this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2023
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NVIDIA BIOS Signature Lock Finally Broken (www.phoronix.com)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 62 points 1 year ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

New (Windows) tools have been released that break the NVIDIA BIOS Signature Lock, the "security" functionality in use since the GeForce GTX 900 days around signed firmware/BIOS handling.

With the NVIDIA BIOS Signature Lock being broken, a Windows utility was released today that allows for cross-flashing BIOS images on graphics cards, raising power limits on pre-Turing GPUs, and have more control around the graphics card's voltages, fan curve, and other attributes.

The Windows tools are OMGVflash and NVflashk for supporting vBIOS modding and cross-flashing with newer generations of GPUs.

The GeForce GTX 700 series is the last generation of cards to work well with the Nouveau open-source driver and not be contingent upon any extra signed firmware blobs for initialization.

Additionally, the Nouveau developers continuing to work on their kernel DRM driver are currently focused on getting the NVIDIA GPU System Processor (GSP) support in place for better handling RTX 20 series and newer hardware.

But it sure would be nice if things were still like the GeForce GTX 700 days and prior that allowed for better open-source driver support without having to worry about the security/authentication requirements.

The original article contains 442 words, the summary contains 188 words. Saved 57%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] [email protected] 58 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Can someone ELI5 why this is important? Is there something wrong with NVIDIA drivers?

[–] [email protected] 119 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

It's important because now you can take full control of stats that you weren't able to because of the lock.

And it migh be good for linux because since the 900 series gpu, or since the lock were first implemented, the open source nvidia driver it's not able to re-clock the gpu with an higher clock than the boot one (and trust me it's a really low clock) and you are not able to use a quarter of the power the gpu has.

Even if the open source driver code is 100% equals the nvidia one, literally copy pasted, it would not work because it need to be signed by nvidia to do so.

[–] peopleproblems 40 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Oh man.

I'm gonna destroy my card again aren't I?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

Here we go again!

[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It's not the drivers, but rather the BIOS. Nvidia have set various limits to power, voltage, etc. in there and now modders will be able to unlock those by flashing the vBIOS with a modified version.

[–] dystop 22 points 1 year ago (3 children)

It's wild that companies essentially destroyed the practice of overclocking.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

It’s not so much destruction as it’s unnecessary anymore IMO. They don’t leave much performance on the table with dynamic clocking / voltages. It’s a more efficient usage of silicon ultimately.

I miss getting “free” power by knowing how to overclock, but I’m also kinda over it. I cut my teeth on a K6-2 with jumpers to set voltage/multiplier, so I’m kinda glad to have parts do 95% of their max speed right out of the box now. It was fun while it lasted.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Doesn't mean it has to be locked off for the handful of people who want to play around with custom BIOS.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

I’m not saying it should. I’m saying it’s largely irrelevant anymore even for enthusiasts.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Nvidia, yes. There are other options.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

I mean on AMDs side, their overclocking tools are actually in the driver install itself, Its just that a far majority of people use Nvidia. (At least for windows)

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

This means we get to use our Nvidia cards now like the AMD? In linux I mean

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Whether this lock being broken will have any meaningful impact on the Nouveau developers remains to be seen

Unless something changed since it was first posted it was described as the flasher binary on Windows having a built in bypass. They used that to enable flashing anything to any card. They did not reverse engineer the signature check algorithm or actually crack it.

One dude traced the binary to the point in code execution where he found the bypass. The other dude tried to do some more complicated methods of finding the bypass and then rushed to release whatever he had because the other dude found it in one sitting.

It doesn't sound to me like this would be very helpful other than trying other signed firmware on a card.

[–] UltraMagnus0001 4 points 1 year ago

good to know , I'll wait until I see more and it seems mature