullet repair for an issue that the whole cryptocurrency mining neighborhood has not been in a position to determine, you most likely should not set up them.
