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

[Thecoretechreview]

Hi guys,

I have also been a lurker on this thread, and recently purchased a GTX 780m from eBay second hand to throw into my 27" 3.1ghz i5.

Unfortunately I could not get the iMac to boot.

Here is what I did.

• Installed the latest web driver and Cuba software from nvidia, enabled screen sharing.
• Shut down the machine, disassembled it down the to gpu.
• Installed the 780m with fresh thermal compound and new pads, for the card to fit without bending I had to file the top of the 3pipe heat sink so that the larger chips at the top of the 780 could have a thermal pad and touch the heat sink without making a banana shape.
• Assembled the machine upto the screen.
• Booted the machine while watching the status LEDs illuminate.

This is where I got stuck, only led 1 and led 2 illuminate, and the cpu fan runs at full speed!

I repeated the installation process, to make sure that everything was plugged in and installed the screen also.

The machine now booted with a chime, the two LEDs illuminated and the fans ran normally.

However I do not get anything to the screen, and screen sharing does not work.

The 3rd and 4th LEDs do not illuminate.

Is there anything else I could do to confirm this card is dead? It came from an Alienware laptop and has unchanged bios.

 

[DriveSlow]

Hi guys,

I have also been a lurker on this thread, and recently purchased a GTX 780m from eBay second hand to throw into my 27" 3.1ghz i5.

Unfortunately I could not get the iMac to boot.

Here is what I did.

• Installed the latest web driver and Cuba software from nvidia, enabled screen sharing.
• Shut down the machine, disassembled it down the to gpu.
• Installed the 780m with fresh thermal compound and new pads, for the card to fit without bending I had to file the top of the 3pipe heat sink so that the larger chips at the top of the 780 could have a thermal pad and touch the heat sink without making a banana shape.
• Assembled the machine upto the screen.
• Booted the machine while watching the status LEDs illuminate.

This is where I got stuck, only led 1 and led 2 illuminate, and the cpu fan runs at full speed!

I repeated the installation process, to make sure that everything was plugged in and installed the screen also.

The machine now booted with a chime, the two LEDs illuminated and the fans ran normally.

However I do not get anything to the screen, and screen sharing does not work.

The 3rd and 4th LEDs do not illuminate.

Is there anything else I could do to confirm this card is dead? It came from an Alienware laptop and has unchanged bios.

What exactly happens? Is your iMac running but the screen is dead? If so, try to connect to your machine via remote access.

 

[Thecoretechreview]

What exactly happens? Is your iMac running but the screen is dead? If so, try to connect to your machine via remote access.

Hey thanks for your reply, yes the iMac does boot into OS X and is visible on my network........ The screen is dead and doesn't appear to be getting a signal.

When accessing the iMac remotely I can see the files on my iMac however screen sharing via remote access does not function....... It times out. I have screen sharing enabled in the sharing preferences.

I have since purchased a 770m to try in the next few days but ultimately would love to get the iMac working with the 780m

 

[DriveSlow]

Is anyone interest in buying my working 780m card or maybe my whole iMac? I'll switch over to build me a Hackintosh.

It's a 2010 iMac with this specs:

• CPU: Intel Core i7-880 (3.06 GHz) – Original was a i5-760 CPU
• RAM: 16 GB Ram - Original was 8 GB
• GPU: Geforce GTX 780m with 4 GB RAM (Original was a Radeon HD 5750 1 GB RAM which i upgraded to a Radeon HD 6970m 2 GB RAM. I use the 6970 as backup GPU if i need the Boot Menu or something like that.)
• SSD: I built in a 256 GB Samsung SSD without removing the SuperDrive
• HDD: I replaced the original 1 TB Seagate HDD with a 3 TB Seagate HDD (works fine as Fusion Drive in combination with the SSD)
• OS X: Currently running El Capitan, no issues

So, if anyone is interested in buying my 780m or the iMac, drop me a line and we will negotiate the price.
[doublepost=1474287417][/doublepost]

Hey thanks for your reply, yes the iMac does boot into OS X and is visible on my network........ The screen is dead and doesn't appear to be getting a signal.

When accessing the iMac remotely I can see the files on my iMac however screen sharing via remote access does not function....... It times out. I have screen sharing enabled in the sharing preferences.

I have since purchased a 770m to try in the next few days but ultimately would love to get the iMac working with the 780m

Okay, that's weird. If you're able to find your mac on your network and can browse the files, screen sharing should work. Never had this problem and I have no clue what the problem may be.

 

[Thecoretechreview]

Is anyone interest in buying my working 780m card or maybe my whole iMac? I'll switch over to build me a Hackintosh.

It's a 2010 iMac with this specs:

• CPU: Intel Core i7-880 (3.06 GHz) – Original was a i5-760 CPU
• RAM: 16 GB Ram - Original was 8 GB
• GPU: Geforce GTX 780m with 4 GB RAM (Original was a Radeon HD 5750 1 GB RAM which i upgraded to a Radeon HD 6970m 2 GB RAM. I use the 6970 as backup GPU if i need the Boot Menu or something like that.)
• SSD: I built in a 256 GB Samsung SSD without removing the SuperDrive
• HDD: I replaced the original 1 TB Seagate HDD with a 3 TB Seagate HDD (works fine as Fusion Drive in combination with the SSD)
• OS X: Currently running El Capitan, no issues

So, if anyone is interested in buying my 780m or the iMac, drop me a line and we will negotiate the price.
[doublepost=1474287417][/doublepost]
Okay, that's weird. If you're able to find your mac on your network and can browse the files, screen sharing should work. Never had this problem and I have no clue what the problem may be.

I'm interested in the 780m!

So I installed the 770m, OSX boots perfectly..... Haven't done any testing yet.

Winblows does not! Unless I plug the iMac into a second screen......

Drive slow, can you help with this?

 

[DriveSlow]

I'm interested in the 780m!

So I installed the 770m, OSX boots perfectly..... Haven't done any testing yet.

Winblows does not! Unless I plug the iMac into a second screen......

Drive slow, can you help with this?

So drop me a PM for the 780m.

Back to your problem. Are you running BootCamp? All drivers installed? When you plug the second display in, do you see the iMac Monitor in your display settings?

 

[noble95]

Anyone with the Alienware 780m update to macOS Sierra yet? Is that versions bios supposed to work with the 780m?

 

[Thecoretechreview]

So drop me a PM for the 780m.

Back to your problem. Are you running BootCamp? All drivers installed? When you plug the second display in, do you see the iMac Monitor in your display settings?

I am running boot camp, nvidia drivers are installed although they had trouble doing the full install from the download package........ I installed before experience and they installed just fine after.

I see both screens in the display settings, one is named apple and the offer is Samsung as its a tv which I'm plugging into. For now I have duplicated screen one onto screen two.

In device manager both screens are being showing as upnp display monitor??

 

[DriveSlow]

I am running boot camp, nvidia drivers are installed although they had trouble doing the full install from the download package........ I installed before experience and they installed just fine after.

I see both screens in the display settings, one is named apple and the offer is Samsung as its a tv which I'm plugging into. For now I have duplicated screen one onto screen two.

In device manager both screens are being showing as upnp display monitor??

I can't say if it's normal behavior that both display are showing up at UPNP displays. And I'm helpless to your issue. If your iMac runs, BootCamp should also. Maybe it's the driver. A guess may be, to uninstall the Nvidia driver from your Windows and try it.

 

[Thecoretechreview]

I can't say if it's normal behavior that both display are showing up at UPNP displays. And I'm helpless to your issue. If your iMac runs, BootCamp should also. Maybe it's the driver. A guess may be, to uninstall the Nvidia driver from your Windows and try it.

Can anyone confirm if monitors are being displayed as something else in bootcamp other than upnp display?

 

[Thecoretechreview]

I can't say if it's normal behavior that both display are showing up at UPNP displays. And I'm helpless to your issue. If your iMac runs, BootCamp should also. Maybe it's the driver. A guess may be, to uninstall the Nvidia driver from your Windows and try it.

So I have removed all traces of the nvidia driver, strangely it removes the pnp monitor at the same time in device manager.....

Reinstalling drivers makes no change, I still only get the second monitor to work.

Tried installing the nvidia bootcamp drivers from the sub and it says there is no such device.... And won't install the drivers.

I am re downloading the bootcamp drivers with the 770m installed to see if that changes anything.

 

[DriveSlow]

Anyone with the Alienware 780m update to macOS Sierra yet? Is that versions bios supposed to work with the 780m?

I tried to update my El Capitan to Sierra. The installation progress were running fine, but after the final boot the display keeps black, because the iMac is running a 1024x768 resolution. The connection via screen sharing works, but the screen is fuzzy. After installed the newest Nvidia drivers nothing changed. Display black, screen sharing is broken, resolution is stuck at 1024x768.

I'll give you guys an update if I found a solution.

 

[flszen]

I tried to update my El Capitan to Sierra. The installation progress were running fine, but after the final boot the display keeps black, because the iMac is running a 1024x768 resolution. The connection via screen sharing works, but the screen is fuzzy. After installed the newest Nvidia drivers nothing changed. Display black, screen sharing is broken, resolution is stuck at 1024x768.

I'll give you guys an update if I found a solution.

Yeah, my 770m booted black too. Sounds like the same situation you're in. The iMac's screen seems to show up as a "projector" in the Displays menu bar. I couldn't visit System Preferences->Displays either. It would give some cryptic error message.

I wound up restoring from Time Machine. I'll probably mess around with it again soon, so no solution here yet either.

 

[Thecoretechreview]

Yeah, my 770m booted black too. Sounds like the same situation you're in. The iMac's screen seems to show up as a "projector" in the Displays menu bar. I couldn't visit System Preferences->Displays either. It would give some cryptic error message.

I wound up restoring from Time Machine. I'll probably mess around with it again soon, so no solution here yet either.

Hey flszen, do you run boot camp on your iMac? If so does your 770m work ok?

Can you tell me the Id or bios that you have running on the card?

Thanks

Phil

 

[flszen]

Hey flszen, do you run boot camp on your iMac? If so does your 770m work ok?

Can you tell me the Id or bios that you have running on the card?

Thanks

Phil

I don't run boot camp, so I can't say for sure if Windows would continue to boot for me or not, although I suspect it would be fine. The card is identified as NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770M, Vendor: NVIDIA 0x10de, Device ID: 0x11e0, Revision ID: 0x00a1, ROM Revision: preset 1.0.0. When I got it, I believe it was supposed to have been taken out of a Alienware laptop.

As with all non-Apple cards, it "normally" boots with a black screen until the OS loads the graphics drivers. I'm a little suspicious that perhaps something went sideways with the Sierra installation. If I hold down Shift to boot in safe mode/no extensions the display does come on and is usable, but of its using software rendering so that's not what I want long-term. If I boot without Shift, I can screen share to it and graphics acceleration is working, but the resolution is locked at something low. Either way, it wasn't letting me visit the Display system preferences.

 

[Thecoretechreview]

HELP!

So the 770m works great in OS X!

However the iMac screen does not illuminate in Windows, it works however you can't see anything because the backlight is not on!

Can anyone help with turning the backlight on?!

 

[mhafeez]

I can clarify this - upgraded iMac with non-AppleEFI MXM cards does not works in finicky macOS Sierra.

 

[rouhansamoo]

Should i buy lenovo celeron $250

 

[DriveSlow]

I can clarify this - upgraded iMac with non-AppleEFI MXM cards does not works in finicky macOS Sierra.

Do you have any source for this? I mean i tried it, and I can't run Sierra with my 780m, yet.

 

[mhafeez]

Do you have any source for this? I mean i tried it, and I can't run Sierra with my 780m, yet.

Twice have I tried;
1st updating OSX from ElCap to Sierra - No luck
2nd fresh install Sierra - still no luck

The only luck I got running Sierra is in Safe Mode.

 

[yifuhood]

apple is going to release a new thunderbolt display with a builtin graphic card. I want to see if this up coming card is removable. probably not, but maybe

 

[noble95]

I can clarify this - upgraded iMac with non-AppleEFI MXM cards does not works in finicky macOS Sierra.

Have you tried installing the stock Apple card and installing Sierra with that? Then install the 780m with it already upgraded?

 

[TechnoV]

I opened a thread, but here basically is the best thread to ask you.

iMac 2011
21.5"'
i5 2400s
6750m

I am ready to upgrade 6750m with 6970m from 27" 2011 iMac.
Any success with this project?
I can find apple 6970m firmware ready card.
Any difficulties? Issus with el capitan?

Thanks in advance.

 

[idoccurt]

I always go with largest GPU, esp with retina displays.

 

[hoeveler]

More details: If you use an MXM-B card it will be larger than the MXM-A card that the ATI is; so it will hang over the HDD. It doesn't cause any issues though, no modifications needed. During the install the heatsink from the ATI 6770M is a just a tiny bit too small, half of one of the ram chips will be uncovered. This doesn't seem to be a big deal as it is the chip positioned closest to HDD fan and I have been monitoring the heat sensors and they don't seem an higher that with the ATI card even playing graphics intensive games.

This wasn't entirely the case for me. I bought an Nvidia GTX 660M from China, salvaged from an Dell Alienware laptop. I had to trim away the shroud from the heatsink because there were two components on the GPU board that were in the way of the copper pipes and shroud. I was concerned that if I didn't do a little hardware hack to relieve pressure from that area, it would crack the GPU in two once I tightened the bracket holding the heatsink to the GPU. I was nervous to do it, but I discovered that I could remove the shroud from the copper and trim away the metal. That was about 75% of the pressure point. VERY CAREFULLY bending the copper tubes relieved the other 25%. ALSO, I replaced the HDD with an SSD at the same time, so that definitely helped because the extra GPU size might have interfered with the HDD vs. the smaller SSD.