What would be helpful is a shasum of the phoenixminer binary. I am using 5.5c downloaded from this thread a while ago, with the right checksum. This is the linux version. My Phoenix miner binary has:

user@miner$ sha256sum PhoenixMiner

6de6285d944981576862c960dfa917bbd4f72c5fac45f0b2880c560c89f12e81  PhoenixMiner

user@miner$ ls -la PhoenixMiner
-rwxrw-r-- 1 user user 9373180 Jan 22 06:57 PhoenixMiner

Just verified on a hiveos install and the checksum is the same for the binary there.

If somebody could do the same for Windows (non-nicehash binary, but 'official' download) we have something to compare the nicehash binaries to. Just an idea

https://www.nicehash.com/blog/post/stop-using-phoenix-miner-immediately

Well that would be something, wouldn't it.

If you look at HiveOS's miner distribution almost half (45%) is using Phoenix miner
https://hiveos.farm/statistics/

And a lot of miners are using simple/hive os to my knowledge. Heard neither of them nag.
If you look at the sheer volume of hashpower and the corresponding dev fees coming in next to the track record of phoenix, it's all a little far fetched IMHO.

So if the Dev was planning 'something malicious', wouldn't that be the same as shooting yourself in the foot?

As stated above, probably a way of scaring you into using their miner.
If you're so concerned with the safety of 'unsigned software'*  from an 'anonymous author', why include it in the first place.

*)Like signing software gives any guarantee that's not harmful in any way

I wan to thank you all for the great help, I would never ever come up with this solution on my own.
I hope I can pay back the favour once I get more experience.

Great community!

Flashing wasn't the issue. mem freq did it! But thank you for the great pointer!

I stand corrected. I did not underclock enough! I'm on 30.5 Now! THANK YOU!!

I thought let's buy a new card!

So I have one running mining rig with 3 x PNY 1660 supers in it. No problems there everyting is running on 30.5 MH/sec (total 121 MH/sec) with a powerdraw of 217 Watts out of the wall (~75 a card). Using Phoenix miner under the latest HiveOS.

I recently (last week) bought a brand new EVGA 1660 super Ultra SC and plugged it into my system. I used the default settings (no OC, no power limiting) and expected a hashrate around 25 MH using Phoenix miner. It only hit 20 MH. Overclocked on +950 and power limited it does 23.7.

So to eliminate as much options as possible I did the following:

- I removed all cards and risers and booted it as the only card in the first x16 slot on the board: exact same results
- I used xubuntu 20.04 with the 450 nvidia drivers with again only this card in the first x16 slot: exact same results
- I used Windows 10 64 bits with the 460 nvidia drivers and msi afterburner: exact same results
- All was repeated on a different motherboard

I checked all the info in GPU-Z and the control panel and it is all similar to my PNY cards.

OS: HiveOS / Xubuntu 20.04 / Windows 10
Drivers: Nvidia 450 and 460
Phoenix miner version: 5.4C (linux and windows)
Card: EVGA Geforce GTX 1660 Super SC Ultra (brand new)
Board 1: MSI G41M P33
Board 2: MSI B630-A PRO

As I only found results comparable to my PNY cards searching on this EVGA card, I'm quite lost and baffled. I haven't seen anyone else with this problem. The card seems to be performing like a regular 1660.

If any additional info is needed, I will gladly put it here.

Any thoughts and advice greatly appreciated, thanks in advance for your help!