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

[highvoltage12v]

i'm try... finger cross

after this.. build the video card and try... right?
i have a test ssd whit high sierra 10.13.6
need to disable SIP before starting (build a ssd in an old macbook and disable...) or i try??

thanks for the help you're giving me!

SIP doesn't need to be disabled to install the new MXM card. SIP will be needed later to install Kexts that have been modded such as the fix sleep Kexts on Mojave and Catalina. Make sure you have k5 Pro on VRAM etc, good luck.
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Hello. Friends, please help me, I have an iMac 21.5 mid2010 with a k1100m card that updated VBiOS from our dear friend Nick (D), I did not get a boot screen, I decided to reinstall the OS on Catalina, the screen was turned on for the first time, but this terribly slows down in the iMac system itself, I decided to restart the computer and got a black screen, resetting NVRAM helped, but until the next reboot + OS, the animation was very slow. Please tell me what I'm doing wrong, and how to solve this problem?

You actually have to hold the ALT/Option key for bootscreen. Otherwise it will stay black most of the time. Also usually an Apple keyboard works best for this.

 

[Borod@]

You will only see the boot screen if you are holding down the option button. For Catalina, it probably installed the legacy video drivers automatically, which you don't need because of the replaced GPU, that's why you see slow performance. This is described in the first post, how you can change the installer to not install the legacy drivers for 2010 iMacs.

Happy St. Nicholas Day !!
Thank you for the help you give me, before installing Mac OS Catalina, I replaced the file “macmodels.plist” and installed it clean, hoping that there would be no braking, but a miracle didn’t happen, it still worked very badly and slowed down

 

[NOTNlCE]

Happy St. Nicholas Day !!
Thank you for the help you give me, before installing Mac OS Catalina, I replaced the file “macmodels.plist” and installed it clean, hoping that there would be no braking, but a miracle didn’t happen, it still worked very badly and slowed down

Apparently this method is no longer valid, dosdude1 posted a way to fix a few posts back. I'll dig it up and update the front page. If you re-install Catalina, it will overwrite the Legacy Graphics Patch, which is causing your slowness.

EDIT: In the patcher itself you can select "Options" and de-select "Auto-Apply Post-Install Patches" to prevent this.

 

[Borod@]

EDIT: In the patcher itself you can select "Options" and de-select "Auto-Apply Post-Install Patches" to prevent this.
And where exactly to choose, please tell me ?!
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Apparently this method is no longer valid, dosdude1 posted a way to fix a few posts back. I'll dig it up and update the front page. If you re-install Catalina, it will overwrite the Legacy Graphics Patch, which is causing your slowness.

EDIT: In the patcher itself you can select "Options" and de-select "Auto-Apply Post-Install Patches" to prevent this.

Thanks for the help! Today I reinstalled Katalina again, in the hope that everything will work fine ... but I understood everything. pages (update) - the text appeared, but was very slow.
After installing the OS, somehow reinstall .KEXT or do something else ???

 

[NOTNlCE]

EDIT: In the patcher itself you can select "Options" and de-select "Auto-Apply Post-Install Patches" to prevent this.
And where exactly to choose, please tell me ?!
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Thanks for the help! Today I reinstalled Katalina again, in the hope that everything will work fine ... but I understood everything. pages (update) - the text appeared, but was very slow.
After installing the OS, somehow reinstall .KEXT or do something else ???

If you reinstalled without remaking the patcher USB or deselecting this option, it likely re-applied the patches, resulting in the same issue.

 

[nikey22]

when you use Brightness slider or shades, does this reduce the heat generated by the backlight when you dim it? In other words, is it actually reducing voltage sent to the backlight. Thanks.

 

[highvoltage12v]

when you use Brightness slider or shades, does this reduce the heat generated by the backlight when you dim it? In other words, is it actually reducing voltage sent to the backlight. Thanks.

No backlight dimming is currently available without a hardware mod. This is currently being looked into though.

 

[nikey22]

@highvoltage12v, how are dealing with the full brightness in your k2100m 21.5"? Do you have the hardware mod? Thanks.

 

[passatgt]

@highvoltage12v, how are dealing with the full brightness in your k2100m 21.5"? Do you have the hardware mod? Thanks.

For 21.5, full brightness is fine, not tha
t much heat compared to 27. Before replacing the card i used it at max always.

 

[Terros]

Depends. If the 780 has Dell bios you will probably have a display, if not you will probably have a black screen. So if you want to boot in Win though, set it to boot in Win before you swap the cards and make sure you can remote into the OS. Test it before it eventually goes dark. It makes things easier. It is good to have a monitor nearby connected over mini display port (I found that my works ("consistently") with the one next to the firewire port).

Finally got my 780m and got the dreaded black screen. Machine chimes etc, seems to be 2 green leds on mobo.

I plugged in a mini display port to display cable into one of my screens with no display in either port.

Don't think the machine is getting to Windows either, will holding alt work to get to boot select?

Edit: tried an NVRAM reset and now the machine just boot loops with chime every 30 seconds

Any suggestions?

 

[passatgt]

Finally got my 780m and got the dreaded black screen. Machine chimes etc, seems to be 2 green leds on mobo.

I plugged in a mini display port to display cable into one of my screens with no display in either port.

Don't think the machine is getting to Windows either, will holding alt work to get to boot select?

Edit: tried an NVRAM reset and now the machine just boot loops with chime every 30 seconds

Any suggestions?

Make sure nothing is shorted. The best way to do this is to connect an external screen, remove your main display, remove the heatsink from the GPU and just install it without the heatsink and bracket. Turn on, see if it boots now(but turn it off immediately after you see the apple logo). If it does work, try to install the bracket and heatsink and make sure you are not shorting any capacitors while doing that(the bracket might touch something for example, or the heatsink. Also, you have RAM installed? You can just use a single module, but make sure its installed in the slot closest to the display. For testing, just use an external display, you don't need to install/remove the main screen each time you are changing something, much easier.

But I would flash the card with Nick's bios with an external method, i think its easier. For example this would work. You need a PC, plug in the usb, attach the soic clip to the card and use flashrom to flash the card.

 

[Roman78]

Ooohhh there are vBios's for the Quadros... I have to try those this weekend....

I just finished the German Manual Part 2: https://www.die-oswalds.de/blog/201...das-leidige-thema-mit-der-grafikkarte-teil-2/

I still need to edit the photo's a little, dont like those two.

 

[Terros]

Make sure nothing is shorted. The best way to do this is to connect an external screen, remove your main display, remove the heatsink from the GPU and just install it without the heatsink and bracket. Turn on, see if it boots now(but turn it off immediately after you see the apple logo). If it does work, try to install the bracket and heatsink and make sure you are not shorting any capacitors while doing that(the bracket might touch something for example, or the heatsink. Also, you have RAM installed? You can just use a single module, but make sure its installed in the slot closest to the display. For testing, just use an external display, you don't need to install/remove the main screen each time you are changing something, much easier.

But I would flash the card with Nick's bios with an external method, i think its easier. For example this would work. You need a PC, plug in the usb, attach the soic clip to the card and use flashrom to flash the card.

Thanks so much for the time and effort @passatgt I really appreciate it, learnt some valuable info from this.

I will try this all in the morning, almost bed time for us Aussies.

If something is causing a short, would it have killed the card or still potentially fine? Guess tomorrow morning will tell.

Hopefully it's all fine.

 

[Borod@]

View attachment 883805

If you reinstalled without remaking the patcher USB or deselecting this option, it likely re-applied the patches, resulting in the same issue.

Disable this option before creating a flash drive??

 

[man1sshhh]

Finally! Just updated GTX 765M on my 27" 2011 iMac with @Nick [D]vB custom BIOS. First and foremost thank you so much @Nick [D]vB for sparing your valuable time and providing this community a solution that it has been craving for so long. Thank you @FlorisVN for providing a 'plug and play' windows boot to the community and help flashing easier.

Really appreciate both your efforts and everyone else's in this thread for trying and bringing an aging machine back to life and running. It's seems just a matter of time till we'll receive our 'BRIGHTER' present from Santa Nick

Anyone who is a noob like me and has no clue about flashing:

1. Disable SIP
2. Boot into Windows (you can use the windows copy posted earlier by florisVN)
3. Connect an external screen to navigate on windows (Remote Desktop would be better)
4. Create an 'nvflash' folder on your C:/ drive and extract the nvedia flash tool.
5. Run cmd as an administrator and change the directory to nvflash folder by typing "chdir C:/nvflash"
6. Type "nvflash64 --protectoff"
7. Type "nvflash64 -6 (ROMNAME)" (or click tab to autofill the rom name provided by nick)
8. Keep in mind to type 'Y' when the screen goes black if just relying on the external monitor
9. Reboot

 

[NOTNlCE]

Disable this option before creating a flash drive??

Correct.

 

[Borod@]

Correct.

I’ll try now, but the macmodels.plist file needs to be replaced

 

[NOTNlCE]

I’ll try now, but the macmodels.plist file needs to be replaced

No, the .plist file mod does not work anymore. Simply re-create the USB with the option unchecked. You will then need to apply the post-installation patches manually, just like Mojave was. Be sure to de-select the "Legacy Video Card Patch," which is likely what was causing your UI slowness.

 

[Borod@]

No, the .plist file mod does not work anymore. Simply re-create the USB with the option unchecked. You will then need to apply the post-installation patches manually, just like Mojave was. Be sure to de-select the "Legacy Video Card Patch," which is likely what was causing your UI slowness.

Thank you very much, when I do everything, I will write the result!

 

[Borod@]

View attachment 883805

If you reinstalled without remaking the patcher USB or deselecting this option, it likely re-applied the patches, resulting in the same issue.

Many thanks for your help !!! It worked.
And thanks again @Nick [D]vB for the job!

 

[Roman78]

I just flashed the K1100M. It acts the same as the GTX 765M. Booting High Sierra get screen after OS is loaded, no boot screen. Pressing ALT during boot will give bootmenu screen, so it is somehow working. Mojave will give boot screen on the GTX 765M, maybe this also will work on the K1100M

 

[NOTNlCE]

I just flashed the K1100M. It acts the same as the GTX 765M. Booting High Sierra get screen after OS is loaded, no boot screen. Pressing ALT during boot will give bootmenu screen, so it is somehow working. Mojave will give boot screen on the GTX 765M, maybe this also will work on the K1100M

I have a similar result on my K1100M, but instead of getting ~⅔ of the progress bar sliding up to 100%, I get the full bar. Also get my boot selection when holding ALT. Still infinitely better than flying blind for sure.

 

[FlorisVN]

I just flashed the K1100M. It acts the same as the GTX 765M. Booting High Sierra get screen after OS is loaded, no boot screen. Pressing ALT during boot will give bootmenu screen, so it is somehow working. Mojave will give boot screen on the GTX 765M, maybe this also will work on the K1100M

there is still a known bug with nicks vbios, there is a delay time when the efi bootscreen shows.
when you press alt for example on bootup, and force to get the efi bootscreen you will also have a 5+- 7 second delay time.
There is no instant bootscreen like on the original amd cards atm.

This delay time is in my experience a bit longer when booting MacOS for example.
These EFI bootscreen delay times, can perhaps be fixed someday by Nick for example..

We do have a working bootscreen btw, and we should be very happy with this..

We still need some little more fixes to go, but perhaps Nick can bring some fixes for us in the future, who knows..

 

[passatgt]

there is still a known bug with nicks vbios, there is a delay time when the efi bootscreen shows.
when you press alt for example on bootup, and force to get the efi bootscreen you will also have a 5+- 7 second delay time.
There is no instant bootscreen like on the original amd cards atm.

This delay time is in my experience a bit longer when booting MacOS for example.
These EFI bootscreen delay times, can perhaps be fixed someday by Nick for example..

We do have a working bootscreen btw, and we should be very happy with this..

We still need some little more fixes to go, but perhaps Nick can bring some fixes for us in the future, who knows..

The only time i need bootscreen is to install OS, so i think this is perfect the way it is Rest of the time i'm just waking it from sleep anyway.

 

[Terros]

Make sure nothing is shorted. The best way to do this is to connect an external screen, remove your main display, remove the heatsink from the GPU and just install it without the heatsink and bracket. Turn on, see if it boots now(but turn it off immediately after you see the apple logo). If it does work, try to install the bracket and heatsink and make sure you are not shorting any capacitors while doing that(the bracket might touch something for example, or the heatsink. Also, you have RAM installed? You can just use a single module, but make sure its installed in the slot closest to the display. For testing, just use an external display, you don't need to install/remove the main screen each time you are changing something, much easier.

But I would flash the card with Nick's bios with an external method, i think its easier. For example this would work. You need a PC, plug in the usb, attach the soic clip to the card and use flashrom to flash the card.

So I did all you said and sadly no picture out the external display with the 780m, no heatsink etc. The seller stated DELL/Alienware.

I'm leaning towards a dead card now as I put the 6970M 2GB back in and have display out the external monitor.

Just to clarify, I should have external display with the 780m regardless of bios if it's set to boot to Windows correct?