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iM 4,1-14,4 2011 iMac Graphics Card Upgrade

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The first post of this thread is a WikiPost and can be edited by anyone with the appropiate permissions. Your edits will be public.
jborko said:
Thanks, highvoltage12v and FlorisVN.

So programer clip does not work on that chip.

And I figured as well that I will have to install Windows to flash, so the problem I have now is the lack of optical drive (which is broken anyway), so I am currently researching on how to get Windows 10 working around the boot camp assistant. I want to go Win 10 since Win 7 is becoming out of support from Jan.2020, and I will keep it as it will become handy in the future too. I created the partition so far, downloaded the drivers from the boot camp assistant on one USB flash drive, and I used unetbootin to create another bootable USB flash with Win 10...

If I continue like this will Win 10 be installed in EFI mode? Is there a particularly important step one should be careful about?
Click to expand...
I use Rufus to create my windows 10 Installs to a USB flash drive and use the EFI screen on the iMac to boot. I'm pretty sure you can accomplish the same task using System preferences to select the EFI flash drive on next boot if you don't have an EFI screen. I also recommend to get an optical drive caddy and cheap 256GB (optical drive operates at 3GB/s not 6) for the Windows 10 install. APFS basically broke bootcamp for EFI installs on the same drive.


 
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jborko said:
Thanks, highvoltage12v and FlorisVN.

So programer clip does not work on that chip.

And I figured as well that I will have to install Windows to flash, so the problem I have now is the lack of optical drive (which is broken anyway), so I am currently researching on how to get Windows 10 working around the boot camp assistant. I want to go Win 10 since Win 7 is becoming out of support from Jan.2020, and I will keep it as it will become handy in the future too. I created the partition so far, downloaded the drivers from the boot camp assistant on one USB flash drive, and I used unetbootin to create another bootable USB flash with Win 10...

If I continue like this will Win 10 be installed in EFI mode? Is there a particularly important step one should be careful about?
Click to expand...

Hi There,
yes the programmer clip wont work with your eeprom chip.
But tools like nvflash should work fine, I think..

Of course always backup your original vbios, multiple times.. ;)

you can use my premade win7 winclone image, i posted here above.
you can restore this using winclone, you only must have a working MacOS on your iMac to start restoring the winclone image.
Within bootcamp, you can use nvflash..
 
Hi everyone,
I've been reading up on this for a while and took the plunge recently.
I've installed a WX7100 (I haven't tried flashing it), however the Imac won't start. When pressing power there is a short whir from the fans as they spin up, a flash from the keyboard before it cuts out, and only diagnostic LED 1 is on.

There have been a few users who reported this issue, but I haven't found any obvious solutions. I've tried reseating the GPU, and the old card still works. There's no obvious signs of damage on the card, and it fits perfectly; it just doesn't seem to work.

Any suggestions welcome, or do I have a dead card?
 
highvoltage12v indeed, after my Optical drive broke, I did install a caddy and I already have 256 SSD there. So I am attempting to install on that now. Rufus won't work on Mac, so I am stuck with unetbootin. I was able to boot into the EFI and selected the flash drive for installation. Win Installer loaded, but when it went to the second step of setup preparation an error returned about the unreadable "install.wim" file so now I am trying with a different USB flash drive now as it seems that install.wim is the biggest file and my USB drive is not fast enough so it times out when loading.

FlorisVN thanks. As I said in the previous post I prefer Win 10, so I will go on with the attempts. Will report later how it went.
 
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TheFalChris said:
Hi everyone,
I've been reading up on this for a while and took the plunge recently.
I've installed a WX7100 (I haven't tried flashing it), however the Imac won't start. When pressing power there is a short whir from the fans as they spin up, a flash from the keyboard before it cuts out, and only diagnostic LED 1 is on.

There have been a few users who reported this issue, but I haven't found any obvious solutions. I've tried reseating the GPU, and the old card still works. There's no obvious signs of damage on the card, and it fits perfectly; it just doesn't seem to work.

Any suggestions welcome, or do I have a dead card?
Click to expand...
Maybe you got sent a W7170M like someone else here? Just a guess. Send a picture of the card, they W7170M and WX7100 look very similar.
 
jborko said:
highvoltage12v indeed, after my Optical drive broke, I did install a caddy and I already have 256 SSD there. So I am attempting to install on that now. Rufus won't work on Mac, so I am stuck with unetbootin. I was able to boot into the EFI and selected the flash drive for installation. Win Installer loaded, but when it went to the second step of setup preparation an error returned about the unreadable "install.wim" file so now I am trying with a different USB flash drive now as it seems that install.wim is the biggest file and my USB drive is not fast enough so it times out when loading.

FlorisVN thanks. As I said in the previous post I prefer Win 10, so I will go on with the attempts. Will report later how it went.
Click to expand...

I understand, but with this Windows 7 image, you can at least flash your card, and go on.. ;)

Im going to make a Windows 10 legacy version, someday soon I hope when I have the time.
And will post a download link for it here..

I am able to create a .pkg installer from a winclone image, so deployment will be much easier.. ;)
[automerge]1573210096[/automerge]
TheFalChris said:
Hi everyone,
I've been reading up on this for a while and took the plunge recently.
I've installed a WX7100 (I haven't tried flashing it), however the Imac won't start. When pressing power there is a short whir from the fans as they spin up, a flash from the keyboard before it cuts out, and only diagnostic LED 1 is on.

There have been a few users who reported this issue, but I haven't found any obvious solutions. I've tried reseating the GPU, and the old card still works. There's no obvious signs of damage on the card, and it fits perfectly; it just doesn't seem to work.

Any suggestions welcome, or do I have a dead card?
Click to expand...

First of all, which exact card to you have ?
And which model iMac are you using.. ?
 
FlorisVN said:
I understand, but with this Windows 7 image, you can at least flash your card, and go on.. ;)

Im going to make a Windows 10 legacy version, someday soon I hope when I have the time.
And will post a download link for it here..

I am able to create a .pkg installer from a winclone image, so deployment will be much easier.. ;)
[automerge]1573210096[/automerge]


First of all, which exact card to you have ?
And which model iMac are you using.. ?
Click to expand...

Sorry, I should've mentioned that.
mid-2011, 27inch, 3.4ghz Imac.

The card itself I am reasonably certain is a WX7100m and not a w7100 or S7100X, based on the layout of the chip itself, but I'll try and get a picture of it up shortly.
IMG_2418.JPG
 
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FlorisVN said:
Hi,

I think and pretty sure at least the EFI bootrom mod from Nick wont work with a 21,5" C2D 09 iMac.
Correct me if Im wrong of course.

The Quadro K2000M might work, but I dont know and not sure about this.
Perhaps this question has been asked here before in this topic..
I dont know anymore, but you can try search for it.. ;)
[automerge]1573153723[/automerge]


perhaps my Win7 winclone image might also work for him..
It worked for me btw..

This way you can restore Windows 7 with winclone, withouth having the need of doing a blind install.
My win7 winclone image has RDP enabled by default.

mega.nz

MEGA

MEGA provides free cloud storage with convenient and powerful always-on privacy. Claim your free 20GB now
mega.nz mega.nz
Click to expand...

OK, so I gave up after multiple failures to install Win 10 without Bootcamp assistant. I will read more about it before I make another attempt at it. In the meantime, I tried to restore your image, but during boot, I am stuck on a very bright LCD with a greyish background. I think your clone might have a specific graphic driver configuration that does not work with my current Radeon 6770.

EDIT: I am in your Windows now! Yay! Thanks, FlorisVN. It is weird though, as if graphic card is not properly recognized.
 
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jborko said:
OK, so I gave up after multiple failures to install Win 10 without Bootcamp assistant. I will read more about it before I make another attempt at it. In the meantime, I tried to restore your image, but during boot, I am stuck on a very bright LCD with a greyish background. I think your clone might have a specific graphic driver configuration that does not work with my current Radeon 6770.

EDIT: I am in your Windows now! Yay! Thanks, FlorisVN. It is weird though, as if graphic card is not properly recognized.
Click to expand...
Did you let It sit for 30min and suddenly the display came to life in Windows? That's how mine started working, it had to download the Display drivers blindly before working.
 
highvoltage12v said:
Did you let It sit for 30min and suddenly the display came to life in Windows? That's how mine started working, it had to download the Display drivers blindly before working.
Click to expand...

I am not that patient type of person 😄... I rebooted to Mac then back to Windows and I saw the cursor and knew it will eventually show up (took about 3 min after the second reboot. What I did after is used the USB from my boot camp assistant and reinstalled the complete boot camp. That fixed the 6770 drivers so now it seems to work fine (proper resolution and all).

I still need to figure a few things out.
  1. How to successfully back up the vbios (I think I found this in the GPU-Z the save to file icon by the BIOS version field)
  2. Be more confident in the flash process with nvflash (It seems pretty straight forward, but then no one never knows)
  3. Be absolutely sure Windows will boot with RDC available - otherwise, I will need to redo it all from start.
Windows aside. I thought there was an option to make the nvflash with Linux live flash drive and external monitor... Can someone confirm if that is a go?
 
TheFalChris said:
Hi everyone,
I've been reading up on this for a while and took the plunge recently.
I've installed a WX7100 (I haven't tried flashing it), however the Imac won't start. When pressing power there is a short whir from the fans as they spin up, a flash from the keyboard before it cuts out, and only diagnostic LED 1 is on.

There have been a few users who reported this issue, but I haven't found any obvious solutions. I've tried reseating the GPU, and the old card still works. There's no obvious signs of damage on the card, and it fits perfectly; it just doesn't seem to work.

Any suggestions welcome, or do I have a dead card?
Click to expand...
Remove and reseat all of the ram sticks - half the amount of ram sticks, see if that helps startup. Then put the others back in if it succeeds, that's what happened to me.
 
Ooze said:
Remove and reseat all of the ram sticks - half the amount of ram sticks, see if that helps startup. Then put the others back in if it succeeds, that's what happened to me.
Click to expand...

I've just given it a shot with different ram sticks (I've got 2x4gb and 2x8gb) and no ram, and the fans still only spin for a second before it cuts off again. The 6970 does get to the second LED without RAM.
Thanks for the suggestion though
 
Hey everyone, I have huge news as of this minute. WX7100, full clock speeds in Windows 10, no more 300mhz lock, nothing. Latest amd drivers, everything the way it should be, ramps right up to max clock speed, everything running fantastic. I used ATI flash and replaced my original vbios with this one. Full boost, everything. I can't believe I got this thing working, this project has been months in the making and I couldn't have done it without you guys. Feel free to ask any questions if you have them, ect. I'm feelin' good fellas.
 

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Ooze said:
Hey everyone, I have huge news as of this minute. WX7100, full clock speeds in Windows 10, no more 300mhz lock, nothing. Latest amd drivers, everything the way it should be, ramps right up to max clock speed, everything running fantastic. I used ATI flash and replaced my original vbios with this one. Full boost, everything. I can't believe I got this thing working, this project has been months in the making and I couldn't have done it without you guys. Feel free to ask any questions if you have them, ect. I'm feelin' good fellas.
Click to expand...

Really great!!!
In Mac OS too?
 
Pascal Baillargeau said:
Really great!!!
In Mac OS too?
Click to expand...
I'll have to give that a shot on another date. Gonna be a long work week for me, so I won't have much time. But people can feel free to flash that bios and test it out if they're looking to give it a shot.
 
TheFalChris said:
Sorry, I should've mentioned that.
mid-2011, 27inch, 3.4ghz Imac.

The card itself I am reasonably certain is a WX7100m and not a w7100 or S7100X, based on the layout of the chip itself, but I'll try and get a picture of it up shortly.View attachment 875795
Click to expand...


I highly
recommended you to use K5 Pro special thermal pasta for your new MXM video card. !
Its the same kind of stuff Apple uses, see following links and video as example :

K5-PRO & K4-PRO Set

K5-PRO & K4-PRO are designed to replace the thermal pads and thermal pastes of any electronic device including iMac, Playstation, XBOX etc
www.computer-systems.gr www.computer-systems.gr
www.amazon.com

K5 PRO 30g (3X10g) Viscous Thermal Paste for Thermal Pad Replacement Liquid Thermal Pad

www.amazon.com
 
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Well, today the Nvidia 780m MXM and EEPROM programmer arrived from china.

So I unpacked it all
99C24262-73F9-426D-A0AE-7BE4E36C01D6_1_105_c.jpeg

3ABF0914-78EA-460D-89BB-4C25D149501B_1_105_c.jpeg


And proceded to hook the thing up to a Linux laptop to flash the Nick vbios in it.
Unfortunately, after many attempts I couldn't get the clip to make a secure connection to either read or write anything... :(

So I grew a bit impatient and decided to try the card in my 2011 iMac 27".
Lucky me, I own a dremmel..
See my worst here:
677FDBB8-9687-420F-A732-A2604D6B663C_1_105_c.jpeg
D83778F9-E370-4FDD-A9A1-8FAB80C97165_1_105_c.jpeg
2FBDB505-499F-4B8D-8DE9-24A656E5BC38_1_105_c.jpeg
C92474D5-B02B-45F6-A3B2-1F46952A8D12_1_105_c.jpeg


After reassembling the Mac and turning it on it booted straight into MacOS Catalina which I previously installed next to MacOS High Sierra.


Working like a champ... for now.. :)

But no vbios flash and no iMac bootrom flashed :(
I think I need a little bit of help with that. It could be that my EEPROM flasher is broken or maybe the chipclip that came with it.
I really don't know.

In Linux the flasher was visible and flashrom could see it too.. just no communication with the 25xxxx chip. Sometime the connection light on the flasher would light up but very dim. Other than that nothing.

I've looked at the instruction video posted a couple of pages back and I'm sure I'm doing the same thing.
This is how I've connected the cable on the board:
3534F3A3-558B-49E5-B12E-406694F5E7B3_1_105_c.jpeg


Maybe the clip is faulty but I've tested the pins to the pins on the clip and all are connected..

Any thoughts are much appreciated.
 
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Momos1 said:
Anyone try this card ? Will it work ?
Quadro K3100M ?
Click to expand...

I'm running a K3000M in one machine, but the EEPROM is a WSON package (no pins), and the K3100M looks like it has the same type of EEPROM in the WSON package, meaning you won't be able to use a clipper with it to re-program the EEPROM. I think the K3100M would have a fair chance of working (without boot screens), since it's Kepler based.

EDIT: Just wanted to add that the K3000M I purchased was advertised as being for a Dell Precision, and that I have to do an NVRAM reset each time I start the machine, otherwise I just get a blank display.
 
Hi all!
I’ve reswapped the video card with stock Amd (iMac 21,5 mid 2011).

4 led on.

Boot menu ok.

Boot from usb stick, reinstalled Catalina


Now I got black screen (I want to try to apply legacy video patch).

I’ve tried to reset PRAM.....nothing

Always black screen.
Boot with ALT does nothing....

A couple of boot I’ve flickering video.

Now always black screen.
I’m a bit frustrated.
 
I installed GPU Nvidia GTX 660M - 2Gb and appeared black screen.
The iMac makes the sound of chime, noise in the superdrive, fans work, but not the image.

Does anyone know what may be happening?

Thank's.
 
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