Unlock history: who found what, and when

A dated record of how the CMP 170HX unlock came about, from the card's launch in 2021 to the state at the end of October 2026, with credit for each finding. Dates are the dates of the Discord messages (UTC) unless a post gives another. Where accounts disagree, every side is shown with its source and no verdict. This page records who found what and when; it does not describe how the exploit works inside. How to run the unlock today is on Driver unlock, and what each feature gives is on Unlocks.

Before 2026

2021 to 2025: a GA100 mining card, the Merge, and cards at about 200 USD

The CMP 170HX appeared on the Chinese market on 2021-09-01 with no NVIDIA announcement: a GA100 die (the A100's), passively cooled, one 8-pin connector, no display output, at about 4,700 USD. The 170th Street GitBook gives 164 MH/s at 250 W and a 4,299 USD MSRP. Linus Tech Tips covered it on 2021-11-25. Members recall mining farms paying about 4,300 to 5,000 USD a card (Studebaker: 4,300 USD with minimum orders over 1,000 pieces), and Miséricorde said the cards were profitable for Ethereum mining for only about 2 months before proof of stake. The Ethereum Merge on 2022-09-15 collapsed prices to 300 to 500 USD; by 2025 eBay listings ran 200 to 400 USD, and miners dumped cards at around 200 USD before the unlock. The cards last mined Pearl: on 2026-07-28 giaki3003 called Pearl mining "on life support" and CUTE expected prices to drop once it stopped paying.

Reported
Source: @giaki3003, 2026-07-28
Source: @cute_sc2, 2026-07-28
Source: @sekkit_75019, 2026-07-28
Source: @darkmaniac7, 2026-07-30 (lab notes)
Source: @smit1237, 2026-08-30
Source: @_studebaker_, 2026-08-30
Source: @wakeupmbrc1, 2026-09-16
Source: @smit1237, 2026-09-16
Source: repo github.com/amoghmunikote/170th-Street by amoghmunikote on GitHub, posted by @markshowa, 2026-10-18
Source: @darkmaniac7, 2026-10-30 (lab notes)

The FMA workaround (2023) and the first peer-reviewed study (2025)

niconiconi's review of 2023-10-25 ("All GB/s without FLOPS") documented the FP32 throttle on fused multiply-add, the two-layer PCIe lockdown (a firmware Gen1 lock plus 12 lanes without AC coupling capacitors) and a water block. In December 2023 GitHub issue #73 on dartraiden/NVIDIA-patcher confirmed that compiling OpenCL kernels with #pragma OPENCL FP_CONTRACT OFF raises FP32 from 0.395 to 6.285 TFLOPS. Hackaday featured the card on 2024-09-11. arXiv 2505.03782 (Xing Kangwei, Jiangsu University, 2025-04-30) is the first peer-reviewed study: it validated the workaround and reports more than 15x FP32 uplift. In August 2026 Petri Krohn called issue #73 the thread that started cmpunlocker development (next section).

Reported 8 GB and 10 GB
Source: @mrmannyatx, 2026-08-02
Source: @petrikrohn_26497, 2026-08-10
Source: @petrikrohn_26497, 2026-08-14
Source: repo github.com/amoghmunikote/170th-Street by amoghmunikote on GitHub
Source: niconiconi
Source: Xing Kangwei (arXiv)

Why the card exists: origin theories (debated in September 2026)

Members disagree on why NVIDIA made a crippled A100 for mining. In the order posted, all on 2026-09-18:

Takka: a lower-binned A100 meant as an export-legal option for China, never exported, then crippled into a crypto card. He estimated at most 100k to 200k cards were made against millions of A100s, if serial numbers are exhaustive. Source: @spectakkular, 2026-09-18
xtj7: the card launched in 2021 and the China AI export restrictions came in 2022; NVIDIA crippled A100 silicon where it would not hurt mining, so as not to cannibalise A100 sales during the mining boom, before ChatGPT changed demand. Source: @xtj7, 2026-09-18
Miséricorde thought the A100 market was saturated. Source: @wakeupmbrc1, 2026-09-18
cibernox: the cards became e-waste once Ethereum moved to proof of stake, which fits the low days-of-use counters owners read from their cards. Source: @cibernox, 2026-09-18

Contested

About four years of attempts, and cards bought in advance

Asked by Toffles on 2026-08-10 whether the first unlock took less than a month, Petri Krohn answered almost four years: from the Ethereum Merge (2022-09-15), which made CMP cards worthless for mining, to the first clean-room unlocker shared on GitHub (2026-07-14), with people trying throughout. On 2026-07-28 meatsus said the unlock had been "cooking" for 3 years with the real progress in the last 3 months, and Matty Ice said he had worked on it for 3 years. On 2026-08-06 Matty Ice said he stocked up on many 170HX cards years earlier because he always believed an unlock was possible, mined with them in the meantime, and now supplies members (he sent Pasteyy 8 GB cards). The stockpiling account has not been cross-checked.

Reported
Source: @meatsus, 2026-07-28
Source: @icematty, 2026-07-28
Source: @icematty, 2026-08-06
Source: @pasteyy., 2026-08-06
Source: @toffles3179, 2026-08-10
Source: @petrikrohn_26497, 2026-08-10

Hardware attacks tried before the software unlock (undated)

Humvee55 said on 2026-07-28 that before the software unlock some cards served as test beds for hardware attacks, because the group expected to need voltage glitching in the style of the Nintendo Switch hack. They tried an SOIC emulator and a bus sniffer, Studebaker mentioned a Raspberry Pi Pico, and the hot-glued wiring did not hold; Humvee55 saw plenty of I2C traffic and accidentally locked a VRM. No date is given for these attempts. The idea came back in October 2026: mrpandagod linked a Tegra voltage-glitching paper (arXiv 2108.06131) on 2026-10-10, and Shirogeek looked for a defective 8 GB card as a glitching test subject on 2026-10-17. Nothing has been built.

Reported 8 GB and 10 GB
Source: @scallion_9883, 2026-07-28
Source: @_studebaker_, 2026-07-28
Source: @meatsus, 2026-07-28
Source: @djpandaman, 2026-10-10
Source: @shirogeek, 2026-10-17
Source: @endsjeremy, 2026-10-17
Source: @cute_sc2, 2026-10-17

March to June 2026: the private group and the exploit

The early work happened in an earlier Discord server and a small private group. Most of what is known about it comes from later accounts by members, so the dates below are the dates those accounts were posted.

Pointer: Petri Krohn's account of the private group (posted 2026-07-22)

On 2026-07-22 Petri Krohn, one of a seven-person private group, posted a dated account of the unlock from its start on GitHub in March 2026 to the clean room. A longer write-up by @petrikrohn_26497 exists; see Discord. Pointer: the full account waits for its author's agreement (ask the author first); points from it that others also posted are dated separately on this page.

Reported 8 GB and 10 GB
Source: @petrikrohn_26497, 2026-07-22
Source: @ludashi666, 2026-07-22
Source: @decoy.works, 2026-07-22

dartraiden/NVIDIA-patcher issue #73: where many members came from

At 00:01 UTC on 2026-06-26 GMZombie007 reminded the server that many members came from issue #73 on dartraiden/NVIDIA-patcher, the thread about higher FP32 throughput on CMP HX cards: he came from there, as did Petri and, he thought, BlackSun, and Far called it his entry point ("the gateway drug"). On 2026-07-23 CUTE linked a comment in the same issue whose author was upset that the unlock was a hack with an uncertain payoff; Far called that ungrateful. On 2026-08-14 Petri Krohn posted, "for the historical record", that issue #73 is the thread that started cmpunlocker development, and Far said it was how he had found the previous Discord server.

Reported
Source: @gmzombie, 2026-06-26
Source: @farawaythrower, 2026-06-26
Source: @mrpec, 2026-06-26
Source: @cute_sc2, 2026-07-23
Source: @farawaythrower, 2026-07-23
Source: @petrikrohn_26497, 2026-08-14
Source: @farawaythrower, 2026-08-14

Humvee55: the first target was the compute throttle

Humvee55 said on 2026-08-11 that the VRAM unlock gets the headlines, but the original target was the compute throttle, which turned out to be a single register: writing it unlocks compute with no BIOS or driver modification, and cmpunlocker is one way of writing it. Asked by Josephur, he said the unlock ended up being an overflow, after months of trying device-ID and strap approaches. By then the CMP 90HX, 70HX and 170HX had all been cracked.

Reported
Source: @scallion_9883, 2026-08-11
Source: @josephur, 2026-08-11

Amogh bought his card in April 2026

Amogh, the server owner and cmpunlocker's maintainer, said on 2026-07-19 that he bought his CMP 170HX in April 2026. Black Jesus: "Damn. It was known back then already?"

Reported
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-07-19
Source: @ashtray9843, 2026-07-19

The earliest capacity report in the server (2026-06-22, second-hand)

On 2026-06-22, in the earliest messages of this server's history, atsasin passed on second-hand information: the 10 GB card works at 40 GB, 80 GB had been reached on it but was very unstable and had to run at half speed, and the 8 GB card ran stable at 64 GB. He put the 10 GB card's instability down to its Samsung HBM against SK Hynix on the 8 GB card, said he had not seen it himself, and asked others to replicate it. Pointer: marked ask the author first; only these short claims are given here.

Reported 8 GB and 10 GB
Source: @atsasin2126, 2026-06-22
Source: @serplay228, 2026-06-22

The server was invite-only in June 2026

In June 2026 the cmpunlocker Discord was private. On 2026-06-23 Amogh said he had hand-picked members who agreed not to share any cmpunlocker knowledge, including the server itself, and that server access came with access to the cmpunlocker repository. After the original unlocking server went down on 2026-06-25 he stopped accepting new invites ("We already have a sufficient group of talented people, I think with some persistence and sweat we can get it to work."), but agreed to invite Petri Krohn, whose old findings had been deleted with the other server; Petri was posting in #general by 2026-06-27. The owner later cleared this history for public import with credit.

Reported
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-06-23
Source: @jiacheng_liu, 2026-06-23
Source: @meatsus, 2026-06-25
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-06-25
Source: @petrikrohn_26497, 2026-06-27

Compute unlock first works (2026-06-23)

On 2026-06-23, while improving the VBIOS flash method the project used at the time, Amogh found he had used a wrong offset in his calculation for both cards. At 21:52 UTC the same day he announced to everyone: "Compute Unlock finally works!", for either the 8 GB or the 10 GB card; he could not measure the gain himself because he could not fit a fan to his card. At 04:09 UTC on 2026-06-24 he fixed the multi-GPU issue and the offsets, and atsasin moved on to mixbench. On 2026-06-26 he announced a "huge" redesign of the logic, and remarked that GSP patching was useless, the view at the time. The public unlock that followed in July is driver-side and flashes nothing.

Reported 8 GB and 10 GB
Source: @meatsus, 2026-06-22
Source: @meatsus, 2026-06-22
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-06-23
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-06-23
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-06-23
Source: @jiacheng_liu, 2026-06-23
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-06-23
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-06-23
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-06-24
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-06-24
Source: @atsasin2126, 2026-06-24
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-06-26
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-06-26
Source: @serplay228, 2026-06-26
Source: @serplay228, 2026-06-26
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-06-26
Source: @gmzombie, 2026-06-26

The original unlocking server is deleted (2026-06-25)

The original 170HX unlocking Discord was deleted without notice on 2026-06-25 (meatsus: "I woke up to the other discord getting deleted lol"). Amogh announced that the original server was gone and called the effort a free-for-all with competing groups. He had already exported its chats and files for development, "especially jonpry and cab's work which were really helpful in development", and shared them on request through a restricted folder. On 2026-06-27 Thanos posted the logs of the deleted server with a 30-page AI summary of its findings. On 2026-06-26 Amogh asked for help with the SEC2-ROP work as the priority; on 2026-07-02 the motherboard of his development PC failed, pausing his work until a replacement arrived on 2026-07-15.

Reported
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-06-25
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-06-25
Source: @meatsus, 2026-06-25
Source: @thanos8912, 2026-06-27

Who deleted the first server, and why

Only the existence of the earlier server and its deletion are uncontested. The accounts, in the order posted:

2026-06-25: asked who deleted it, lorfidel answered "Humvee" ("They claim they are worried about legal issues"); MrLoki89 relayed that BlackSun put it down to too many problems; adih thought the whole thing had been a scam; Far said the "not legit" talk was an inside joke to make Telegram and eBay scalpers dump their cards. Source: @lorfidel, 2026-06-25
Source: @serplay228, 2026-06-25
Source: @adih1266, 2026-06-25
Source: @farawaythrower, 2026-06-25
Source: @meatsus, 2026-06-25
2026-07-18: lorfidel again attributed the deletion to Humvee55, who denied it ("I was just a normal user like the rest"). Thanos and decoy also took part. Source: @thanos8912, 2026-07-18
Source: @lorfidel, 2026-07-18
Source: @scallion_9883, 2026-07-18
Source: @decoy.works, 2026-07-18
2026-07-22: Petri Krohn's account says the old Discord was nuked because it may have held information leaked from NVIDIA, and that a new "clean room" Discord opened with the rule: no NVIDIA secrets unless the same information can be shown to come from public sources. Source: @petrikrohn_26497, 2026-07-22
2026-07-28: Humvee55 said the "aha" moment quickly became an "oh shit" moment: attention grew too fast, material appeared on Telegram, crypto people arrived and everyone's names were posted everywhere. He said it was better that the unlock was seen as coming from "Chinese developers". ju5t5omedude said the unannounced shutdown felt like a rug pull. Source: @meatsus, 2026-07-28
Source: @scallion_9883, 2026-07-28
Source: @ju5t5omedude, 2026-07-28
Source: @icematty, 2026-07-28
Source: @phoenixone7, 2026-07-28
2026-09-22: mrpandagod, who says he was not in the original server, gave a second-hand account: the first ("dirty") unlock used leaked NVIDIA documentation, its authors deleted that server and its evidence to avoid being sued, and the unlock was rebuilt without proprietary information in a "clean" server. He called the clean server "this one", while other members refer to "the clean room" as a separate server. Source: @djpandaman, 2026-09-22

Contested

The exploit write-ups: the paper and the MRMCD2026 talk

On 2026-06-26 Amogh posted the paper on the exploit, "A Canary in the Crypto Mine: Defeating Stack Protection in a GPU Secure Coprocessor" (Zenodo record 20916112); the same day Far joked about "Jon Pry writing that report". By 2026-06-28 a Zenodo link and a PDF had reached the M-Technics Telegram chat (the posts do not name the document; probably the same paper), and Petri Krohn told lorfidel: "It is public. It is supposed to be shared!" NFA linked the paper on ResearchGate on 2026-07-26, and meatsus pointed a newcomer to it on 2026-08-24, naming the author as Jon Pry. On 2026-09-13 Amogh recommended the MRMCD2026 talk "FACEB13D exploit: Liberating the A100 beast inside Nvid..." (title truncated in the export; video) as a history of the unlock. These are the primary public write-ups of the exploit that cmpunlocker and its forks build on; this wiki does not reproduce it. More: Reference library.

Reported 8 GB and 10 GB
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-06-26
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-06-26, link
Source: @farawaythrower, 2026-06-26
Source: @mrpec, 2026-06-26
Source: @lorfidel, 2026-06-29
Source: @petrikrohn_26497, 2026-06-29
Source: @never_fly_away, 2026-07-26, link
Source: @meatsus, 2026-08-24
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-09-13
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-09-13, link
Source: @lycorascence, 2026-09-30

Telegram skeptics, and the memory-unlock post rushed to GitHub (late June)

On 2026-06-26 MrLoki89 said members of the Russian M-Technics Telegram channel, a Taobao, 1688 and Pinduoduo resale channel, were joking that the unlock news was a provocation by Russian special services; he and "blacksun" had been spreading it there. Petri Krohn linked an M-Technics post telling buyers "they haven't unblocked anything yet". On 2026-06-27 Petri said one reason he had rushed a post about the memory unlock onto GitHub was that a poster in that channel annoyed him by doubting it; he did not yet have his own system running but had seen screenshots of 200 TFLOPS and 64 GB of VRAM. lorfidel argued that proving the skeptics wrong would only confirm the exploit to bulk resellers and keep prices high. Coverage list: Press and coverage.

Reported
Source: @serplay228, 2026-06-26
Source: @meatsus, 2026-06-26
Source: @petrikrohn_26497, 2026-06-26
Source: @atsasin2126, 2026-06-26
Source: @petrikrohn_26497, 2026-06-27
Source: @lorfidel, 2026-06-27

July 2026: going public

When did the first unlocker work? Dates that disagree

Several dates are given for the first unlocker. "Working", "released in the clean room", "shared on GitHub" and "public on Reddit" may be different events. In the order they were posted:

2026-06-23: Amogh announced "Compute Unlock finally works!" in this server (above). Source: @_j3ns, 2026-06-23
2026-07-13: Petri Krohn wrote that "Rubbra_F was the first to put the pieces together and produce a reproducible version of the compute unlock", and Amogh agreed. The posts do not reconcile this with the 2026-06-23 announcement. Source: @petrikrohn_26497, 2026-07-13
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-07-13
2026-07-13: Amogh wrote that "In the 170HX cleanroom server, a compute unlock was released and it's basically available to the public at this point in time". Source: @_j3ns, 2026-07-13
2026-07-20: SkirtChaser dated the public Reddit post of the memory unlock to 2026-07-16. Source: @skirtchaser, 2026-07-20
2026-07-22: Petri Krohn's account says the clean room built the first compute-only unlocker about 10 days earlier, that is about 2026-07-12, and released it on GitHub. Source: @petrikrohn_26497, 2026-07-22
2026-07-27: Petri Krohn tied the first working compute-only unlocker, which he identifies as the first version of cmpunlocker in Amogh's repository, to around 2026-07-03, when clean-room members started buying up every card on eBay and the price went from about 200 to about 400 USD; Jeremy (Ends) read the same jump from eBay sold-listing data. Source: @petrikrohn_26497, 2026-07-27
Source: @endsjeremy, 2026-07-27
2026-08-10: Petri Krohn dated the first clean-room unlocker shared on GitHub to 2026-07-14. Source: @toffles3179, 2026-08-10
Source: @petrikrohn_26497, 2026-08-10
2026-08-11: Petri Krohn said the Clean Room unlocker was the first published, on the server owner's GitHub, on 2026-07-15. Source: @petrikrohn_26497, 2026-08-11

Contested

cmpunlocker goes public (2026-07-14)

On 2026-07-13 Amogh polled everyone on whether to release cmpunlocker publicly. On 2026-07-14 he first said he would release only a fully working unlock; Petri Krohn argued that releasing the repository would speed up the memory unlock, with more people running tests themselves instead of relying on bots, and that at least a copy should go to the clean room. Mr Pec and Matty Ice agreed, and Amogh wrote: "I'm going to release it today." The poll closed in favour, GitHub organisation memberships were removed except for the developer role, and he posted "Making the repo public now!" at 23:08 UTC and "Done!" at 23:23 UTC (already 2026-07-15 in Europe and Asia). On 2026-07-15 lorfidel argued that Russian members, unlikely to face legal action, could carry the risk; Amogh replied that he lives in the US, "a prime spot for NVIDIA being able to pursue legal action", Thanos offered to publish code under his own GitHub account, and Humvee55 suggested moving to another server. At 17:15 UTC that day Amogh decided to keep this server "as a trusted discussion space no longer associated with cmpunlocker"; the separation ended when he reopened the Dev role on 2026-07-19. None of this is legal advice.

Reported 8 GB and 10 GB
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-07-13
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-07-14
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-07-14
Source: @petrikrohn_26497, 2026-07-14
Source: @mrpec, 2026-07-14
Source: @icematty, 2026-07-14
Source: @lorfidel, 2026-07-15
Source: @scallion_9883, 2026-07-15
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-07-15
Source: @thanos8912, 2026-07-15
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-07-15
Source: @jiacheng_liu, 2026-07-15

Memory unlock not yet working; "compute survives FLR, memory does not" (2026-07-13 to 07-15)

On 2026-07-13 Amogh said "I haven't seen anybody get a fully working memory unlock yet", and on 2026-07-15, about an hour after the repository went public, he confirmed to a user that the memory unlock was not functional yet. On 2026-07-14, asked by Amogh what still stood between the working compute unlock and more VRAM plus PCIe Gen2, Petri Krohn answered "Compute survives FLR, memory does not." The same day Petri said "Only 40GB is guaranteed to work on the 10GB card with Samsung stacks", the earliest statement in the server of 40 GB as the 10 GB card's safe ceiling. By 2026-07-19 owners were running 8 GB cards at 64 GB and 10 GB cards at 40 GB (below).

Reported 8 GB and 10 GB
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-07-13
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-07-13
Source: @serplay228, 2026-07-13
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-07-14
Source: @petrikrohn_26497, 2026-07-14
Source: @farawaythrower, 2026-07-14
Source: @petrikrohn_26497, 2026-07-14
Source: @airj2544, 2026-07-15
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-07-15

First reboot-persistent compute unlock (2026-07-16)

Amogh on 2026-07-16: "In other good news, I got a compute unlock fully working that persists properly." Rubbra_F checked that this meant across reboots, and Mr Pec asked whether a daemon reapplied it; Amogh said it works across reboots and is meant for servers, because a desktop GUI can act oddly. Nothing is written to the card: the unlock is driver-side and volatile, and it reapplies at every driver load.

Reported 8 GB and 10 GB
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-07-16
Source: @rubbra_f, 2026-07-16
Source: @mrpec, 2026-07-16
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-07-16

Two lineages: Jon Pry's proof of concept and the driverless Clean Room unlocker

Petri Krohn's summary of 2026-08-11 describes two largely independent unlockers. Jon Pry's proof of concept was intentionally never published and relies heavily on modifying the Linux driver. The Clean Room unlocker is a Python script run before loading the unmodified driver; it was published first and could not unlock memory at the start. On 2026-07-24 Petri announced that the clean room had a memory unlocker that works with stock drivers, which matters where patched drivers cannot load (Secure Boot, code-integrity policies); Rubbra_F still could not get it working on 2026-08-04. Per Petri, after the leak Amogh replaced his hosted version with the Chinese one, and the driverless unlocker was largely abandoned as work moved to PCIe Gen2 and Gen4; Humvee55 called the "chinese unlock" "literally just our POC". The driverless unlocker's public repository is d3dx9/cmpunlocker (last commit 2026-07-18); Amogh posted it on 2026-07-19 to debunk a PCIe Gen4 claim made for it, and it did nothing on his eGPU.

Reported 8 GB and 10 GB
Source: @petrikrohn_26497, 2026-07-24
Source: @rubbra_f, 2026-08-04
Source: @petrikrohn_26497, 2026-08-11
Source: @scallion_9883, 2026-08-11
Source: @_studebaker_, 2026-08-11
Source: repo github.com/d3dx9/cmpunlocker by d3dx9 on GitHub

Public on Reddit (2026-07-16), a Bilibili video and a livestream

SkirtChaser dates the public Reddit post of the memory unlock to 2026-07-16; ant said commenters on r/LocalLLaMA were skeptical, and Arcanum that LocalLLaMA first thought it was bogus. meatsus bought a card the day before "someone released the unlock", after which prices tripled. On 2026-07-16 Petri Krohn shared a Chinese Bilibili video (BV1PGNq6tEhr) showing an OpenCL test with the compute unlock; meatsus judged it an overview with no memory unlock shown. A "170hx AI Server Build LIVESTREAM" went up on YouTube around 2026-07-18 (gym). SkirtChaser and quark2world said crypto miners had found the unlock before the AI scene did. Coverage list: Press and coverage.

Reported
Source: @petrikrohn_26497, 2026-07-16
Source: @meatsus, 2026-07-16
Source: @icematty, 2026-07-16
Source: @an_1248, 2026-07-19
Source: @meatsus, 2026-07-19
Source: @cute_sc2, 2026-07-19
Source: @jimtjames, 2026-07-19
Source: @lorfidel, 2026-07-19
Source: @skirtchaser, 2026-07-20
Source: @_arcanum_, 2026-07-20
Source: @quark2world, 2026-07-20

HPC's Telegram claims and the modified 610-driver release (2026-07-16 to 07-18)

A Russian Telegram announcement group run around a person called "HPC" (about 4k observers, per Amogh) claimed and then posted an unlock. In the order posted:

2026-07-16: HPC's author claimed contact with "the developers", promised open source within days or weeks and posted a redacted screenshot; meatsus read its 64 GB as a system-RAM readout, and MrLoki89 thought it more likely fake. Source: @lorfidel, 2026-07-16
Source: @meatsus, 2026-07-16
Source: @serplay228, 2026-07-16
2026-07-17: the group claimed the full unlock had been ready for two weeks, sold cards in lots of 10 at 38.5k rubles (about 500 USD) each, and said the unlock would come out the next day; meatsus was openly skeptical. Source: @lorfidel, 2026-07-17
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-07-17
Source: @meatsus, 2026-07-17
2026-07-18: HPC posted an unlock based on a modified NVIDIA 610-series driver, from developers known only to be in China. Thanos was unsure whether it was "clean"; lorfidel argued personal use carries no risk; meatsus urged everyone to stay away ("its proven that it can be unlocked without anything illegally leaked") and Amogh preferred to stay away, saying he was close to an actually clean unlock. Thanos: "We got beaten though". Source: @lorfidel, 2026-07-18
Source: @thanos8912, 2026-07-18
Source: @meatsus, 2026-07-18
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-07-18

Contested

The "Chinese unlock": the original group's leaked proof of concept, or a fake

In the order posted:

2026-07-22: Jack reported that the circulating Chinese unlocker works on 8 GB cards but does not recognise the 10 GB card. lxwx checked it and found it writes the PLM table exactly as Amogh's cmpunlocker does, so it unlocks no extra features and no Gen2. Source: @ludashi666, 2026-07-22
Source: @lxtend, 2026-07-22
Source: @akuchen_66498, 2026-07-22
2026-07-22: Petri Krohn identified it as the leaked proof of concept: patched 610 open drivers plus a compiled kernel module. His account says it appeared on Russian Telegram channels about three days after the clean room's release, first as a 520 MB zip, and that its 30 kB diff against the stock sources matched the group's driver modification guides word for word. Source: @petrikrohn_26497, 2026-07-22
2026-07-22: aidoc called the "chinese leaked unlock" a fake: a few Goofish sellers faking success on hacking the chip, with no progress on PCIe speed, only pushing prices up. This may refer to the sellers' further claims rather than the leaked driver itself. giaki3003 added that sellers marketed the card as an AI revolution hoping for A100 pricing. Source: @sekkit_75019, 2026-07-22
Source: @giaki3003, 2026-07-22
2026-07-22: asked by Eksitus, Humvee55 stated that the "chinese" unlock was word for word the original group's proof of concept and that the stolen POC was all the leakers ever had. Source: @eksitus, 2026-07-22
Source: @scallion_9883, 2026-07-22
2026-07-27: ju5t5omedude remarked that the team "could not even" keep the "dirty unlock" from leaking. Source: @ju5t5omedude, 2026-07-27

Contested

Supplier prices explode on 2026-07-19; who started the hype

quark2world ordered on 2026-07-17, "at the start of the craziness". CUTE paid for 16 cards at 480 USD each just before supplier prices exploded early on Sunday 2026-07-19 (GMT+2), and Sojun said everyone who ordered that weekend got the run-around. Arcanum noted that cards had vanished from Taobao by 2026-07-17, so Chinese sellers already knew. CUTE said on 2026-07-22 that the unlock "was clear before that too, but not widely known" and that Red Panda Mining made it popular; quark2world credited Amogh with finding the unlock and called it "the 56gb hbm that was lost for 3years". Hackaday published "Industrial GPU Adapted For The Desktop" on 2026-07-22, asking prices moved toward 1,300 to 1,500 USD, and Studebaker asked members to keep things low-key. Dated prices: Price history, July to October 2026.

Reported
Source: @quark2world, 2026-07-20
Source: @vcore2191, 2026-07-20
Source: @cute_sc2, 2026-07-20
Source: @sojun80, 2026-07-20
Source: @cute_sc2, 2026-07-22
Source: @_arcanum_, 2026-07-22
Source: @aifonder_66800, 2026-07-22
Source: @quark2world, 2026-07-22
Source: @roger_dammit, 2026-07-23
Source: @_studebaker_, 2026-07-23
Source: @_arcanum_, 2026-07-23
Source: @diabeetee, 2026-07-23

The July stability baseline: 8 GB to 64 GB, 10 GB to 40 GB (2026-07-19 and 20)

On 2026-07-19 Amogh told testers to use master first ("Multi-GPU was something experimental I wanted to try out"); the 80 branch held the 10 GB to 80 GB path, and the recovery workflow was sudo ./remove.sh --yes, reboot, then repatch. Asked by CUTE whether the 64 GB cards show HBM errors, Amogh answered "Nope, none at all." Far's cuda_memtest on a 10 GB card with the 80 GB profile ran when allocating 39 GB and failed at 40 GB or more, while "40GB has worked perfectly stable". Luna summed it up on 2026-07-20: 80 and 96 GB "cause errors and/or no POST at the moment", and "Right now it's safe to say 8 -> 64 and 10 -> 40." Finishtilt14 confirmed master on six cards on 2026-07-22. The 10 GB card after this: The 10 GB card: provenance and the 80 GB question.

Reported 8 GB and 10 GB
Source: @cute_sc2, 2026-07-19
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-07-19
Source: @farawaythrower, 2026-07-19
Source: @coolgod_72592, 2026-07-19
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-07-19
Source: @finishtilt14, 2026-07-19
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-07-19
Source: @farawaythrower, 2026-07-20
Source: @lunaroseoc, 2026-07-20
Source: @eksitus, 2026-07-20
Source: @finishtilt14, 2026-07-22

The Dev role reopened and forks invited (2026-07-19)

On the evening of 2026-07-19 Amogh invited everyone to fork the repository and change it, and reopened the Dev role ("You know what, I'll re-open up the Dev role again."). From here the project took outside developers such as Humvee55 and AKuchen, who were doing independent register work.

Reported 8 GB and 10 GB
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-07-19

Feature polls: PCIe wins (2026-07-19 and 20)

Amogh polled members on which features to unlock next. When the polls closed on 2026-07-20 he said: "Well, I guess PCIe takes the strong win." The Gen2 unlock followed four days later.

Reported
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-07-19

A driver-port branch for 595, 590 and 580 (2026-07-21)

On 2026-07-21 Amogh created the branch clanker/driver-port for "(hopefully working) driver support of 595, 590 and 580", after a poll on porting cmpunlocker to 580. On 2026-08-07 he said "The exploit only works for 580 and newer", so drivers such as 515 cannot be unlocked with it.

Reported 8 GB and 10 GB
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-07-21
Source: repo github.com/amoghmunikote/cmpunlocker by amoghmunikote on GitHub, posted by @_j3ns, 2026-07-21
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-08-07

MIG enabled with one register (2026-07-22)

jonathan.quai enabled Multi-Instance GPU (MIG) on an unlocked 8 GB card by setting one register; nvidia-smi then reported MIG mode Enabled. Only one profile existed (1g.64gb, 63 GB, 70 SM), so it was not yet useful, and Amogh offered to merge a reasonable PR. The MIG patch was validated in September (below).

Reported 8 GB
Source: @jonathan.quai, 2026-07-22
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-07-22
Source: @samuel_hayden., 2026-07-23

Gen2 before the release: from "nobody has it" to a branch that would not retrain (2026-07-18 to 07-23)

On 2026-07-18 the memory unlock worked but cards still ran PCIe 1.0 x4; Amogh confirmed nobody had reached Gen2 and made it his next target. On 2026-07-21 Humvee55 hinted at "a merge request in the near future with pcie2 and some mem and compute OC work", and on 2026-07-22 he said Gen2 can be reached "with the correct register writes", while Gen3 and Gen4 sit behind a hardware mask; the same day he said the original proof of concept had reached Gen2 and would "probably" be merged eventually. At 05:32 UTC on 2026-07-23 Amogh pushed a Gen2 branch that made the card advertise Gen2 but failed to retrain the link; ProfDD and Newman reproduced the failure, and Samuel Hayden suspected fuses gating link training.

Reported 8 GB and 10 GB
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-07-18
Source: @farawaythrower, 2026-07-18
Source: @coolgod_72592, 2026-07-18
Source: @impactic, 2026-07-20
Source: @scallion_9883, 2026-07-21
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-07-21
Source: @akuchen_66498, 2026-07-22
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-07-22
Source: @scallion_9883, 2026-07-22
Source: @eksitus, 2026-07-22
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-07-22
Source: @profdd, 2026-07-23
Source: @newman_08462, 2026-07-23
Source: @samuel_hayden., 2026-07-23

PCIe Gen2 works (2026-07-24)

At 00:59 UTC on 2026-07-24 Amogh announced the PCIe Gen2 unlock ("PCIe Gen 2 baby!"; "Phase 1 is out of the way") and pushed cleaned code to the Gen2 branch at 01:23 UTC. He had soldered all 24 lane capacitors, but his eGPU dock limited him to x4. Asked how he found it, he said "I did a lot of tracking on the behavior of the registers that needed to change and just tried permutations of applying them", automating the experiments with an AI coding agent that drove his test machine and rebooted it as needed. Early results were mixed ("Day Zero issues"), so he opened a support ticket channel. cmpunlocker raises the link speed; the capacitor mod raises the lane count (PCIe x16 capacitor mod).

Reported 8 GB and 10 GB
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-07-24
Source: @samuel_hayden., 2026-07-24
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-07-24
Source: @thanos8912, 2026-07-24
Source: @diabeetee, 2026-07-24
Source: @icematty, 2026-07-24
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-07-25

No single person made Gen2 work for everyone. The next four entries give each contribution with its date; the branch history is on Gen2 link retrain.

Newman's multi-card retrain in the driver (patch 0008), merged 2026-07-24 and 25

Newman found that the first retrain script, run at OS startup, retrained only the first card and, by retraining while the driver was using the card, caused random crashes. He moved the retrain into the driver loading phase (new patch 0008) in his fork, bendy2/cmpunlocker. GMZombie007 (two cards) and Eksitus (three 10 GB cards) confirmed it, and it worked on Amogh's machine. Amogh merged it into the Gen2 branch and said on 2026-07-25 that the Gen2 patch is "Newman's fork that properly trains for PCIe Gen 2".

Reported 8 GB and 10 GB
Source: @newman_08462, 2026-07-24
Source: @newman_08462, 2026-07-24
Source: @gmzombie, 2026-07-24
Source: @eksitus, 2026-07-24
Source: repo github.com/bendy2/cmpunlocker by bendy2 on GitHub, posted by @newman_08462, 2026-07-24
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-07-25

The retrain inside the driver upstream: PR #18 (bendy2)

bendy2 worked out the retrain and moved it into the driver by mapping BAR0 there, which fixed the mmap failure that had blocked userspace attempts; it was merged upstream as cmpunlocker PR #18. A reproduction posted by aaasss on 2026-07-29 showed that the link trains to Gen2 only when the GPU's own root port starts the retrain.

Reported 8 GB
Source: @aaasss1456, 2026-07-29
Source: @dino_38975, 2026-08-25
Source: repo github.com/amoghmunikote/cmpunlocker by amoghmunikote on GitHub

Huzifei's early-boot retry, PR #24 (2026-07-28)

Huzifei found that patch 0007 exposes the Gen2 capability only briefly during GSP initialisation and that the existing retrain ran too late. His early-boot service retries link training every 50 ms until it catches that window (PR #24; fork SuperHuzifei/cmpunlocker-amogh). On his 10 GB card the link went from Gen1 x4 to Gen2 x4 and host-to-device bandwidth from about 0.82 to 1.63 GB/s, with the 40 GB unlock intact. On 2026-07-29 SealClubber called the 50 ms script the latest approach that "works" for most people.

Reported 10 GB
Source: @huzifei, 2026-07-28
Source: repo github.com/amoghmunikote/cmpunlocker by amoghmunikote on GitHub, posted by @huzifei, 2026-07-28
Source: repo github.com/SuperHuzifei/cmpunlocker-amogh by SuperHuzifei on GitHub, posted by @huzifei, 2026-07-28
Source: @_studebaker_, 2026-07-29
Source: @sealclubber, 2026-07-29
Source: @huzifei, 2026-07-29

v0.2 ships Studebaker's Gen2 fix (2026-07-29)

Amogh announced cmpunlocker v0.2 at 17:40 UTC on 2026-07-29 (release) and confirmed to Studebaker that he had folded in Studebaker's Gen2 fix: "I added your fix inside, it works wonders!" ju5t5omedude, who had stayed at Gen1 on every branch, got Gen2 with v0.2 ("Yesterday's v0.2 is the only thing that worked for my gen2 unlock"). DeeJay got 65,536 MiB and Gen2 x4 on two cards with v0.2, although both were held in HW Power Brake Slowdown on his host.

Reported 8 GB and 10 GB
Source: @ju5t5omedude, 2026-07-29
Source: @_studebaker_, 2026-07-29
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-07-29
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-07-29
Source: repo github.com/amoghmunikote/cmpunlocker by amoghmunikote on GitHub, posted by @_j3ns, 2026-07-29
Source: @deejay9983, 2026-07-30

Forks and PRs in late July; a curated forks room

Around 2026-07-24 the active code lines were amoghmunikote/cmpunlocker (master, Gen2, debug-gen2), Newman's bendy2/cmpunlocker, asm64-hooligan/cmpunlocker with a memory overclock, and ee's PR with changes to make it work on his system; Amogh preferred Newman's approach to ee's overlapping PR. CUTE asked for a curated room listing the important forks, and Amogh agreed. bigfoot pointed out that the repository is open source and can be read before running it. Today's list: cmpunlocker forks.

Reported
Source: @e_e_j, 2026-07-24
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-07-24
Source: @ju5t5omedude, 2026-07-24
Source: @cute_sc2, 2026-07-24
Source: @bigfoot1144, 2026-07-24

P2P between 170HX cards (2026-07-29 and 30)

At 23:51 UTC on 2026-07-29 LimitlessTales announced P2P working on the CMP 170HX under Linux. On 2026-07-30 DeeJay had two fresh cards booting straight into Gen2, 64 GB and P2P (P2P True in both directions) with cmpunlocker v0.2 plus aikitoria's P2P patch, and Amogh announced a P2P branch of cmpunlocker; Samuel Hayden clarified that it is PCIe P2P, not the fused-off NVLink, so the Gen2 link limits it. The first fork with real data moving between four cards came on 2026-08-08 (below). Current state: P2P.

Reported
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-07-28
Source: @ju5t5omedude, 2026-07-28
Source: @limitlesstales, 2026-07-29
Source: @deejay9983, 2026-07-30
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-07-30
Source: @poningru, 2026-07-30
Source: @samuel_hayden., 2026-07-30
Source: repo github.com/amoghmunikote/cmpunlocker by amoghmunikote on GitHub, posted by @_j3ns, 2026-07-30

August 2026

Software JTAG published (2026-08-04)

At 20:26 UTC on 2026-08-04 Amogh announced that software JTAG works and published it on the JTAG branch of cmpunlocker. Whether it was useful was unknown; members hoped it could lead to custom VBIOS work or more memory. In September mrpandagod claimed the branch held leak-derived code and said Amogh had removed it (see the dispute in September).

Reported
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-08-04
Source: @djpandaman, 2026-09-29

Amogh: "I'm not the original author" (2026-08-05)

Asked by Bart whether "the original paper author" had stocked up on cards before publishing, Amogh said: "I'm not the original author, I have no clue as to whether that happened or not." He described himself as the developer trying to accommodate everyone, with PCIe Gen3 first and the 80 GB unlock after. quark2world had credited Amogh with finding the unlock on 2026-07-22; this answer and Petri Krohn's account point to Jon Pry and the private group for the original exploit.

Reported
Source: @quark2world, 2026-07-22
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-08-05
Source: @justbendev, 2026-08-05

BAR1 unlock: asm64's fork, merged upstream with credit (2026-08-06 to 08-13)

asm64 published a cmpunlocker fork (asm64-hooligan/cmpunlocker) adding a BAR1 unlock around 2026-08-06; Amogh asked to use it upstream and asm64 agreed on condition of credit. After testers showed "BAR 1: current size: 64GB" (fallengod9962, Studebaker), Amogh confirmed that BAR1 works, merged the 64 GB BAR1 branch to master on 2026-08-13 and credited asm64. intervitens measured little change for single-stream decode and about 10 to 20% better prefill and batched parallel work on two cards; turbine called it fairly low risk on an enterprise motherboard. Details: Resizable BAR and BAR1 64 GB.

Reported
Source: @leesle., 2026-08-06
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-08-06
Source: @intervitens, 2026-08-12
Source: @turbine, 2026-08-12
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-08-13
Source: @fallengod9962, 2026-08-13
Source: @_studebaker_, 2026-08-13

First working P2P: bayley's fork (2026-08-08), then P2P without kernel patches (2026-08-13)

Capone said on 2026-08-06 that he had P2P working, but on 2026-08-07 bayley_w wrote that no public repository had tested-working P2P yet. On 2026-08-08 he published bayley/cmpunlocker, assembled from upstream branches after "several broken sets of p2p patches", with real bytes moving P2P across four GPUs on a Supermicro SYS-4028GR-TRT2; it needed kernel patches for reliable 64 GB BAR1s on that platform. On 2026-08-13 turbine got P2P on four GPUs without kernel patches by combining bayley_w's "force bar1 p2p" driver patches with upstream's BAR1 resize: GPU-to-GPU latency fell from 13.88 to 23.28 us to 1.79 to 1.87 us, which he called a 10x reduction, and bidirectional bandwidth rose from about 8.5 to about 13 GB/s.

Reported
Source: @beefbonecapone, 2026-08-06
Source: @bayley_w, 2026-08-07
Source: @bayley_w, 2026-08-07
Source: @bayley_w, 2026-08-08
Source: repo github.com/bayley/cmpunlocker by bayley on GitHub, posted by @bayley_w, 2026-08-08
Source: @turbine, 2026-08-13

The reserved-region bug and the late-PMA fix (2026-08-06 to 08-30)

On 2026-08-06 bayley_w and Fats found that the unlock exposed a region of about 141 MB at the top of VRAM that should stay reserved; bayley traced it to the "late PMA extension", present in both Amogh's and asm64's code. Writes into that region raise Xid 31, which explained 64 GB cards crashing when cuda_memtest ran over all memory more than once, and vLLM failing during weight loads (Far, 2026-08-10). On 2026-08-11 bayley_w told members to apply the late-PMA fix (cmpunlocker PR #32, late-pma branch) or expect guaranteed Xid 31 errors; bassRAWR and Phoenix17 confirmed it was needed (2026-08-26), and romangitz's patched 10 GB card ran rock solid (2026-09-02). Amogh shipped the fix in v0.3 on 2026-08-30 (release): "I know a lot of you guys had issues with the memory, so I implemented the Late PMA fix per popular request". Miséricorde's analysis of 2026-09-18 places the region over memory the firmware protects. Full story: Xid 31 and the reserved top of VRAM.

Reported 8 GB and 10 GB
Source: @bayley_w, 2026-08-06
Source: @c.03937, 2026-08-06
Source: @farawaythrower, 2026-08-10
Source: @bayley_w, 2026-08-11
Source: @bassrawr, 2026-08-26
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-08-30
Source: repo github.com/amoghmunikote/cmpunlocker by amoghmunikote on GitHub, posted by @_j3ns, 2026-08-30
Source: @romangitz, 2026-09-02
Source: @cmdrwaka324, 2026-09-02
Source: @wakeupmbrc1, 2026-09-18

Custom VBIOS: announced (2026-08-07), kept private, dropped (2026-08-23)

On 2026-08-07 Amogh announced he was building a custom VBIOS ("Don't get your hopes up"), which might give 80 GB, ECC or NVLink but not Gen3. On 2026-08-10 he said he could in theory port everything from cmpunlocker into a VBIOS, mainly to reach 80 GB, and that he would release the modded VBIOS but not how he re-signs it, because of the legal risk; Humvee55 answered "nah" when Mello Jello asked whether the signing ability came from leaked material. On 2026-08-20 Amogh pinned the warning: releasing the re-signing steps "poses an absolutely huge legal threat", and anyone else who works them out should weigh that risk. On 2026-08-23 he dropped the VBIOS route because "the ES doesn't provide anything for me to re-sign the VBIOS" and turned to fuse burning for Gen3, which nobody had yet tried on a card. No VBIOS was released. Background: VBIOS and firmware.

Reported 8 GB and 10 GB
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-08-07
Source: @ju5t5omedude, 2026-08-07
Source: @sealclubber, 2026-08-07
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-08-10
Source: @cuddylac997, 2026-08-10
Source: @cmdrwaka324, 2026-08-10
Source: @xeax, 2026-08-10
Source: @isah1221, 2026-08-10
Source: @mellojello_, 2026-08-10
Source: @scallion_9883, 2026-08-10
Source: @makesier, 2026-08-10
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-08-20
Source: @x_51089, 2026-08-20
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-08-23
Source: @programmerboi, 2026-08-23

80 GB on the 10 GB card: clean-room reports and the GSP crash (August and September)

On 2026-08-09 Rubbra_F said someone had got 80 GB on the 10 GB card in the clean-room server, a separate Discord; ju5t5omedude said similar work had been done there about a month earlier, and DaLZy named the clean-room server and Pidan Xiong as two independent confirmations. Those posts cannot be checked from this server's history. On 2026-09-19 MaitOPS said Jon Pry was the first to find the 80 GB of HBM on the 10 GB card; Cudylac's gist ties the crash to the GSP firmware, and it hits the same point on several cards. Where 80 GB stands: The 10 GB card: provenance and the 80 GB question and Memory unlock on the 10 GB card.

Reported 10 GB
Source: @rubbra_f, 2026-08-09
Source: @ju5t5omedude, 2026-08-09
Source: @dalzyyy, 2026-08-09
Source: @c133, 2026-08-09
Source: @_maitops, 2026-09-19
Source: @lycorascence, 2026-09-19

Amogh's break for tinygrad (2026-08-15 to 08-19)

On 2026-08-15 Amogh paused cmpunlocker for a few days to get NVIDIA support into tinygrad for openpilot's eGPU system. He came back on 2026-08-19 "after getting nothing merged into tinygrad" (his PRs were judged too big) and continued on the 170HX. He owns a single 170HX on an eGPU dock and invited Dimon to open a PR for Proxmox support.

Reported
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-08-15
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-08-19

Tom's Hardware's first article and the August price surge (about 2026-08-19)

On 2026-08-19 gpulover shared Tom's Hardware's article on the software unlock giving 64 GB of VRAM on a "$250" CMP 170HX. DaLZy said it was about a month late, since cards already cost about 500 USD when he had posted about it on r/LocalLLaMA; Morrowmake mocked the comment threads. bayley_w blamed the price surge of 2026-08-20 and 21 on the article, and Schaka described the usual pattern: tech media pick up support for old hardware and prices explode. A second Tom's Hardware article followed in October (below). Prices: Price history, July to October 2026.

Reported 8 GB
Source: @artistosu, 2026-08-19
Source: @dalzyyy, 2026-08-19
Source: @voidgiraffe, 2026-08-19
Source: @bayley_w, 2026-08-21
Source: @schakaqt, 2026-08-21

Hardware ECC done (2026-08-24), then the ECC branch

Humvee55 posted "done for HW ECC" on 2026-08-24, with the code to be shared by another developer. On 2026-09-14 CUTE said ECC already worked for him and needed to be made "pleb friendly" before release: software-only and reversible, costing bandwidth but not capacity. 68x linked cmpunlocker's ECC branch on 2026-09-24, and ECC shipped in v0.5 on 2026-10-04 (below). Whether the shipped ECC corrects errors is a separate question: ECC.

Reported
Source: @scallion_9883, 2026-08-24
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-08-26
Source: @cute_sc2, 2026-09-14
Source: @68x0, 2026-09-24
Source: repo github.com/amoghmunikote/cmpunlocker by amoghmunikote on GitHub, posted by @68x0, 2026-09-24

September 2026

PCIe Gen3 announced, then delayed the same day (2026-09-06)

On 2026-09-06 Amogh announced to everyone "We have PCIe Gen 3!" (347 reactions), with caveats ("DON'T GET YOUR HOPES UP!"). He said he found the path through "a lot of Clauding and experimentation" and tested the fuse step on one card of a quad-GPU rig he has access to but does not own. About three hours later he delayed the release because the fuse step could brick cards, gave no date and refunded everyone who had sponsored him that day. In #hardware segmond, reala and cibernox began planning riser, cap-mod and switch upgrades for Gen3.

Reported
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-09-06
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-09-06
Source: @gk_hun, 2026-09-06
Source: @segmond, 2026-09-06
Source: @dalzyyy, 2026-09-06
Source: @reala7096, 2026-09-06
Source: @cibernox, 2026-09-06
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-09-06

Hype against reality after the Gen3 announcement

In the order posted, all on 2026-09-06:

insomniac and Josh argued that announcements without the risks attached let sellers raise prices, which slows development, and asked for clear statements of what each unlock gives compared with an A100. Josh asked Amogh to put the Gen3 warnings in the announcement, and Amogh did. Josh's "80% chance you brick your card" going to 3.0 x16 is his own estimate, not data from the thread. Source: @ins_mniac, 2026-09-06
Source: @_____josh_____, 2026-09-06
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-09-06
ST mentioned a Reddit post claiming all cards failed after the mod and called it effective FUD; quark2world said this is why he stopped posting benchmarks. Source: @stcord, 2026-09-06
Source: @quark2world, 2026-09-06

Contested

VFIO passthrough merged (2026-09-07)

At 04:09 UTC on 2026-09-07 Amogh announced VFIO support (passthrough branch), so the unlock works for Proxmox, KVM and QEMU guests: install on the host, then use the unlocked card in the VM. It was merged to master at 23:03 UTC the same day, and he named vGPU and MIG as next. Setup: Virtual machines and passthrough.

Reported 8 GB and 10 GB
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-09-07

Two CMP 100-210 software unlocks on one day (2026-09-08)

Humvee55 (persistent, through nvflash and the InfoROM) and Brazzo97 (a runtime Falcon exploit) announced independent software unlocks for the CMP 100-210 on 2026-09-08. Brazzo said the idea came from cmpunlocker for the 170HX. Josephur: "Two completely different routes on the same card on the same day". Other cards: Other CMP cards and other NVIDIA GPUs.

Reported
Source: @scallion_9883, 2026-09-08
Source: @brazzo97, 2026-09-08
Source: @josephur, 2026-09-08
Source: @roger_dammit, 2026-09-08

kmike's Gen2 fix, PR #35 (2026-09-11)

kmike had Gen2 failures on his board under Ubuntu 26 and, after hours of debugging, made it work with cmpunlocker PR #35, for rigs where the Gen2 window opens before systemd userspace starts. He believes the Gen2 approach in main misses some cases. The PR was closed as too large, but he suggested others with failing boards try it.

Reported
Source: @kmike84, 2026-09-11

Driver 615 support and v0.4 (2026-09-12 and 13)

On 2026-09-10 the installer still refused driver 615.71.09 and required nvidia-open 610.57.04, 610.43.03 or 610.43.02. Amogh announced v0.4 at 01:50 UTC on 2026-09-13 (release) and said on 2026-09-14: "I added support for 615 a couple of days ago". Supported drivers today: Driver unlock.

Reported 8 GB and 10 GB
Source: @arabus_74064, 2026-09-10
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-09-13
Source: repo github.com/amoghmunikote/cmpunlocker by amoghmunikote on GitHub, posted by @_j3ns, 2026-09-13
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-09-14

Linus Tech Tips' video (2026-09-12)

Linus Tech Tips published its CMP 170HX video (pvSdeU13hKc) around 17:05 UTC on 2026-09-12: the card unlocked to 64 GB, llama.cpp, the cap mod, a card with memory errors, the PCIe limits and a mention of the Discord. insomniac called it fair and not overhyped. mrpandagod expected 100 to 200 new members that night and asked Amogh to move the Discord link back to the top of the README. On 2026-09-17 Petri Krohn wrote: "The CMP 170HX 64GB has gone mainstream!"

Reported 8 GB
Source: @dalzyyy, 2026-09-12
Source: @ins_mniac, 2026-09-12
Source: @djpandaman, 2026-09-12
Source: @djpandaman, 2026-09-12
Source: @petrikrohn_26497, 2026-09-17

MIG patch validated (2026-09-15)

ropuls validated Amogh's mig-unlock.patch on a second card with driver 610.43.03: FP32 SGEMM on the 1g.64gb MIG instance went from 1.85 to 10.2 TFLOP/s (about 5.5x). Only the whole-GPU profile is available, and the patch is a runtime driver patch with no persistent writes to the card. His full report is Consensus-Protocol/cmp170hx PR 3.

Reported 8 GB
Source: @ropuls, 2026-09-15
Source: @humandrone8721_60165, 2026-09-15
Source: repo github.com/Consensus-Protocol/cmp170hx by Consensus-Protocol on GitHub

The 74-SM unlock (2026-09-24)

On 2026-09-24 cmpunlocker gained an SMs branch that re-enables 4 more SMs, taking the card from 70 to 74 SMs (about 6% more compute; Amogh: "equivalent to 2/3 of the NVIDIA T400"). One GPC had an extra 4 SMs disabled, "no clue why". JMA1976 confirmed 74 SMs on two GPUs the same day, and others followed within the week. CUTE warned to uninstall the previous unlock before installing a different variant. It shipped in v0.5. Details: Full SM unlock.

Reported 8 GB and 10 GB
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-09-24
Source: @jma1753, 2026-09-24
Source: @cute_sc2, 2026-09-24
Source: @sojun80, 2026-09-25
Source: @c133, 2026-10-02

v0.5 announced, and a turn to hardware (2026-09-26)

On 2026-09-26 Amogh said v0.5 was on the way and would "definitely include some more SMs, and maybe ECC (if I can get that to fully work)", and that cmpunlocker would likely get no new features after it, because "the desirable features like PCIe Gen 3 and NVLink are just not unlockable via software". Asked by n3bs what diverting his attention meant, he replied: "I'm looking at potential ways to burn fuses using hardware." Morrowmake and ST read it as easing off cmpunlocker work. The release itself came on 2026-10-04 (October below).

Reported 8 GB and 10 GB
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-09-26
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-09-26
Source: @n3bs, 2026-09-26
Source: @voidgiraffe, 2026-09-26
Source: @stcord, 2026-09-26

Warning: Gen3 fuse burning cancelled; a card bricked by software alone (2026-09-26)

Warning 8 GB On 2026-09-26 Amogh cancelled the Gen3 release (fusedacmp) because he could not find a reliable way to unlock PCIe Gen3 safely for everyone: card variance he cannot control made some cards unsuitable, a wrong step risks permanent damage, and he bricked one of his own cards with software alone ("you'd be surprised to know what is possible"). Do not try fuse-burning Gen3 methods on the 8 GB card. The 10 GB card's Gen3 route came later: PCIe Gen3 on the 10 GB card.

Source: @_j3ns, 2026-09-26
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-09-26
Source: @con3po7016, 2026-09-26

The RIR finding goes public after an embargo (2026-09-29 to 10-01)

On 2026-09-29 CUTE wrote of having "bragged at Twitter about rir", which set off the 10 GB discussion in #general, and Amogh corroborated it: "I can corroborate that I had full knowledge of RIRs all of this time. This is a very real thing." CUTE said the 48 GB result had been tested in "the dev discord" about a month earlier. mrpandagod said the main unlocking group had split into smaller private chats. On 2026-10-01 Petri Krohn said the RIR information had been under a 30-day embargo: the original work could be announced on 2026-09-30, preferably by its discoverers (he is not one of them), and a follow-up discovery by another member was due on 2026-10-01. What RIR records are: RIR fuse burn and Fuses and floorsweep maps.

Reported 8 GB and 10 GB
Source: @cute_sc2, 2026-09-29
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-09-29
Source: @djpandaman, 2026-09-29
Source: @petrikrohn_26497, 2026-10-01

Dispute over leak-derived material in cmpunlocker's history (2026-09-29)

In the order posted, all on 2026-09-29. None of the commits named in the thread has been checked for this page.

mrpandagod argued that cmpunlocker's commit history contains material derived from the LAPSUS$ leak (he named a kernel JTAG bit-banging implementation, commits using internal header and status-code names, and parts of a design document), that Amogh removed the JTAG branch after being told, and that the repository should be rebuilt from before those commits. Source: @djpandaman, 2026-09-29
Amogh said using leaked code carries a much bigger risk than not ("There is a way bigger risk than making something that does use leaked code compared to something that doesn't."), asked where such commits were, and later said he had had no legal issues. Source: @_j3ns, 2026-09-29
Humvee55 said Amogh took already-public information from the Chinese unlock and improved on it; clee and Humvee55 said mrpandagod had earlier walked back a broader claim, which he denied. Source: @scallion_9883, 2026-09-29
Source: @c133, 2026-09-29

Contested

October 2026

v0.5 released (2026-10-04)

Amogh posted "Software-based ECC works!" on 2026-10-04 and released v0.5 that evening (release). On the 8 GB card it gives 65536 MiB, 74 SM, PCIe Gen2, ECC reporting and a 64 GB BAR1; on the 10 GB card 40960 MiB and the same 4 extra SMs. 68x confirmed the ECC change live on master. Upgrading needs no uninstall: rerun the installer over the old install (Phoenix17). Amogh said little more is to be had via software, so v0.5 is likely the final feature release (lia_oc and reala, 2026-10-22).

Reported 8 GB and 10 GB
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-10-04
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-10-04
Source: @68x0, 2026-10-04
Source: @phoenixone7, 2026-10-05
Source: @lia_oc, 2026-10-07
Source: @lia_oc, 2026-10-22
Source: @reala7096, 2026-10-22

Driver 615.78.08: support added (2026-10-08), failures reported

In the order posted:

2026-10-08: Amogh announced that support for nvidia-open 615.78.08 was added to master. Source: @_j3ns, 2026-10-08
2026-10-10 to 10-20: drew-3, Zagitta, Kaatchi and HenryKrinkle reported the unlock failing on 615.78.08 and working after going back to 615.71.09; Zagitta said the boot loader image changed in that release, and Humvee55 advised using the old booter. Which commit they ran is not stated. Source: @drew_2, 2026-10-10
Source: @zagitta, 2026-10-17
Source: @scallion_9883, 2026-10-17
Source: @catchyuser, 2026-10-20
Source: @.henrykrinkle, 2026-10-20

Contested

Keystone RIR burn confirmed on the 10 GB card (2026-10-09 to 10-11)

orrorin posted an AI-drafted RIR burn plan on 2026-10-09. Petri Krohn corrected and completed it ("Only two RIR burns are needed. After that you can do everything in software."), and mrpandagod validated orrorin's record encoding. On 2026-10-11 lxwx burned the two keystone records on a second 10 GB card and confirmed them: they clear the fuse that blocks software overrides, survive a cold boot and take effect after a reboot. A RIR burn is permanent: read RIR fuse burn before using 170hx-rir-tool or Cmp-170hx-rir-burn-util.

Reported 10 GB
Source: @_orrorin, 2026-10-09
Source: @petrikrohn_26497, 2026-10-09
Source: @djpandaman, 2026-10-09
Source: @_orrorin, 2026-10-10
Source: @djpandaman, 2026-10-10
Source: @lxtend, 2026-10-11

10 GB card: from 74 to 128 SMs (2026-10-09 to 10-20)

On 2026-10-09 mrpandagod unlocked a single 10 GB card in steps from 74 to 122 SMs after a day of resets, deliberately outside cmpunlocker; stability was untested. lxwx added 6 SMs on 2026-10-12 and on 2026-10-17 reported all 128 SMs at full clock, his contribution being how to run all 128 at full clock speed; stability problems under real workloads followed. Waypoint (80 SMs, then all SMs not marked defective) and Feralzi (126 SMs, after reading Humvee55's notes) reported the same week, GhostInTheDatacenter reached 128 SMs through the RIR burn on 2026-10-19, and orrorin posted "we did it" on 2026-10-20. Humvee55 said on 2026-10-16 that he runs 20 10 GB cards at 128 SMs and Gen3 x16 with one RIR burn, everything else being volatile software overrides, and on 2026-10-17 he called this the endgame for the 10 GB card; the 8 GB card stays at 74 SMs and 64 GB. Details: Full SM unlock.

Reported 10 GB
Source: @djpandaman, 2026-10-09
Source: @djpandaman, 2026-10-12
Source: @lxtend, 2026-10-12
Source: @scallion_9883, 2026-10-16
Source: @scallion_9883, 2026-10-16
Source: @lxtend, 2026-10-17
Source: @waypoint3642, 2026-10-17
Source: @feralzi, 2026-10-17
Source: @feralzi, 2026-10-17
Source: @scallion_9883, 2026-10-17
Source: @ghostinthedatacenter_87281, 2026-10-19
Source: @lxtend, 2026-10-19
Source: @_orrorin, 2026-10-20

10 GB card: PCIe Gen3 (2026-10-12), process published 2026-10-19

On 2026-10-09 mrpandagod said Gen3 cannot be done with a purely volatile software unlock: a RIR burn is required. After burning the keystone records lxwx could override the Gen3 fuse, and by 2026-10-12 he had Gen3 on his 10 GB card (in an x4 slot). On 2026-10-19 he published the process for the 10 GB card only (Gen3_unlock_en.md in lixiangwuxian/170hx_tips), and other owners confirmed it on their cards. The 8 GB card has no Gen3 route (September, above). Steps and warnings: PCIe Gen3 on the 10 GB card.

Reported 10 GB
Source: @djpandaman, 2026-10-09
Source: @lxtend, 2026-10-11
Source: @_orrorin, 2026-10-11
Source: @lxtend, 2026-10-19
Source: @alanoo, 2026-10-19
Source: @pcsv., 2026-10-26

vGPU close to working (2026-10-26)

At 23:32 UTC on 2026-10-26 Amogh posted "Good news folks, vGPU is close to working on my end!" and said a couple of changes to cmpunlocker would follow. The vGPU-and-others branch is public (arabus, 2026-10-27) but not in master.

Reported 8 GB and 10 GB
Source: @_j3ns, 2026-10-26
Source: @arabus_74064, 2026-10-27

Tom's Hardware on the consumer-card port (2026-10-26)

On 2026-10-26 Tom's Hardware published an article on the port of cmpunlocker's compute unlock to RTX 20, 30 and 40 series cards, which removes a half-speed tensor throttle: double the peak tensor rate on the RTX 4090 and up to 80 percent more matrix math on the RTX 3090 Ti. ST noted that the article properly credited the project; the consumer port is Zagitta's, and he had not seen the article yet. mrpandagod: "the compute unlocks from cmpunlocker were ported over to consumer cards", which brought much more visibility to the unlock projects. This is Tom's Hardware's second article; the first, about the 170HX itself, came around 2026-08-19 (above).

Reported
Source: @stcord, 2026-10-26
Source: @djpandaman, 2026-10-26
Source: @zagitta, 2026-10-26
Source: Tom's Hardware, 2026-10-26

Credits

Who found what, from the entries above. Each row gives the main post; the full credits are under each entry.

Finding	Who	Date	Source
The exploit's proof of concept and the paper "A Canary in the Crypto Mine"	Jon Pry and the private group	paper posted 2026-06-26	Source: @_j3ns, 2026-06-26 Source: @meatsus, 2026-08-24
First to find the 80 GB of HBM on the 10 GB card	Jon Pry (per MaitOPS)	before 2026-07	Source: @_maitops, 2026-09-19
First compute unlock announced in this server	Amogh	2026-06-23	Source: @_j3ns, 2026-06-23
First reproducible compute unlock	Rubbra_F (per Petri Krohn)	by 2026-07-13	Source: @petrikrohn_26497, 2026-07-13
Argued for releasing cmpunlocker publicly	Petri Krohn	2026-07-14	Source: @petrikrohn_26497, 2026-07-14
cmpunlocker made public	Amogh	2026-07-14	Source: @_j3ns, 2026-07-14
First reboot-persistent compute unlock	Amogh	2026-07-16	Source: @_j3ns, 2026-07-16
Driverless Clean Room unlocker; memory with stock drivers	the clean room, announced by Petri Krohn	2026-07-24	Source: @petrikrohn_26497, 2026-07-24
Gen2 reachable "with the correct register writes"	Humvee55	2026-07-21 and 22	Source: @scallion_9883, 2026-07-21
MIG enabled	jonathan.quai	2026-07-22	Source: @jonathan.quai, 2026-07-22
PCIe Gen2 unlock shipped	Amogh	2026-07-24	Source: @_j3ns, 2026-07-24
Multi-card Gen2 retrain in the driver (patch 0008; upstream PR #18)	Newman (fork bendy2)	2026-07-24	Source: @newman_08462, 2026-07-24
Early-boot 50 ms Gen2 retry (PR #24)	Huzifei	2026-07-28	Source: @huzifei, 2026-07-28
Gen2 fix shipped in v0.2	Studebaker	2026-07-29	Source: @_studebaker_, 2026-07-29
P2P working with aikitoria's patch	LimitlessTales, DeeJay	2026-07-29 and 30	Source: @limitlesstales, 2026-07-29 Source: @deejay9983, 2026-07-30
Software JTAG	Amogh	2026-08-04	Source: @_j3ns, 2026-08-04
BAR1 unlock, adopted upstream with credit	asm64 (asm64-hooligan)	2026-08-06, merged 2026-08-13	Source: @leesle., 2026-08-06
First fork with working P2P between four cards	bayley (bayley_w)	2026-08-08	Source: @bayley_w, 2026-08-08 Source: repo github.com/bayley/cmpunlocker by bayley on GitHub, posted by @bayley_w, 2026-08-08
Found and fixed the reserved-region (late-PMA) bug	bayley (bayley_w)	2026-08-06 to 08-11	Source: @bayley_w, 2026-08-11
P2P without kernel patches, 10x lower latency	turbine	2026-08-13	Source: @turbine, 2026-08-13
Hardware ECC; made release-ready	Humvee55; CUTE	2026-08-24; 2026-09-14	Source: @scallion_9883, 2026-08-24 Source: @cute_sc2, 2026-09-14
CMP 100-210 software unlocks	Humvee55, Brazzo97	2026-09-08	Source: @scallion_9883, 2026-09-08 Source: @brazzo97, 2026-09-08
Gen2 fix for early windows (PR #35, closed)	kmike	2026-09-11	Source: @kmike84, 2026-09-11
MIG patch validated, SGEMM 1.85 to 10.2 TFLOP/s	ropuls	2026-09-15	Source: @ropuls, 2026-09-15
74 SMs	Amogh	2026-09-24	Source: @_j3ns, 2026-09-24
RIR finding made public	CUTE, corroborated by Amogh	2026-09-29	Source: @cute_sc2, 2026-09-29
v0.5 with ECC	Amogh	2026-10-04	Source: @_j3ns, 2026-10-04
10 GB card from 74 to 122 SMs	mrpandagod	2026-10-09	Source: @djpandaman, 2026-10-09
Keystone RIR burn confirmed (plan by orrorin, corrected by Petri Krohn)	lxwx	2026-10-11	Source: @lxtend, 2026-10-11
PCIe Gen3 on the 10 GB card, process published	lxwx	2026-10-12; 2026-10-19	Source: @lxtend, 2026-10-19
128 SMs at full clock on the 10 GB card	lxwx	2026-10-17	Source: @lxtend, 2026-10-17
Compute unlock ported to consumer RTX cards	Zagitta	article 2026-10-26	Source: @zagitta, 2026-10-26

Before 2026

2021 to 2025: a GA100 mining card, the Merge, and cards at about 200 USD

The FMA workaround (2023) and the first peer-reviewed study (2025)

Why the card exists: origin theories (debated in September 2026)

About four years of attempts, and cards bought in advance

Hardware attacks tried before the software unlock (undated)

March to June 2026: the private group and the exploit

Pointer: Petri Krohn's account of the private group (posted 2026-07-22)

dartraiden/NVIDIA-patcher issue #73: where many members came from

Humvee55: the first target was the compute throttle

Amogh bought his card in April 2026

The earliest capacity report in the server (2026-06-22, second-hand)

The server was invite-only in June 2026

Compute unlock first works (2026-06-23)

The original unlocking server is deleted (2026-06-25)

Who deleted the first server, and why

The exploit write-ups: the paper and the MRMCD2026 talk

Telegram skeptics, and the memory-unlock post rushed to GitHub (late June)

July 2026: going public

When did the first unlocker work? Dates that disagree

cmpunlocker goes public (2026-07-14)

Memory unlock not yet working; "compute survives FLR, memory does not" (2026-07-13 to 07-15)

First reboot-persistent compute unlock (2026-07-16)

Two lineages: Jon Pry's proof of concept and the driverless Clean Room unlocker

Public on Reddit (2026-07-16), a Bilibili video and a livestream

HPC's Telegram claims and the modified 610-driver release (2026-07-16 to 07-18)

The "Chinese unlock": the original group's leaked proof of concept, or a fake

Supplier prices explode on 2026-07-19; who started the hype

The July stability baseline: 8 GB to 64 GB, 10 GB to 40 GB (2026-07-19 and 20)

The Dev role reopened and forks invited (2026-07-19)

Feature polls: PCIe wins (2026-07-19 and 20)

A driver-port branch for 595, 590 and 580 (2026-07-21)

MIG enabled with one register (2026-07-22)

Gen2 before the release: from "nobody has it" to a branch that would not retrain (2026-07-18 to 07-23)

PCIe Gen2 works (2026-07-24)

Newman's multi-card retrain in the driver (patch 0008), merged 2026-07-24 and 25

The retrain inside the driver upstream: PR #18 (bendy2)

Huzifei's early-boot retry, PR #24 (2026-07-28)

v0.2 ships Studebaker's Gen2 fix (2026-07-29)

Forks and PRs in late July; a curated forks room

P2P between 170HX cards (2026-07-29 and 30)

August 2026

Software JTAG published (2026-08-04)

Amogh: "I'm not the original author" (2026-08-05)

BAR1 unlock: asm64's fork, merged upstream with credit (2026-08-06 to 08-13)

First working P2P: bayley's fork (2026-08-08), then P2P without kernel patches (2026-08-13)

The reserved-region bug and the late-PMA fix (2026-08-06 to 08-30)

Custom VBIOS: announced (2026-08-07), kept private, dropped (2026-08-23)

80 GB on the 10 GB card: clean-room reports and the GSP crash (August and September)

Amogh's break for tinygrad (2026-08-15 to 08-19)

Tom's Hardware's first article and the August price surge (about 2026-08-19)

Hardware ECC done (2026-08-24), then the ECC branch

September 2026

PCIe Gen3 announced, then delayed the same day (2026-09-06)

Hype against reality after the Gen3 announcement

VFIO passthrough merged (2026-09-07)

Two CMP 100-210 software unlocks on one day (2026-09-08)

kmike's Gen2 fix, PR #35 (2026-09-11)

Driver 615 support and v0.4 (2026-09-12 and 13)

Linus Tech Tips' video (2026-09-12)

MIG patch validated (2026-09-15)

The 74-SM unlock (2026-09-24)

v0.5 announced, and a turn to hardware (2026-09-26)

Warning: Gen3 fuse burning cancelled; a card bricked by software alone (2026-09-26)

The RIR finding goes public after an embargo (2026-09-29 to 10-01)

Dispute over leak-derived material in cmpunlocker's history (2026-09-29)

October 2026

v0.5 released (2026-10-04)

Driver 615.78.08: support added (2026-10-08), failures reported

Keystone RIR burn confirmed on the 10 GB card (2026-10-09 to 10-11)

10 GB card: from 74 to 128 SMs (2026-10-09 to 10-20)

10 GB card: PCIe Gen3 (2026-10-12), process published 2026-10-19

vGPU close to working (2026-10-26)

Tom's Hardware on the consumer-card port (2026-10-26)

Credits

Related