Nick - Once again many thanks for your efforts. I flashed and installed my WX7100 using your beta2 bios and MP6 Bootrom mods and all can say is WOW! Everything works flawlessly and as you said - what an upgrade!
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iM 4,1-14,4 2011 iMac Graphics Card Upgrade
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Nick - Once again many thanks for your efforts. I flashed and installed my WX7100 using your beta2 bios and MP6 Bootrom mods and all can say is WOW! Everything works flawlessly and as you said - what an upgrade!
Am I missing a post or is there a guide on how to do this for the WX7100
Step by step with exactly what is all requiredAttempted with new clip last night. Everything appeared to work, but I got validation errors after the write. Tried again using flashrom on a macbook pro (instead of raspberry pi)...same results. iMac is in an unbootable state at the moment. This was always the risk, of course. I’m thinking if the new clip didn’t solve the issue, maybe the cheap ch341a I got from Amazon was the weak link. Any recommendations/preferences on affordable/ yet effective eeprom flashers?
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Same as every other GPU, of course you don't use nvflash for the vbios but it's literally the same as every other GPU.Am I missing a post or is there a guide on how to do this for the WX7100
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![Nick [D]vB](/data/avatars/m/1132/1132239.jpg?1552018909){kind=avatar}
Great to hear you got the WX7100 installed ok, how are the GPU temps looking? I'm sure people would be interested to see some benchmarks when you get time, just to see how it stacks-up against the 2019 iMacs. It's worth enabling HEVC video decoding to, that “Swordsmith” 4K 60fps video looks amazing on the iMac's LCD.
Sorry to hear this, but as you say, everyone should be aware of the risks when doing bootrom mods. Are you sure you are specifying the right chip model to Flashrom? Can you post a photo of the chip? Have you tried doing several write passes (without erasing in between). If you don’t trust your CH341A you could try flashing the EEPROM with the clip connected directly to the Pi instead, that's really the normal way to do it with the Pi:
https://tomvanveen.eu/flashing-bios-chip-raspberry-pi/
https://www.rototron.info/recover-bricked-bios-using-flashrom-on-a-raspberry-pi/
It's possible that repeatedly using that damaged clip has killed the EEPROM, it’s not very likely though. Replacing the chip without a hot-air station is quite tricky, you could try that ChipQuick stuff, but another method is just to carefully cut the legs off to remove it (nail clippers work well!) then clean-up the pads to remove what ever is left of the old chip's legs. I'd get a new EEPROM chip and just program it in the clip first, as a "sanity check" to make sure your programmer is working, before you solder it back onto the board. Good luck with getting it fixed.
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Now i can confirm the 004 Update also updates the Bootrom.
Before:
Update:
After:
Now hat to do with the others iMac's? Is there a possibility to update to 87.0.0.0.0 other than the update on High Sierra?
Before:
Update:
After:
Now hat to do with the others iMac's? Is there a possibility to update to 87.0.0.0.0 other than the update on High Sierra?
Photo attached. The chip does matches fully when I run flashrom. Huge thanks for the exhaustive response. Lots to try in the coming days, but not much free time. One thing though, I did not see an option to write without erasing in Flahrom‘s help. Did I miss something, or maybe a different build?
Thanks!
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Would something like this work in flashing a GPU via a PC?
https://www.ebay.com/itm/x1-PCI-E-to-MXM-3-0-Graphics-Card-Adapter-/254062027746
https://www.ebay.com/itm/x1-PCI-E-to-MXM-3-0-Graphics-Card-Adapter-/254062027746
Nope as far as I know, only possible to upgrade to to run the 004 security update running high sierra.
I would also advise everyone to upgrade the bootrom first, before doing the bootrom patch !
I just compared the two WX7100 vbios again and it looks like the Beta1 version should actually be faster, it has +500MHz on the memory clocks and a slightly higher power limit (75w). If your thermals are ok with the Beta2 vbios it might be worth trying the other one for higher performance? Just flash it in Windows using AMD’s tool.
No special flashrom builds, I just meant not to manually erase (with –E) in between attempts, then it will only have to write what's needed (data that differs from the read pass). I have noticed some weirdness with SST chips before, it might actually be worth trying the standard CH341A windows software here, it has an option to enable / disable “AAI" mode specifically for SST chips. It will be very slow, and might still take several attempts to get a good write, but it’s worth a shot. I would try flashrom again with the clip connected directly to the Pi first though.
I’m going away on holiday on Saturday, so probably won’t be able to reply here for a week or two, but if you can’t get the board repaired yourself maybe we could try and sort something out when I get back? If you were thinking of upgrading to an AMD GPU anyway then I do have a few “spare” 560X cards, and there is actually a way of doing the back-light fix on the logicboard itself, so maybe we could kill two birds with one stone there?
Just an idea…
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Hello, I've read all the pages about exchanging cards in iMac 2009/11 and I have no idea how to do it in order. I have 2x gtx765m, both work on mac but no boot screen. I have two iMacs 2009 and 2011 I would like to fix them. I have the CH341 programmer with a clip, I have a windows PC with pre-loaded software. I don't know where to get vBios for the card and how to modify the iMac bootrom. A little step-by-step tutorial is missing. Of course I can try instinctively but I'm afraid not to damage something . Is there a chance for someone's help regarding the order of actions and firmware for downloading EFi and Vbios. Thank you very much to everyone
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It's all covered in the last 10 or so pages of this thread, you really need to read it all to understand where the project is up to, its limitations and what's required.
It's not fair on people like Nick and FlorisVN who are doing hard work getting this project up and running to have to spoon feed every newbie who hasn't bothered to read few pages of text.
That’s a generous offer with the 560. Hopefully I’ll be up and running once I’ve got the materials to flash directly from the raspberry pi. Of course Amazon notified me that my order was delayed (was supposed to arrive today) so it will be a few more days yet.
Enjoy your holiday. For everything you’ve done here, you’ve earned it.
You probably didn't understand my request and as you can see many others are still asking. Since you know more than me why you don't answer, you just pay me attention. I wrote that I read all the pages of the topic, and I did not quite understand what vbios to upload to the graphics card (whether this and whether there is a universal patch to the iMac system or do you need to modify the bootrom yourself as in the movie. Nick [D] vB who did a good job (very thank you) made available for download: Kepler vBios & Bootrom mod. I mean, is it universal or do I have to modify my bootrom with RomTool and whether the vbios to the gtx765m from the download file fits any gtx765m graphics card
Install vbios beta 2 for the Kepler who attached a respected Nick to his message (using nvflash from windows). Before that, installing teamwiever (during the video card firmware, the image on the screen may not be available). 2. Install the bootrom patch.
Is the bootrom patch universal from this download? https://forums.macrumors.com/attachments/kepler-vbios-bootrom-mod-zip.856220/ Do I have to rip my bootrom and modify it?
Im gonna try and start working on a kepler toturial today..
It will be first based only for 2011 27" iMac models.
If anyone wants to help out, your welcome of course !
Pm me..
It will be first based only for 2011 27" iMac models.
If anyone wants to help out, your welcome of course
!Pm me..
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Im gonna try and start working on a kepler toturial today..
If anyone wants to help out, your welcome of course
Pm me..
cool ! Thank you very much, but today I will stop the experiments on iMac and GTX765, I would not want to damage something
Im gonna try and start working on a kepler toturial today..
If anyone wants to help out, your welcome of course
Pm me..
I have lots and lots of various pictures, mate) digginng in my mind, but some day I'll drop to tutorial
As far as I know nope no second vbios version, but a second version of the bootrom patch.
This second version of the bootrom patch does give us full logic board diagnostic lights, like the original AMD cards do.
As far as I know, this beta2 of the bootrom patch also gives logic board LED lights for RX580/560 AMD cards aswell.
this was a small adjustment to the vbios rom by Nick, in order to make them usable with Flashrom.
There where small vbios adjustments neccerecery to made, in order to make it flashable withouth using nvidia nvflash.
before like user @Polydactyl said, using Flashrom always gave him an error saying : Image size (209920 B) doesn't match the flash chip's size (262144 B)
This should now have been fixed by @Nick [D]vB with this second beta of the vbios.
But as far as I Know, no other bugs where fixed with this beta 2 of the vbios.
[doublepost=1568370643][/doublepost]im wondering how Rominator from Macvidcards responded so far, while this EFI bootrom/vbios mod is going arround from Nick..
Maybe he did not respond at all so far, or is not aware of this.. ?
Anyone here knows more.. ?
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I think the Rominator wanted to turn the project into a commercial product. But it turned out to be too difficult to implement.