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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.
Nvidia 860m have black screen on new catalina update .4 .... Can anyone help.me to.fix that? I mean we hope that nick make.an rom for this kepler gpu....
 
HighSierraCosworth said:
Ah yes, someone else with the curse
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It's not a curse. It's simply MXM-B in an 21.5" MXM-A iMac shouldn't be attempted at all. I have the same config in one of my 21.5" iMac and there are stability issues. This was purely because me and @Nick [D]vB wanted to know what would happen if a less wattage 765M MXM-B card was installed in an iMac that doesn't support MXM-B!!! There is somewhat a Fix though, using a flag with OpenCore called "PowerTimeoutKernelPanic" can help prevent 2011 21.5" (with incorrect MXM-B) iMacs from Kernel Panicking. But as you know OpenCore doesn't currently support 765m/770m/780m due to a infinite kernel panic on boot related to AppleGraphicsDeviceControl. So in the meantime what can we do about using Open Core on NON-Brightness ready cards? We have to fake the brightness control values. By adding "@0,pwm-info" "02180064 78690000 10270000 8C0A0000 00040000 00000000" to Open Core's Device Properties section we can "Fake" enable backlight control preventing a Kernel Panic on boot. What this means is you can boot using Open Core, lower the chances of Kernel Panics and have a backlight slider that does nothing.

The purpose of this config is to use bootflag "PowerTimeoutKernelPanic" to prevent more frequent panics. If someone really wanted to try Open Core on a 27" with a 765m/770m/780m this could be used as well, but really has no impact.


@jonwatso I still don't recommend cramming MXM-B cards in a 21.5" iMac....


I'm adding another config that changes the Board ID. I feel like my iMac performs better when changed to iMac Pro, even less panics (21.5") dare I say stable. If using this config, you should also replace your AppleIntelSNBGraphicsFB.kext for proper sleep
 

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will flashing 770m enable refind or will I have to use keyboard to get to apple boot picker?

thanks!
 
DJRath said:
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!
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Anyone else had luck flashing Nicks 780m bios on the 880m? The GTX 880m is essentially a re-branded GTX 780m, with slightly higher clock rate so possibly that's why it worked for DJRath.
 
highvoltage12v said:
@jonwatso I still don't recommend cramming MXM-B cards in a 21.5" iMac....
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To be fair, I think its more the fact that I was running 10.15.4 rather than the card. The Mac was running fine previously, but I get your point. This Mac was free and this is more of a proof of concept.

Thanks for the kext files, I'll give them a try.
 
jonwatso said:
To be fair, I think its more the fact that I was running 10.15.4 rather than the card. The Mac was running fine previously, but I get your point. This Mac was free and this is more of a proof of concept.

Thanks for the kext files, I'll give them a try.
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Please give Open Core a try with the iMac Pro Config. My iMac was running great today.
 
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@highvoltage12v where do these config plist's go?

I've just caught up on the Wiki (Periodically come back to this from time to time) only reading about the stability issues re: 765M now. Its a shame that these card's bring so many issues but is understandable as to why.
 
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After reading enuf posts to make my eyes bleed, I think I am ready to join you all. I bought a K2100M for cheap, and plan to install this and a SSD into a 21.5” 2011 iMac loaded with High Sierra. I would like to only open my computer once, so I’d like to verify my plan to make it as painless as possible. Going off page 1 of this thread(at the time of this writing), this is my plan:

1. Image the SSD in a USB enclosure to the contents of the current hard drive.
2. Using a CH341 programmer, flash the K2100M BIOS to the one linked to on page one of this thread using one of my many Windows computers.
3. Open the iMac; install the SSD and video card.
4. Boot the system. Install an SSD trim program.
5. Run OpenCore to get screen brightness, etc. working.
6. Load Catalina.

I know there are other ways to program the K2100M. But I have never remoted into the Mac before, and am not a Linux guy (nor really a Mac expert). I am a relative expert on Windows. The Linux boot USB sounds like a good way to program it, but I’m a little leary of what I don’t know, and it sounds like one has to keep the computer open because the existing drive has to be disconnected. If I’m wrong about this, please speak up. Flashing via the CH341 sounds easy enough.

I also have questions about the best way to upgrade to Catalina. Is it smarter to load a new copy to the SSD and then use Time Machine to get all the programs and data back, or do as stated above(image the HD, then upgrade).

BTW, thanks to the people here who have scripted and tested.
 
jonwatso said:
@highvoltage12v where do these config plist's go?

I've just caught up on the Wiki (Periodically come back to this from time to time) only reading about the stability issues re: 765M now. Its a shame that these card's bring so many issues but is understandable as to why.
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You need to download Open core from Here and use Balena Etcher to image it either to an SD card Or Flash Drive. Once that is done you need to enable "show hidden files" the go to EFI/OC and rename replace the Config file with the one from a few posts above. You can boot Open Core using the Option key to boot from startup.
 
Hello.
I read this forum for a long time and finally decided to update my imac. I took here such a video card as in the photo. it works 100% on other computers, but does not start on Imac. help, what can be done ??
Symptoms:
after installing in imac, turn on the power cable. the left LED out of four is lit on the motherboard. I press the enable button, the fans turn on and immediately turn off
[automerge]1585679539[/automerge]
I have a bios from this video card
[automerge]1585679661[/automerge]
 

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@Mr.McNick what type of card is that? As in what manufacturer, only certain cards / brands work.
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highvoltage12v said:
You need to download Open core from Here and use Balena Etcher to image it either to an SD card Or Flash Drive. Once that is done you need to enable "show hidden files" the go to EFI/OC and rename replace the Config file with the one from a few posts above. You can boot Open Core using the Option key to boot from startup.
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Amazing! This looks like a great little tool. Looks like it will resolve the windows 10 Audio issue which is fantastic. Thanks for your hard work. For what its worth, I was able to install windows 10 yesterday and could play some games without any stability issues. Having a lot of trouble getting Catalina installed, though I think its my installer files as 10.15.4 installs fine, just can't get 10.15.3 to install. Once I work this out I will the iMac Pro configuration.
 
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Radeon RX 480 - if you might take a look at the first photo.

But if you would have searched this thread before you bought the card you might have found out, that there was a note from @Nick [D]vB , that such card might work, but only with a new custom BIOS. That is what I understood form reading the posts I found with "search" limited to this thread.

Any other more substantial opinions - have never seen such a card in live?
 
jonwatso said:
what type of card is that? As in what manufacturer, only certain cards / brands work.
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before but it is written that AMD cards are preferred and have built-in support
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Ausdauersportler said:
Radeon RX 480 - if you might take a look at the first photo.

But if you would have searched this thread before you bought the card you might have found out, that there was a note from @Nick [D]vB , that such card might work, but only with a new custom BIOS. That is what I understood form reading the posts I found with "search" limited to this thread.

Any other more substantial opinions - have never seen such a card in live?
Click to expand...


They write that this card is a complete analogue of the wx7100. but not sure.
 
Mr.McNick said:
before but it is written that AMD cards are preferred and have built-in support
[automerge]1585689033[/automerge]



They write that this card is a complete analogue of the wx7100. but not sure.
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This video card is very interesting in terms of what is very cheap and a full-fledged rx480 non-mobile version


By the way, the card costs about 70-80 $ and I think that this is the best replacement option if there is a BIOS
 
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Mr.McNick said:
This video card is very interesting in terms of what is very cheap and a full-fledged rx480 non-mobile version
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The WX7100 is basically a RX580 MXM card. There is a misleading note in the middle of this thread but to be honest: I personally know nothing about vBIOS programing. For this (or that?) reason I stick with the small list on the very first page. These cards are known to work with the limitations listed there. Even then it is some work to do the change and to configure OpenCore and Mojave or Catalina....

You can chose from a wider list of all Kepler based Nvidia cards and will miss backlight control and boot screen and sometimes more.

Maybe @Nick [D]vB or @highvoltage12v come up with some more help and hope.
 
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Ausdauersportler said:
The WX7100 is basically a RX580 MXM card. There is a misleading note in the middle of this thread but to be honest: I personally know nothing about vBIOS programing. For this (or that?) reason I stick with the small list on the very first page. These cards are known to work with the limitations listed there. Even then it is some work to do the change and to configure OpenCore and Mojave or Catalina....

You can chose from a wider list of all Kepler based Nvidia cards and will miss backlight control and boot screen and sometimes more.

Maybe @Nick [D]vB or @highvoltage12v come up with some more help and hope.
Click to expand...


I really hope that someone will help, I already bought this card and I don’t have an exit.
the main thing is that this karta can bring our imac to the level of modern imac
 
Could you please explain the configuration screen more? I can display the same screen with the bottom right pop-up to the config.plist but what do I do then?

My 2009 27" imac with K1100M boots Catalina 10.15.4 fine using Catalina Loader but at each boot I have to press the Option key to display the efi boot screen with the installed HDD and Catalina Loader SD card and then select the Catalina Loader SD to call an another screen with the boot HDD which I select and then the boot completes. This seems a little clunky. Is there no way to automate this so the iMac boots straight to the Finder?

Have I missed some setting in the Catalina Loader core configuration?


Ausdauersportler said:
This will work, but it uses the Apple EFI partition. This was not the intention right now. I would have used a separate SD card or an USB stick to put the "Catalina Loader" image onto.

The next step would be to select this image as the primary boot target in the system pref pane. Using this method you sacrifice the SD slot for booting (/dev/disk2 in my config below), but it is more easy to replace or change the boot selection (using the physical act of pulling the card or stick off the machine) just in case something went wrong on boot. OpenCore could be used to do nasty things on an original Apple system. Otherwise you have to boot from a third disk and change the config.

A third option is the creation and usage of another small partition of 1GB size on disk0 (your primary boot disk) and put there the Catalina Loader there (/dev/disk0s3 in my config listed below) instead of using the SD card or USB stick method. Here my boot disk layout. I disabled the internal boot loader for now by just renaming it. The partition could not be selected for boot until the name has been changed back to "Catalina Loader".

Code: 
wolf@WolfsiMac27 ~ % diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         449.1 GB   disk0s2
   3:                  Apple_HFS Catalina Loader (v01)   629.1 MB   disk0s3

/dev/disk2 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                            Catalina Loader        *7.9 GB     disk2

Configuring the Open Core is done by editing the config.plist found in /EFI/OC/config.plist or more easy by using the Open Core Configurator. Take a look at the picture attached.
Click to expand...
 
nekton1 said:
Could you please explain the configuration screen more? I can display the same screen with the bottom right pop-up to the config.plist but what do I do then?
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doubly click on the OC/EFI/config.plist to start up the Open Core Configurator
My 2009 27" imac with K1100M boots Catalina 10.15.4 fine using Catalina Loader but at each boot I have to press the Option key to display the efi boot screen with the installed HDD and Catalina Loader SD card and then select the Catalina Loader SD to call an another screen with the boot HDD which I select and then the boot completes. This seems a little clunky. Is there no way to automate this so the iMac boots straight to the Finder?
Click to expand...
If you have selected the Catalina Loader in the Startup Pref pane you do not need the option key loop at all...
Have I missed some setting in the Catalina Loader core configuration?
Click to expand...
Please read and study the Open Core Documentation delivered onto the image. There are ways to boot directly into a certain disk slice aka installation....
 
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