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

[passatgt]

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?

I'm not sure... since you have the orig gpu, i would install High Sierra, that should boot just fine with a 780m(without boot screen of course) and one of the external monitors will work(if i remember correctly the displayport closest to the usb). Its possible that the card has a bios that is not compatible(before we had the custom bios, people reported this and flashing with a different dell bios from techpowerup fixed it). So i would suggest trying High Sierra. If it doesn't work, i would try with Nick's bios by flashing with an USB programmer and soic clip. Make a backup of the bios that is currently installed, update it. If its still nothing, the card is most likely dead, so i would flash the original bios back ask for a refund.

If you shorted something with the heatsink or bracket, the system just won't boot based on my experience, but the card would still work after the short is gone.

 

[highvoltage12v]

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?

With windows 10 you may not have a picture for up to 30 minutes, windows has to install drivers for the external display to work. Mac OS however will have display after a successful boot. On situations like this I prefer to flash the ROM with a ch341a to not have to deal with windows. Being that it is a Dell ROM the thunderbolt output closest to the firewire 800 port should work.

 

[overshoot]

Hello,

On my iMac 2011 27" I am still on bootrom 82.0.0.0
Can someone confirm which one is the latest.

I've tried to install High Sierra with the latest update, original HDD in and a Radeon 6770M (found on eBay but it's a PC version flashed for Mac) and I can't seem to update the bootrom.

Trying to boot a Catalina bootable drive I am getting the forbidden sign.

 

[hijglander]

Hello,

On my iMac 2011 27" I am still on bootrom 82.0.0.0
Can someone confirm which one is the latest.

I've tried to install High Sierra with the latest update, original HDD in and a Radeon 6770M (found on eBay but it's a PC version flashed for Mac) and I can't seem to update the bootrom.

Trying to boot a Catalina bootable drive I am getting the forbidden sign.

87.0.0.0.0 is the latest one... unless Catalina 10.15.2 installs a newer one that is... haven't tried it.

Can't help you with the card unfortunately.. you don't have the original card available?

Did the install of High Sierra work?

Catalina might work when the correct bootrom is installed, something to do with APFS support if I'm not mistaken, and you use catalina patcher by @dosdude1 but isn't advisable because the 6770M doesn't support Metal. I tried it and it's got real bad performance.

 

[Roman78]

The 87.0.0.0.0 also comes with the Sierra 005-Security update.

 

[Aenne]

Hey guys,

like many here in the forum, I also own an old iMac from mid 2011 with a broken graphics card.
The iMac uses MacOS High Sierra version 10.13.6. I replaced the broken GPU ATI Radeon HD 6970M with an Nvidia GeForce GTX 770M 3GB DDR5 3.0 Type B Alienware. The Mac displayed a regular picture on the screen after switching on and waiting a bit (about 5 minutes). I could surf the web normally. I was able to run music on YouTube for a while etc. without any problems. But when I wanted to play a game from Steam (Parkitec, worked without problems with the old GPU) the iMac hung up and restarted. This also happened when I hit the Mission Control button. Thereupon I installed the Nvidia Webdriver, after that the system did not start anymore. In safe mode I managed to restart the system. I then wanted to uninstall the Nvidia driver again. When I started the Nvidia program in the system settings I got the message that it could not be installed correctly and therefore could not be uninstalled. So I started goolge and found the possibility to uninstall the driver via the terminal. Everything worked quite normally again... But also again with the same restrictions. Again Nvidia Web-Driver installed. Now also complete, I can call the Nvidia program in the system settings. But after a short time there are image artifacts, crashes, the OS doesn't start, sometimes it does, sometimes during boot in a loop. So again problems. Does anybody have any ideas, suggestions, proposals or anything about how I can get the iMac to run normally? What is your experience high voltage 12V, sounds like the similar problem? I would now remove the SSD and install a new OS. I am grateful for any advice, especially about current procedures.

Thank you very much and happy holidays.

 

[passatgt]

Hey guys,

like many here in the forum, I also own an old iMac from mid 2011 with a broken graphics card.
The iMac uses MacOS High Sierra version 10.13.6. I replaced the broken GPU ATI Radeon HD 6970M with an Nvidia GeForce GTX 770M 3GB DDR5 3.0 Type B Alienware. The Mac displayed a regular picture on the screen after switching on and waiting a bit (about 5 minutes). I could surf the web normally. I was able to run music on YouTube for a while etc. without any problems. But when I wanted to play a game from Steam (Parkitec, worked without problems with the old GPU) the iMac hung up and restarted. This also happened when I hit the Mission Control button. Thereupon I installed the Nvidia Webdriver, after that the system did not start anymore. In safe mode I managed to restart the system. I then wanted to uninstall the Nvidia driver again. When I started the Nvidia program in the system settings I got the message that it could not be installed correctly and therefore could not be uninstalled. So I started goolge and found the possibility to uninstall the driver via the terminal. Everything worked quite normally again... But also again with the same restrictions. Again Nvidia Web-Driver installed. Now also complete, I can call the Nvidia program in the system settings. But after a short time there are image artifacts, crashes, the OS doesn't start, sometimes it does, sometimes during boot in a loop. So again problems. Does anybody have any ideas, suggestions, proposals or anything about how I can get the iMac to run normally? What is your experience high voltage 12V, sounds like the similar problem? I would now remove the SSD and install a new OS. I am grateful for any advice, especially about current procedures.

Thank you very much and happy holidays.

You don't need any extra drivers for it to work, so the web drivers might actually do more harm. Maybe your issue is overheating? Can you check your temps? Also, it is a 21.5" or 27"? The psu is not enough for an mxm-b card in the smaller imac. I think its worth a try to use Nick's bios(you can find it in the first post).

 

[overshoot]

The 87.0.0.0.0 also comes with the Sierra 005-Security update.

Thanks! I'll check that out.

 

[overshoot]

87.0.0.0.0 is the latest one... unless Catalina 10.15.2 installs a newer one that is... haven't tried it.View attachment 884056

Can't help you with the card unfortunately.. you don't have the original card available?

Did the install of High Sierra work?

Catalina might work when the correct bootrom is installed, something to do with APFS support if I'm not mistaken, and you use catalina patcher by @dosdude1 but isn't advisable because the 6770M doesn't support Metal. I tried it and it's got real bad performance.

Yeah the High Sierra installation went smooth as well as all the updates.
I do still have the original GPU but it's dead to the point the OS won't boot with it.
The 6770M that I got from eBay is a Dell GPU with 1GB of VRAM patched for Mac. It worked well so far up to High Sierra. But I have since decided to get a GTX765M which also works fine under High Sierra and I've now patched with Nick vbios.
It's just that bootrom that I can't get to update for some reasons. But I'll try that Sierra update and also double check if I am not missing a High Sierra update.

 

[highvoltage12v]

Hey guys,

like many here in the forum, I also own an old iMac from mid 2011 with a broken graphics card.
The iMac uses MacOS High Sierra version 10.13.6. I replaced the broken GPU ATI Radeon HD 6970M with an Nvidia GeForce GTX 770M 3GB DDR5 3.0 Type B Alienware. The Mac displayed a regular picture on the screen after switching on and waiting a bit (about 5 minutes). I could surf the web normally. I was able to run music on YouTube for a while etc. without any problems. But when I wanted to play a game from Steam (Parkitec, worked without problems with the old GPU) the iMac hung up and restarted. This also happened when I hit the Mission Control button. Thereupon I installed the Nvidia Webdriver, after that the system did not start anymore. In safe mode I managed to restart the system. I then wanted to uninstall the Nvidia driver again. When I started the Nvidia program in the system settings I got the message that it could not be installed correctly and therefore could not be uninstalled. So I started goolge and found the possibility to uninstall the driver via the terminal. Everything worked quite normally again... But also again with the same restrictions. Again Nvidia Web-Driver installed. Now also complete, I can call the Nvidia program in the system settings. But after a short time there are image artifacts, crashes, the OS doesn't start, sometimes it does, sometimes during boot in a loop. So again problems. Does anybody have any ideas, suggestions, proposals or anything about how I can get the iMac to run normally? What is your experience high voltage 12V, sounds like the similar problem? I would now remove the SSD and install a new OS. I am grateful for any advice, especially about current procedures.

Thank you very much and happy holidays.

Hello,
Sorry about your 770m. My 770m had issues while installed in a 21.5" iMac due to power consumption issues. I now have my 770m installed in my 2nd 27" 2011 iMac, it hasn't had any issues. The main thing that needs to be taken into consideration is cooling/thermal I always keep my optical drive fan and CPU fan at 3000RPM using SMC fan control. Second did you apply a lot of K5 Pro all over the VRAM (MXM-a example shown) on your card? Unlike thermal paste you should apply a good amount of it all over the card. Since your iMac was a 6970m/2011 27" iMac. Did you cut away the excess metal on the heatsink of your iMac, if done correctly the card should sit flush with the heatsink and not look bent. I never use Nvidia web drivers on Mac OS, it should work fine without web drivers. Did you Flash your card to @Nick [D]vB firmware. You will have boot screen, which would help diagnose your blank screen issue.

 

[CMCook]

An SOS here...
I’ve been running my 27” 2011 iMac with a 765m for many months now with no issues. I’ve even installed a dyinglight for backlight control and updated wifi/Bluetooth for airdrop abilities. Everything was working great until I restarted today.

Startup chime and then black screen (as is typical), but then nothing. 5 min, 10 min, 20 min... still nothing. Forced another power off and startup, same thing. Tried booting to recovery with cmd + R. Nothing. Internet recovery, nothing.

Then I tried a P Ram reset and things got worse. Now it just continuously chimes and restarts. Won’t enter target disk mode and still won’t do a recovery. Tried a SMC reset and that didn’t help either. Oh, haven’t been able to boot it from a CD either.

Unless there is other guidance it appears I’m stuck trying to get my previously dead AMD card temporarily revived with an oven bake to see what is going on.

Any help appreciated.

Following up on my prior plea for help. Ended up getting a SOIC clip and programmed the 765m with Nicks beta3 VBIOS. Works like a champ now. Thanks again @Nick [D]vB ! Continued life for my 27" 2011 imac

 

[Aenne]

Thanks for the first answers and support.

I have a 27" iMac. Removing and installing the GPU went without problems. I spread the heat conductive paste on the chip well. On the other VRam chips I applied heat conductive pads. Not as many as on your example picture. I didn't have to remove any excess metal from the heatsink, which I could easily and firmly screw to the GPU. No, I did not flash the firmware. No idea how to do this and where to get the firmware from Nick. I was able to view the analysis from the console after a reboot. But I can't interpret it. I'm from the creative sector and have little technical understanding.

 

[highvoltage12v]

Thanks for the first answers and support.

I have a 27" iMac. Removing and installing the GPU went without problems. I spread the heat conductive paste on the chip well. On the other VRam chips I applied heat conductive pads. Not as many as on your example picture. I didn't have to remove any excess metal from the heatsink, which I could easily and firmly screw to the GPU. No, I did not flash the firmware. No idea how to do this and where to get the firmware from Nick. I was able to view the analysis from the console after a reboot. But I can't interpret it. I'm from the creative sector and have little technical understanding.

I think your heat conductive pads are spacing the GPU too far away from the metal and the GPU die isn't making contact. It is necessary to modify the metal when upgrading from the 6790m. Something is wrong here.

 

[hijglander]

Yeah the High Sierra installation went smooth as well as all the updates.
I do still have the original GPU but it's dead to the point the OS won't boot with it.
The 6770M that I got from eBay is a Dell GPU with 1GB of VRAM patched for Mac. It worked well so far up to High Sierra. But I have since decided to get a GTX765M which also works fine under High Sierra and I've now patched with Nick vbios.
It's just that bootrom that I can't get to update for some reasons. But I'll try that Sierra update and also double check if I am not missing a High Sierra update.

High Sierra Update 005 should automatically update your bootrom to the latest version.
If it doesn't there is always the option of using an external programmer but I would advice against that since it involves editting a, previously on this forum, posted bootrom and connecting a clip on the bios chip which could cause resistors to break of the mainboard (two of them broke when I tried it and had to mend/replace them with an HB pencil line).

 

[xanderon]

770m Clevo for a 27" iMac late 2009 - black screen, full blast fans

hey guys and community. first of all: you are all awesome but you heard that already.

i have a 770m Clevo from the bay and the result is a black screen - its not showing anything. I hope I didn't short anything (I rechecked the back under a magnifier) and didn't scratch the back during removing the original x-clamp.

so my hope is, after ordering the external usb programmer, that I can flash a dell bios from here https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios...&version=&interface=&memType=&memSize=&since= or directly the bios from nick.

my question: can I install every bios from other 770m or do I have to keep something in mind?

 

[FlorisVN]

770m Clevo for a 27" iMac late 2009 - black screen, full blast fans

hey guys and community. first of all: you are all awesome but you heard that already.

i have a 770m Clevo from the bay and the result is a black screen - its not showing anything. I hope I didn't short anything (I rechecked the back under a magnifier) and didn't scratch the back during removing the original x-clamp.

so my hope is, after ordering the external usb programmer, that I can flash a dell bios from here https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios...&version=&interface=&memType=&memSize=&since= or directly the bios from nick.

my question: can I install every bios from other 770m or do I have to keep something in mind?

flash with nick's kepler vbios beta 3, and try again..
if then still not working, perhaps your card is not mounted correctly, modified heatsink.. ?
perhaps card is bad.. tried external display also.. ?

 

[ich558]

what everything i need for flashing a supported nvidia card?

 

[xanderon]

@FlorisVN i will do this with the programmer. can someone sum up the differences between 770m Beta 3 , SAFE and MEM?

i also ordered a heatsink with 3 pipes and modded it of course, sits perfectly. Also I used K5 for everything but the core.

 

[highvoltage12v]

@FlorisVN i will do this with the programmer. can someone sum up the differences between 770m Beta 3 , SAVE and MEM?

i also ordered a heatsink with 3 pipes and modded it of course, sits perfectly. Also I used K5 for everything but the core.

Looks like you were able yo boot the card into Windows? If so you could flash it with NVflash.

 

[xanderon]

no I couldnt, windows ****ed itself up (or me with countless reboots). I thought about to use FlorisVN Win7 Image, but hadn't had the time yet. can I restore the image to a blank ssd without macOS?

 

[xanderon]

so i revived my windows again and plugged in the 770m. but nvflash64 navigated through TeamViewer doesn't see any devices. is that good or really really bad

device manager also cant see a new device …

only diagnostic 2 LEDs are visible

you know what - **** it

i wiggled and reinserted the gpu 770m and tada, I could flash the bios with nvflash through TeamViewer.
now I'm preparing Catalina install medium and windows is still trying to update itself … what a **** show this OS is.

never the less, the GPU is running, so I didn't kill it during the process, but I'm still not finished wish me luck guys.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Hi all!

I successfully managed to downgrade the GPU in a iMac 27 mid 2011 i7 to a K1100M. iMac System was and is running High Sierra.

Using a CH241A directly from my Mac mini late 2011 running Catalina I could flash the card. This works all like a charm. No windows, no Linux boot CD just installing the flashrom packages and properly connect to the chip. It was the first card I could grab.

Now I have three other cards: 1x K2100M and 2x K1100M flashed exactly the same way and verified the success by manually rereading and comparing the written and read files. Everything worked so far.

But none if these cards will run in my two 27" Late 2009 CoreDuo iMacs.
Is there another step missing on these older machines?

It is sometimes hard to catch all the details and facts on these 157+ pages

Thanks in advance

Wolf

 

[xanderon]

trying to boot my installer SD card with Catalina or others and the bar is not going beyond 2/3. any ideas? installing without the internal screen, just with external.

also I couldn't install Nvidia gpu drivers under windows, always exiting with errors. is there anything wrong with the card? strange behaviour

 

[highvoltage12v]

trying to boot my installer SD card with Catalina or others and the bar is not going beyond 2/3. any ideas? installing without the internal screen, just with external.

also I couldn't install Nvidia gpu drivers under windows, always exiting with errors. is there anything wrong with the card? strange behaviour

Catalina may not have the proper SD card Kexts to boot from anymore, so it stalls. A USB stick is ideal for booting Catalina. Also expect very slow performance without LCD, machine runs at 1.6GHz throttled.

 

[xanderon]

Alright. Next try tomorrow. Now I have to sleep thanks

another question: how important are the copper heatsinks for the vram on the back pointed to the screen? I installed a paper tunnel for the hdd Fan to blow right to the 770m but 2 vrams are not in the air flow.