CMP 170HX hack unlocks full 80GB A100
Hardware researcher Kate developed a voltage fault injection exploit that bypasses NVIDIA's eFuse protections on CMP 170HX mining cards, unlocking up to 80GB HBM2e and 126 streaming multiprocessors. The permanent modification turns surplus $2,500 crypto hardware into datacenter-grade accelerators capable of running 120B models faster than stock retail A100s.
NVIDIA's aggressive silicon binning created an absurd hardware arbitrage opportunity where physical datacenter-grade silicon was sold for scrap. While voltage fault injection remains high-risk and labor-intensive, this exploit exposes the vast gap between artificial market segmentation and actual chip capabilities.
- –Physical 80GB HBM2e stacks on 8GB-labeled mining cards confirm NVIDIA packaged full GA100 dies to clear inventory rather than manufacturing distinct low-end silicon
- –Unlocking up to 126 streaming multiprocessors outperforms retail A100s (capped at 108 SMs) by nearly 20% in raw FP16 compute
- –Bypassing eFuse security controllers via STM32 power glitching permanently restores PCIe Gen4, ECC, and NVLink interconnects for local multi-GPU clustering
- –High barrier to entry: calibrating glitch timings takes hours per card and risks permanently bricking the board, keeping this strictly in DIY hardware hacker territory
DISCOVERED
59m ago
2026-11-13
PUBLISHED
1h ago
2026-11-13
RELEVANCE
AUTHOR
0x0SojalSec