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

[snam11]

is almost 2 days of testing, and what can i understand so far is:
seems the k1100m is not able to switch from simple graphical boot logo to login screen or desktop menu.i can clearly see some glitches when is supposed to do the graphical mode switch, but it keeps on hanging on logo and loading bar.
i've tested few ssd backup of my macbook pro and hackintosh (both with sierra), and using the lan cable i can see the machine has booted and is sharing folders, but i can't connect using sharing screen.
i've got few times a complete boot+graphical mode on screen, but it was random and i don't know how to reproduce this "good" behaviour

does it mean the card is fu**ed up or i must check something else?
can someone help me?

 

[Jumme_Cph]

iMac 2010 27". Replaced working HD5750 (TDP:86) with Dell K2100m (TDP:55) and flashed Nicks bios. Worked flawlessly, swap and flash took 45-60 minutes.

Q: What I instantly noted was a 10-20° C raise in internal temperatures - is that from the full backlight?!
I usually run the screen pretty dimmed, which is impossible now..
Dont think I will be keeping this GPU without a hardware mod or native backlight !!

Yes, that works too. The easiest way is to use the infra port in the middle, you can buy a connector for it, someone did something similar here before. One issue is that its 5V instead of 3.5V and the PWM control works better with 3.5V(you can dim the screen fully). But if something goes wrong with the module, you have to disassemble the imac to fix it. If you route it outside, you can jsut switch back to the original PWM wire easily Theres some unused connector(jtag i believe) on the motherboard and there is 3.5V there. If we could find a connector for that, that would be the best to supply power to the pwm module and just use the infrared for for usb data.

I want to fully understand before attempting the mod:

a) desolder IR plug from IR module (or get a spare connector) - and connect to what? Micro USB on the PWM module? (I never used the IR even one time anyway)

b) With "PWM wire", you mean the PWM signal from PWR module to the backlight board modular connector (6 PIN)? So - make a6 pin "extender", and route the PWM signal to the LCD..?

c) Steal 3.5 volt from somewhere like jtag connector (and GND??), and route it to the mentioned PWM module? Does that sound correct?

But basically I dont need 3.5 volt but can just send USB 5v to the PWM module?

 

[NOTNlCE]

iMac 2010 27". Replaced working HD5750 (TDP:86) with Dell K2100m (TDP:55) and flashed Nicks bios. Worked flawlessly, swap and flash took 45-60 minutes.

Q: What I instantly noted was a 10-20° C raise in internal temperatures - is that from the full backlight?!
I usually run the screen pretty dimmed, which is impossible now..
Dont think I will be keeping this GPU without a hardware mod or native backlight !!



I want to fully understand before attempting the mod:

a) desolder IR plug from IR module (or get a spare connector) - and connect to what? Micro USB on the PWM module? (I never used the IR even one time anyway)

b) With "PWM wire", you mean the PWM signal from PWR module to the backlight board modular connector (6 PIN)? So - make a6 pin "extender", and route the PWM signal to the LCD..?

c) Steal 3.5 volt from somewhere like jtag connector (and GND??), and route it to the mentioned PWM module? Does that sound correct?

But basically I dont need 3.5 volt but can just send USB 5v to the PWM module?

Temps are likely higher because of full backlight. The K2100M can have backlight control using OpenCore, coming soon™. No need to do the hardware mod unless you absolutely cannot wait. Many have run with full backlight without issue for a good while, so nothing will be harmed by the higher temperatures in the interim.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

is almost 2 days of testing, and what can i understand so far is:
seems the k1100m is not able to switch from simple graphical boot logo to login screen or desktop menu.i can clearly see some glitches when is supposed to do the graphical mode switch, but it keeps on hanging on logo and loading bar.
i've tested few ssd backup of my macbook pro and hackintosh (both with sierra), and using the lan cable i can see the machine has booted and is sharing folders, but i can't connect using sharing screen.
i've got few times a complete boot+graphical mode on screen, but it was random and i don't know how to reproduce this "good" behaviour

does it mean the card is fu**ed up or i must check something else?
can someone help me?

Hi!

First of all you might add a signature to your messages (done in your account settings) to reflect your hardware setting. It is nearly impossible to follow your postings over several pages and pick up all the details.

I did several upgrades here using mainly K1100M and K2100M cards. I flashed them in advance using a CH341A clip programmer. Every single card works and worked from the beginning flawlessly, even on systems where really old firmware and software has been installed before (10.11 and 10.12). In these cases a firmware upgrade is a real pain because the upgrade (sometimes obviously) needs an original Apple GPU installed. So please upgrade using your original card to High Sierra and latest security patches, then change the card and go further to Mojave and Catalina.

Other users confirmed lately that a lot of rubbish will be traded on grey market platforms...my personal statistics is clean, but this is only a single data point.

If you experience problems with this particular card and you have the Apple GPU working in the very same machine, the K1100M is likely broken and no one will be able to do a remote diagnostic.

Sorry....no good news from my side.

 

[snam11]

Hi!

First of all you might add a signature to your messages (done in your account settings) to reflect your hardware setting. It is nearly impossible to follow your postings over several pages and pick up all the details.

I did several upgrades here using mainly K1100M and K2100M cards. I flashed them in advance using a CH341A clip programmer. Every single card works and worked from the beginning flawlessly, even on systems where really old firmware and software has been installed before (10.11 and 10.12). In these cases a firmware upgrade is a real pain because the upgrade (sometimes obviously) needs an original Apple GPU installed. So please upgrade using your original card to High Sierra and latest security patches, then change the card and go further to Mojave and Catalina.

Other users confirmed lately that a lot of rubbish will be traded on grey market platforms...my personal statistics is clean, but this is only a single data point.

If you experience problems with this particular card and you have the Apple GPU working in the very same machine, the K1100M is likely broken and no one will be able to do a remote diagnostic.

Sorry....no good news from my side.

thanx for reply...
actually i have just the imac with the dead ati vga (vertical stripes and glitches), and the k1100m i've got from aliexpress, so i'm out of clues...
at the moment i can only boot using clover and with the flag nvdisable=1 (so no nvidia drivers are loaded)

 

[Jumme_Cph]

Temps are likely higher because of full backlight. The K2100M can have backlight control using OpenCore, coming soon™. No need to do the hardware mod unless you absolutely cannot wait. Many have run with full backlight without issue for a good while, so nothing will be harmed by the higher temperatures in the interim.

Point taken. Really anxious about the loose of backlight control, but "coming soon" sounds promising. Thanks.

 

[jowaju]

I'm not sure about the increased temps scenario being put forth. In my case the temps seemed to have dropped. I started with 2 identical Mid 2010 iMac 21.5" Desktops. One I left stock on the Radeon HD 5670 512MB, the other I installed and flashed a K1000m 2GB card. I just ran a test with a baseline from being woken up from sleep, and approximately 30m and 1hr later while running Roblox full screen.


Here is the baseline (5670 is the Frog w/Light Mode, K1000m is Red w/Dark Mode):

After 30 Minutes of Graphics use :

After 1 hour of Graphics use :

As you can see the K1000m with Dark Mode seems to run just as cool as the 5670. A few caveats :
The 5670 machine has not been taken apart yet, I did blow the fans out as best I could without taking out the LCD, but I'm sure the fans are still not as clean as the K1000m, which I blew out extensively when I changed out the video card. I also applied new thermal paste to the K1000m. The 5670 is running High Sierra 10.13.6 on APFS while the K1000m is running Catalina 10.15.2 on APFS. Both have 8GB ram and an SSD hard drive. Both sit next to each other on the same desk, so ambient temps are identical. You can see the brightness is WAY down on the 5670 machine, I used the PWM overlay software to dim the display on the K1000m, but of course that means the backlight was at full blast. Any questions feel free to ask, I'm planning on also upgrading the 2nd machine soon-ish, so any tests or comparisons will need to happen before that.

 

[nikey22]

The GPU diode is what needs to be compared. Notice how it is missing in your dark-mode screens. The Quadro K1000M, K2000M, K1100M, & K2100M don't register a GPU diode, this is a known loss when you do the upgrade.

 

[passatgt]

I'm not sure about the increased temps scenario being put forth. In my case the temps seemed to have dropped. I started with 2 identical Mid 2010 iMac 21.5" Desktops. One I left stock on the Radeon HD 5670 512MB, the other I installed and flashed a K1000m 2GB card. I just ran a test with a baseline from being woken up from sleep, and approximately 30m and 1hr later while running Roblox full screen.


Here is the baseline (5670 is the Frog w/Light Mode, K1000m is Red w/Dark Mode):
View attachment 897228View attachment 897230

After 30 Minutes of Graphics use :

View attachment 897232View attachment 897233

After 1 hour of Graphics use :

View attachment 897235View attachment 897236


As you can see the K1000m with Dark Mode seems to run just as cool as the 5670. A few caveats :
The 5670 machine has not been taken apart yet, I did blow the fans out as best I could without taking out the LCD, but I'm sure the fans are still not as clean as the K1000m, which I blew out extensively when I changed out the video card. I also applied new thermal paste to the K1000m. The 5670 is running High Sierra 10.13.6 on APFS while the K1000m is running Catalina 10.15.2 on APFS. Both have 8GB ram and an SSD hard drive. Both sit next to each other on the same desk, so ambient temps are identical. You can see the brightness is WAY down on the 5670 machine, I used the PWM overlay software to dim the display on the K1000m, but of course that means the backlight was at full blast. Any questions feel free to ask, I'm planning on also upgrading the 2nd machine soon-ish, so any tests or comparisons will need to happen before that.

Heat is not an issue with the 21.5", but the 27" display on full brightness gets really hot. Even a 5% reduction does the trick to cool it down. I think its possible that with the original gpu the 27" imac doesn't run at max brightness, only around 95%(even if you set it to the max in MacOS), because i don't remember getting it this hot before even if i was at max brightness.

 

[passatgt]

Point taken. Really anxious about the loose of backlight control, but "coming soon" sounds promising. Thanks.

But if you are curious, I have to test it still and update my app(and still waiting for some parts), but in theory the install would look like this:

1. Get a connector that fits into the infra port(JST GH 4PIN) or cut off the existing connector.
2. Get a 2 channel PWM module: https://www.ebay.com/itm/2-Channel-...le-Pulse-Frequency-Module-AU-NEW/302073175927
3. Since this module can only do serial communication, you also need a usb-serial module: https://www.ebay.com/itm/FT232RL-3-...ter-Module-for-Arduino-Mini-1pcs/383201566958
4. Based on the pinout(you can find it in post #4,659), wire up a micro usb connector to the infra connector and plug it in into the usb serial module.
5. From he serial module, connect VIN+ to 5V, VIN- to GND, and RXD to RXD(or TXD, i'm not sure, have to test it first)
6. Remove the PWM wire from the the 6 pin connector that connects to the LCD board. You don't need an extender or to cut the wire, because its possible to remove a single wire from the pcie connector, see example
7. Attach a new cable to the 6 pin connector(for example remove a wire from an old power supply or something) and solder the other end to the PWM module's PWM output
8. Set the frequency to 13khz and the duty cycle to 100% on the pwm module
9. Install my app and control the brightness

Using it with 5V should be fine, the only problem is that you cannot go below 20% brightness(but why would you want that anyway).

 

[SKYNET-1]

The GPU diode is what needs to be compared. Notice how it is missing in your dark-mode screens. The Quadro K1000M, K2000M, K1100M, & K2100M don't register a GPU diode, this is a known loss when you do the upgrade.

someone tried XRG?

 

[highvoltage12v]

Hi!

First of all you might add a signature to your messages (done in your account settings) to reflect your hardware setting. It is nearly impossible to follow your postings over several pages and pick up all the details.

I did several upgrades here using mainly K1100M and K2100M cards. I flashed them in advance using a CH341A clip programmer. Every single card works and worked from the beginning flawlessly, even on systems where really old firmware and software has been installed before (10.11 and 10.12). In these cases a firmware upgrade is a real pain because the upgrade (sometimes obviously) needs an original Apple GPU installed. So please upgrade using your original card to High Sierra and latest security patches, then change the card and go further to Mojave and Catalina.

Other users confirmed lately that a lot of rubbish will be traded on grey market platforms...my personal statistics is clean, but this is only a single data point.

If you experience problems with this particular card and you have the Apple GPU working in the very same machine, the K1100M is likely broken and no one will be able to do a remote diagnostic.

Sorry....no good news from my side.

Our Macs can complete EFI firmware updates with the MXM cards swapped. Last I had one however it didn't show the progress screen, you just need to let your iMac sit.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

thanx for reply...
actually i have just the imac with the dead ati vga (vertical stripes and glitches), and the k1100m i've got from aliexpress, so i'm out of clues...
at the moment i can only boot using clover and with the flag nvdisable=1 (so no nvidia drivers are loaded)

BTW: I NEVER needed clover or other tools to make the cards working in an iMac. Only when using dosdude1’s installer you have to make sure to explicitly skip the installation of the legacy video patches. Long story, short: MacOS own nvidia drivers are doing the complete work.

 

[maxpower_nld]

Thanks for all the great work done on reviving these great machines. Based on the info in this thread i swapped my HD4670 to a HP K2100M that boots to Windows 10 just fine. When changing the bios i struck a problem: my Quadro K2100M board seems to have a smaller bios rom. Verifying post flash results in: "Size difference between file(262144) and adapter firmware (101888)". Also no boot screen and booting Mac results in a white screen. Does anybody have have a clue whats might go wrong? When dumping the bios i noticed that my stock GK106 rom was only 99k while the Quadro_beta1.2 files are 256k in size.

Update: reading many old posts in this thread i now know the custom bios is only for the 2010 en 2011 models of 27" iMacs. My 2009 (Core2Duo) model will have a black bootscreen until it is supported one day. This explains the lack of a boot screen. The firmware upgrade must be fine then when skipping from a third to completed and not being able to confirm the flash.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Thanks for all the great work done on reviving these great machines. Based on the info in this thread i swapped my HD4670 to a HP K2100M that boots to Windows 10 just fine. When changing the bios i struck a problem: my Quadro K2100M board seems to have a smaller bios rom. Verifying post flash results in: "Size difference between file(262144) and adapter firmware (101888)". Also no boot screen and booting Mac results in a white screen. Does anybody have have a clue whats might go wrong? When dumping the bios i noticed that my stock GK106 rom was only 99k while the Quadro_beta1.2 files are 256k in size.

Im not the expert on this topic: When you flash the cards using a clip programmer it seems to be helpful to have a file size identical to the BIOS chip. While reading the BIOS you get the full file size, too, It reads every single bit. The software nvflash does not need to have this, so when you read and write you get only the real data until some EOF marker in the BIOS. Boot screen works out of the box, but you need to press the option key immediately after power on. The current vBIOS has a 5s delay before the display comes up. Often you have passed the right moment to press.

 

[maxpower_nld]

Im not the expert on this topic: When you flash the cards using a clip programmer it seems to be helpful to have a file size identical to the BIOS chip. While reading the BIOS you get the full file size, too, It reads every single bit. The software nvflash does not need to have this, so when you read and write you get only the real data until some EOF marker in the BIOS. Boot screen works out of the box, but you need to press the option key immediately after power on. The current vBIOS has a 5s delay before the display comes up. Often you have passed the right moment to press.

When flashing to the custom firmware it steps from 0% to about 43% and then rushes to 100% and confirms the flash is complete. When holding de Options key on boot i only get a white screen.

 

[fabienpascal]

I7 2600s works in my 21.5 Mac 2011 without problems

Yes. I ordered another one along with a K2100m which I found on eBay for $39.99 only. Go figure.
Installed and flashed. And the 2600s is purring like a kitten.
Last part I am waiting for is a new broadcom Wi-Fi card with the required adapter to install it into the iMac 2011 socket so I can make use sidecar.
It's really unbelievable how upgradeable this Mac is.

 

[frankthecat]

I'm not sure about the increased temps scenario being put forth. In my case the temps seemed to have dropped. I started with 2 identical Mid 2010 iMac 21.5" Desktops. One I left stock on the Radeon HD 5670 512MB, the other I installed and flashed a K1000m 2GB card. I just ran a test with a baseline from being woken up from sleep, and approximately 30m and 1hr later while running Roblox full screen.

The only increase in temperature versus with the original HD5670 installed that I saw was on the PSU Heatsink 1 temperature probe, with the GTX765m installed. That temp went from never really going over 60C, to regularly going over 80C, with the stock CPU fan profile. This is with only Firefox open and a 1440p Youtube video playing. If I bump the base CPU fan speed up by 500RPM, the temperature drops back down below 60C. I didn't see this change in temperature with the otherwise identical iMac, with a K2100M, that I rescued.

I have to pull the screen off again soon, so I might try swapping the mostly still working HD5670 (would kernel panic under heavy GPU load) back in to see if the temperature drops. I'm wondering if it's from the extra amperage the GTX765m draws versus the K2100M or HD5670??

In any case, if I switch to my custom "OH MY GOD IT'S MELTING" fan profile which just puts all fans at 100% speed, the iMac stays nice and cool... just to the detriment of acoustics.

 

[MysticIce]

Hi, can anyone share their experience if a K1000m 1GB works with the current rom. Does the video memory size affect the stability?

 

[snam11]

BTW: I NEVER needed clover or other tools to make the cards working in an iMac. Only when using dosdude1’s installer you have to make sure to explicitly skip the installation of the legacy video patches. Long story, short: MacOS own nvidia drivers are doing the complete work.

i don't know if the card is faulty or something else is wrong with the imac, because i can flash it fine using linux and nvflash, but the card won't go in full mode with graphic acceleration, it works just in vesa mode (boot screens for almost any os system: linux, os x, win), so i can see the boot process (also i can choose boot with alt pressed), but as soon the system switches to full graphic, i see only a little glitch and the screen hangs on the vesa loading screen.
i had some spare usb i used for my hackintosh and i did a try too with it. turned out it worked good, because of the clover flags (nvdisable=1 that forces vesa mode). that's why i'm talking about using clover atm to have an output screen, because i can have output only vesa mode forced on display (of course without acceleration).
i don't need yet dosdude1's patches because i'm still struggling with el capitain/sierra/high sierra. so there is no point in using it...

it's a weird issue and i don't really know if it's only k1100m related or something else is involved...

and frankly i don't think having a clip programmer would flash the card in a different way than using nvflash, but that's a question for the experts here: would it fix the issue?

 

[fabienpascal]

Hi, can anyone share their experience if a K1000m 1GB works with the current rom. Does the video memory size affect the stability?

You'll be fine with a 1GB card for day to day usage. These machine had video memory as low as 512MB.
Cheers,

 

[jowaju]

You'll be fine with a 1GB card for day to day usage. These machine had video memory as low as 512MB.
Cheers,

Actually even the 2011 iMac 21.5” had a 256mb video card option.

 

[fabienpascal]

i don't know if the card is faulty or something else is wrong with the imac, because i can flash it fine using linux and nvflash, but the card won't go in full mode with graphic acceleration, it works just in vesa mode (boot screens for almost any os system: linux, os x, win), so i can see the boot process (also i can choose boot with alt pressed), but as soon the system switches to full graphic, i see only a little glitch and the screen hangs on the vesa loading screen.
i had some spare usb i used for my hackintosh and i did a try too with it. turned out it worked good, because of the clover flags (nvdisable=1 that forces vesa mode). that's why i'm talking about using clover atm to have an output screen, because i can have output only vesa mode forced on display (of course without acceleration).
i don't need yet dosdude1's patches because i'm still struggling with el capitain/sierra/high sierra. so there is no point in using it...

it's a weird issue and i don't really know if it's only k1100m related or something else is involved...

and frankly i don't think having a clip programmer would flash the card in a different way than using nvflash, but that's a question for the experts here: would it fix the issue?

If they are artefacts once the GPU acceleration turns on, it may indicate that your GPU is faulty. I had a similar issue when I first try a K1000m I salvaged from an old DELL. We never noticed it was faulty on this laptop because the user was running of the iGPU. The Quadro was only used for some 3D acceleration in Maya.
When I put it in my iMac, immediately I noticed the artefacts (random green dots or missing UI elements). I thought it was an issue with cooling so I changed the thermal pads on the VRAM to the thermal compound recommended by Nick, then flash the firmware. Same issue.
It is possible that I bent the card too hard when I removed the x-clamp and damaged some soldering points.
Now I am running a K2100m. I took more care removing the X-clamp and running off this card while typing.

 

[snam11]

If they are artefacts once the GPU acceleration turns on, it may indicate that your GPU is faulty. I had a similar issue when I first try a K1000m I salvaged from an old DELL. We never noticed it was faulty on this laptop because the user was running of the iGPU. The Quadro was only used for some 3D acceleration in Maya.
When I put it in my iMac, immediately I noticed the artefacts (random green dots or missing UI elements). I thought it was an issue with cooling so I changed the thermal pads on the VRAM to the thermal compound recommended by Nick, then flash the firmware. Same issue.
It is possible that I bent the card too hard when I removed the x-clamp and damaged some soldering points.
Now I am running a K2100m. I took more care removing the X-clamp and running off this card while typing.

actually i don't see any artifacts, i can see some flichering (2/3 blink on the top/bottom of the screen for like 1/10 of sec) at some point on the white loading screen. i think that's the point where the system try to switch to full mode, also is the same point where the system shows up if vesa is enabled.but it's just speculation i'm not an expert...

 

[jowaju]

I received an error message during install. I've got the bootcamp partition and there are files in it. Here's the first error from the log file:

Mar 2 21:21:42 iMac installd[756]: ./postflight: 2020-03-02 21:21:42.778 winclone[908:27608] Updating Master Boot Record: 94.00
Mar 2 21:21:42 iMac installd[756]: ./postflight: 2020-03-02 21:21:42.778 winclone[908:27608] Updating MBR On Device
Mar 2 21:21:42 iMac installd[756]: ./postflight: 2020-03-02 21:21:42.780 winclone[908:27608] Starting sector is 945317888
Mar 2 21:21:42 iMac installd[756]: ./postflight: 2020-03-02 21:21:42.780 winclone[908:27608] updating MBR and partition info
Mar 2 21:21:43 iMac installd[756]: ./postflight: 2020-03-02 21:21:43.603 winclone[908:27549] Mounting /dev/disk0s4
Mar 2 21:21:43 iMac installd[756]: ./postflight: 2020-03-02 21:21:43.821 winclone[908:27549] Error updating Master Boot Record and BCD
Mar 2 21:21:43 iMac installd[756]: ./postflight: Failed restoring to /dev/disk0s4.

Appreciate any suggestion. It's a mid-2010 iMac 21.5 and I put in the Dell k1100m card. Running normally, just no boot screen. Running High Sierra currently 10.13.6.

Thanks!

What is your disk layout in Disk Utility?