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

[N4R1M]

Hi I installed an GTX 980m into my iMac 2011.
it’s pulled out of an Alienware laptop and should work.
im faceing the issue now that it boots into Mac OS and the internal display doesn’t work. The GPU is detected and works when I Connect through remote display it shows 980m in System information.
the internal display stays Black.
how do I get the internal display working?

 

[jmilan0302]

Hi I installed an GTX 980m into my iMac 2011.
it’s pulled out of an Alienware laptop and should work.
im faceing the issue now that it boots into Mac OS and the internal display doesn’t work. The GPU is detected and works when I Connect through remote display it shows 980m in System information.
the internal display stays Black.
how do I get the internal display working?

VBIOS mod. Good to know some VBIOSes can boot the 980M in an iMac though. Last time someone tried 980M it didn't boot at all. Also I think with this card you are still limited to macOS 10.13!

 

[amgff84]

Afaik the Late 09 C2D share the same Nvidia chipset as the Early and Mid 09 but they use desktop CPUs and CPU support is very limited, probably just E7600 and E8400. The Late 09 i5/i7 and Mid 2010 have an Intel chipset though and all the 09 iMacs use MXM3. Also I think people here have even talked about upgrading the old white plastic iMacs, the 24" had an MXM2 slot and someone mentioned a long time ago back in the day someone did upgrade the GPU in one of those can't remember which one though.

I wanted to post an update to all those involved, and to those who helped me out. I tried a hd 6970, and Quattro k1100m, both did not work. However, I used a dell k1100m without a flashed Mac bios. The early 09 iMac 24" does have an mxm 3, as well as most of the other early 09 and mid 09 iMacs. However, as some have pointed out, the hardware just doesn't work due to bios issues. This was done on a Mac with Yosemite, and I was considering if I repeated the trial with high Sierra, would I have different results? Maybe, but right now I don't want to try. I will try, however, when I receive in my hd 4850 and new heatsink, as it will be apart again. I will update again.

Thanks everyone!

 

[N4R1M]

VBIOS mod. Good to know some VBIOSes can boot the 980M in an iMac though. Last time someone tried 980M it didn't boot at all. Also I think with this card you are still limited to macOS 10.13!

so there is a chance that the internal display will work ?
How do I mod it and what do I need ?

 

[DJRath]

Hi All
I am just writing to thank you for your hard work, expertise and advice on this forum....especially Dosdude, Nick and Florian.

I have finally managed to upgrade my Imac - with a gtx 880m - eventually got it working after flashing with Nick's latest 780m bios. Thanks!

 

[jmilan0302]

so there is a chance that the internal display will work ?
How do I mod it and what do I need ?

I don't know, you can buy a cheap usb flasher and try flashing other VBIOSes on the card until one works with the iMac's internal display. Maybe Nick can help out as he made the EFI VBIOS and bootrom mods. Not sure why you would want to get a maxwell card working though as from what I know those do not work with 1.14 and newer.

 

[tgaillar]

passatgt said:
So... i had success after all with a $50 Dell 6770M 1GB card. Found a ROM that was working properly, shows 1gb instead of 512mb, bootscreen, brightness control, external monitor works. I'll post the ROM if the guy who sent it to me allows me to do so. The card looks different compared to the Apple version, its red, the chip layout is different etc... so its possible that this model is not as **** as the factory one and it might work for a long time...

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Hi @passagt, went the same route as you did here above buying (with a friend) a Dell 6770M 1GB card (the red one). Had no real luck with the original Apple HD6770M 512MB bios (boot screen OK but MacOS boot hangs then reboot, you've apparently been there as reported on TechPowerUp...).

Would it be possible you share that *working* HD6770M 1GB ROM? Would appreciate it very much, thank you

 

[makaveliz]

Hello to everybody. Do someone know where buy the graphic card? (760/770780 models). I found only some card on the bay but used, from china, and without pipeline.

 

[FlorisVN]

Hello to everybody. Do someone know where buy the graphic card? (760/770780 models). I found only some card on the bay but used, from china, and without pipeline.

in most cases you will find these cards used, on places like eBay, aliexpress etc.
I think finding new old stock, could be difficult and perhaps very expensive.
Of course you never know..

what exactly do you mean with pipeline ?

if you really need a new unused card, good luck hunting I would say ! 😉

 

[Roman78]

Does someone knows if a GTX 770M 3GB taken from a MSI GT 70 laptop will work? Model number on card is MS-1WOB1 Ver 1.1. Looks quit similar to the Dell Alienware card, but it missing some IC's on the top.



I still need a 3rd card for my 3rd iMac....

 

[amgff84]

Does someone knows if a GTX 770M 3GB taken from a MSI GT 70 laptop will work? Model number on card is MS-1WOB1 Ver 1.1. Looks quit similar to the Dell Alienware card, but it missing some IC's on the top.

View attachment 880520

I still need a 3rd card for my 3rd iMac....

I don’t know for sure, but if you have it I’d try, or if it’s cheap I’d get it. I’ve torn my older iMac apart a few times just to try and fail, but now I know and now the community knows because I posted the results. 😂 You might even be able to flash the Dell bios that does work, if there is one. I had an old RX 480, actually two, for my gaming rig. I was able to overclock them significantly by flashing their bios to an RX 570 (beyond what they could be overclocked as a RX 480), which is more modern by a year, but less powerful. Best case it works, worst case you bricked it. I think it could be saved though, in a Windows laptop with switchable graphics.
Best of luck!

 

[highvoltage12v]

Does someone knows if a GTX 770M 3GB taken from a MSI GT 70 laptop will work? Model number on card is MS-1WOB1 Ver 1.1. Looks quit similar to the Dell Alienware card, but it missing some IC's on the top.

View attachment 880520

I still need a 3rd card for my 3rd iMac....

Here is a picture of my 770m. My picture wasn't intended for the internet and is messy, but you can see some of the same components missing on yours are missing on mine. You probably just need a re-flash.

 

[Roman78]

What a mess 😁 But indeed, looks the same. Does Nick's Firmware worked on that card?

 

[highvoltage12v]

What a mess 😁 But indeed, looks the same. Does Nick's Firmware worked on that card?

Yes, boot-screens without modifying the EFI. Backlight adjustment is stuck on 100%, a dying light module will be needed for brightness adjustment.

 

[jborko]

@Nick [D]vB, also others... Do you know if Beta2 > Beta3 flash requires bootrom to be rolled back to the original? Or perhaps it works with modded bootrom (from Beta 2)?

 

[highvoltage12v]

@Nick [D]vB, also others... Do you know if Beta2 > Beta3 flash requires bootrom to be rolled back to the original? Or perhaps it works with modded bootrom (from Beta 2)?

You don't have to touch the bootrom at all, just flash version 3 to your card.

Also there is no difference in performance between version 2 and 3, so if things are working fine now, you don't have to touch anything. The Beta 3 was intended for newcomers that we don't want to see break their logic board.

 

[Roman78]

What are the improvements of the Beta 3?

 

[highvoltage12v]

What are the improvements of the Beta 3?

If you look at the naming difference between beta 2 and beta 3, you will see "EG2" was added to the ROM titles of beta 3. I'm assuming that the module was moved to the ROM of the GPU instead of needing to be flashed to EFI bootrom of your iMac.

This was done so people aren't risking breaking their logic board, as stated 2 posts above.

 

[jborko]

I am fighting to get the backlight to work under Linux. Despite Roman78 being able to see it, I am not successful. I don’t understand this entirely, but adding acpi_backlight=vendor seems to work for the AMD 6770 and not for nVidia and this is added in the grub configuration, so I am wondering if it is not related somehow with the bootrom mod. I have tried all possible drivers for the nvidia and I failed. So basically 765 works but I want to understand more about the relationship to the linux drivers. I still have lot to learn but I am willing to explore the Linux path.

 

[tgaillar]

I am fighting to get the backlight to work under Linux. Despite Roman78 being able to see it, I am not successful. I don’t understand this entirely, but adding acpi_backlight=vendor seems to work for the AMD 6770 and not for nVidia and this is added in the grub configuration, so I am wondering if it is not related somehow with the bootrom mod. I have tried all possible drivers for the nvidia and I failed. So basically 765 works but I want to understand more about the relationship to the linux drivers. I still have lot to learn but I am willing to explore the Linux path.

At the risk of stating the obvious (or even being proven wrong), this is what is going on Linux-wise for the iMac 2011 21.5" and 27" (heavily tested):

• EFI boot: there's simply no publicly documented way to get the backlight to work
• MBR boot: backlight natively works, always

The reason backlight works in MBR boot is because a different/specific BIOS is exposed to the system by the IMac EFI firmware code right before control is transferred to Linux (has to do with SMBIOS code being present to honor the 0xB2 SMI# non-maskable interrupt, which the ACPI DSDT table leverages to update the brightness level -- manually tested with inb/outb-mimicking code from the "ioport" package). There's simply no such SMBIOS exposed in EFI boot (so the 0xB2 I/O access the ACPI DSDT code still executes leads to nothing).

The key is (most likely) to reverse-engineer the SMBIOS code hidden somewhere in the iMac's EFI firmware (or reverse-engineer the MacOSX kexts, but I'm certainly not gonna do that!). Soon to be my next (restarted) task (once I'm finished with the Dell HD6770M 1GB video card hack)

My 2 cents, really, take this with a grain of salt...

 

[Toni96pp]

so there is a chance that the internal display will work ?
How do I mod it and what do I need ?

Nowadays is not posible make the display work, I tried almost a year ago and was a mess, maybe some day, I don't think so, but who knows, my 980m is still waiting

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

Hi guys. On my 6970m, one of the small screws holding the X-Clamp in place on the GPU broke inside the opposite spring screws. I managed to get it out of the spring screw, but I need a new small screw now. Could anyone point me in a direction on where I could order a replacement?

 

[jmilan0302]

Nowadays is not posible make the display work, I tried almost a year ago and was a mess, maybe some day, I don't think so, but who knows, my 980m is still waiting

I wonder why are people even trying with 980M when WX7100 is faster, has boot screen mod and is supported in versions after 10.13?

 

[Roman78]

If you look at the naming difference between beta 2 and beta 3, you will see "EG2" was added to the ROM titles of beta 3. I'm assuming that the module was moved to the ROM of the GPU instead of needing to be flashed to EFI bootrom of your iMac.

This was done so people aren't risking breaking their logic board, as stated 2 posts above.

So it is not necessary to edit the BootRom any more?

 

[jborko]

Correct. If you flash the card with Beta3 you can leave the bootrom untouched (as far as I understand - for now). @Nick [D]vB indicated that backlight will probably require bootrom Mod, but I guess he still has things to figure out ... I would love to help with the backlight but I need to study some basic stuff more...

On the Linux topic. I think I am booting Linux in UEFI mode and on one of the iMacs with the original AMD card I do have backlight and on another one with the nVidia I do not have it. I will confirm tonight if Linux is booted in UEFI mode.

EDIT: I am booting Linux in UEFI mode.