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Hi,
after several days of study in this fantastic forum, I'm waiting the components for upgrading my iMac 21.5" mid 2011: video card K2100M (that I'll flash with a CH341A programmer thanks to @Nick [D]vB), and CPU i7-2600S.
The problem is that now I've reviewed photos of CPU that i've buyed and it isn't i7-2600S but is a i72600 ! [See attached photo]
My question is: has the i7-2600 the same compatibility of i7-2600s with my iMac 21.5 or I must to buy the i7-2600s one ?
Thanks in advance for your help.
In the 21.5" it really has to be the 2600s. The 2600s has lower power requirements and heat dissipation then the regular i7-2600 (65 watts vs 95 watts), the regular 2600 will only work in the 27" iMac.
 
iMac 2011 accepts the 2600k i7 CPU
i have read some mixed results. that the "K" version is not working for some, and some have suc6 with the i7 2600K.

i go with this. Apple never sold a Imac with the "K" version. and the bios form Apple don't support over-clock.
thats why i ordered a i7 2600 form alie. it will arrive this week, or early next week.
but if the i7 K version is working. go with that, but also bare in minde you have little advantage. IMHO
 
Might have found a nice 770m - any reason why this wouldn't work now that Alienware / Dell isn't the only recommendation? It says its for MSI / Clevo.

Should workout okay. But I wonder what type of BIOS chip is underneath that plastic shielding. You might be able to still get away with using a SOIC-8 clip for hardware-based flashing if it turns out to be the WSON package.
MSI770M.jpg
 
Well, Apple also never sold a Imac with a Xeon E3 1230 but this cpu also works fine. But yes a 2600k makes some problems
haha i knew it.
That it would be posted sooner or later. i wanted to edit my post to add. But Wanted to see who would respond with it.

I wanted to say
but yes, apple also never sold the imac 2011 with a nvida k2000m. or what ever card we are putting in now.

Regarding the i7 2600.
K version is working. But also reeding before I order a CPU what version is best to put in the imac. Because, as I said earlier. The i7 k version have mixed results, and the apple bios can't take advantage of the overlooking possibility (not native to my knowledge) and the imac 2011 was optionally sold with the non k version.
I stick on the non k version for my 2011 27"
Also because that's what recommended, and on it's way and while arrive in a few days. So, yea.

It's only 7% faster according to CPU bench test.
So, not really a motivation for me to order a k version instead. And sell the CPU
 
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So, my saga continues, both of the cards (WX7100 and WX4170) do not show good signs. Both have been flashed using a programmer with Nick's BIOS from this post. Flashing and verification with flashrom went without any issues.

Symptoms the cards are showind are:

WX7100 - short fan spin and stop, diagnostic lights - only LED 1 stays on (I didn't even bother to put the display on)

WX4170 - the iMac started twice without a display - diagnostic LED 1 and LED 2 turned on, fans spin, startup chime, so I decided to put the display on... And nothing... I took the display out, and now when the card is in, after I press the power button LED 1 turns off and I am in a loop.

EDIT: WX4170 shows before mentiined symptoms randomly. I managed to put it back in. After I press the power button LED2 lits up. Then after couple of attempts I am again back to the scenario where LED1 turns off after pressing the power button.

EDIT 2: Changing back to the original 6770 works ok.

So I am stuck here without ability to progress. Any ideas are welcome.
 
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So, my saga continues, both of the cards (WX7100 and WX4170) do not show good signs. Both have been flashed using a programmer with Nick's BIOS from this post. Flashing and verification with flashrom went without any issues.

Symptoms the cards are showind are:

WX7100 - short fan spin and stop, diagnostic lights - only LED 1 stays on (I didn't even bother to put the display on)

WX4170 - the iMac started twice without a display - diagnostic LED 1 and LED 2 turned on, fans spin, startup chime, so I decided to put the display on... And nothing... I took the display out, and now when the card is in, after I press the power button LED 1 turns off and I am in a loop.

EDIT: WX4170 shows before mentiined symptoms randomly. I managed to put it back in. After I press the power button LED2 lits up. Then after couple of attempts I am again back to the scenario where LED1 turns off after pressing the power button.

EDIT 2: Changing back to the original 6770 works ok.

So I am stuck here without ability to progress. Any ideas are welcome.
Maybe a redundant qwestion.
But nothing shorts on the back of the card with the X bracket ?

Also what card you have.

Yes I know that might. Look like a psychopath about this topic. Don't worry I will keep it short.

But
I would like to pin point what version of the card works with nicks bios. And what version people are having suc6 with
This Amazon listing is selling the fire pro W 7100. (7170)
At the edge of the card is the model number ending with 00B.
(109-C769A1-00B)
But from the message I have form DES globe
Should that card also be the WX card.

But on this card the "ellesmere" text is missing

I don't want to start again. About cards and numbers ;) . But it might help IMHO
 
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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.

...

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.

Is there a text field somewhere to specify which partition name to boot from? perhaps the way clover does it? that's a real time saver...
 
So, my saga continues, both of the cards (WX7100 and WX4170) do not show good signs. Both have been flashed using a programmer with Nick's BIOS from this post. Flashing and verification with flashrom went without any issues.

Symptoms the cards are showind are:

WX7100 - short fan spin and stop, diagnostic lights - only LED 1 stays on (I didn't even bother to put the display on)

WX4170 - the iMac started twice without a display - diagnostic LED 1 and LED 2 turned on, fans spin, startup chime, so I decided to put the display on... And nothing... I took the display out, and now when the card is in, after I press the power button LED 1 turns off and I am in a loop.

EDIT: WX4170 shows before mentiined symptoms randomly. I managed to put it back in. After I press the power button LED2 lits up. Then after couple of attempts I am again back to the scenario where LED1 turns off after pressing the power button.

EDIT 2: Changing back to the original 6770 works ok.

So I am stuck here without ability to progress. Any ideas are welcome.

Hi!

I am really sorry to see you having so many problems!

The third LED will never come up with AMD cards.

I just started up my WX4170 system to check it. Even without the proper OC images on SD card installed I get a booting system and brightness control running. So you should have the same after flashing and installing the working card. I am using the WX4150_GOP.rom vBIOS version from the very same post.

Normally I check cards in one opened 2009/2010 model where you can mount the card and heat sink without disassembling the logic board.

Probably I was just lucky with my single AMD card working here?
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Is there a text field somewhere to specify which partition name to boot from? perhaps the way clover does it? that's a real time saver...
I hope I understand your request correctly:

You may follow this post to to achieve auto booting into a predefined/pre-existing partition. Since the partition list depends on the number of disks you may have connected internally (fixed) and externally (variable) it might by impossible to achieve the thing you want from a fixed config file in general: It can only reflect the fixed disks status and even this may change when boot of these internal disks.
 
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Hi,
after several days of study in this fantastic forum, I'm waiting the components for upgrading my iMac 21.5" mid 2011: video card K2100M (that I'll flash with a CH341A programmer thanks to @Nick [D]vB), and CPU i7-2600S.
The problem is that now I've reviewed photos of CPU that i've buyed and it isn't i7-2600S but is a i72600 ! [See attached photo]
My question is: has the i7-2600 the same compatibility of i7-2600s with my iMac 21.5 or I must to buy the i7-2600s one ?
Thanks in advance for your help.
This CPU will likely cause instability issues with your iMac 21.5. The TDP of this versions is approx. 95W. The 2600S draws only approx. 60W at max. Please check ark.intel.com for the exact numbers.
I cannot recommend using this CPU. It will be perfect for mid 2011 27" models, though.
[automerge]1587117191[/automerge]
thanks, hope so :)

I plan on flashing it with @xanderon 's linux USB, will the type of BIOS chip make a difference in that case?
No. I will not! This BIOS chip thing is in my opinion only important with the particular WX4170 card. This may have no BIOS at all.
Some guys (like me) just prefer the clip programmer. But you can do it with the Linux image in the same way.
 
Hi.
i have read some post about use of opencore but i have some doubts.
i have an imac 2010 with gtx 765 with modded vbios. I have installed Catalina 10.15.4 and all is working great. In this imac, if i install opencore, would i get some advantage?
thanks
Right now, not for your GPU! Just read the first page, it will be updated if things are changing. Currently OC is for Nvidia Quadro K2100M, K1100M, and the AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100/WX4170 cards, only.

iMac 2011 users in generell may use OC to address the Win10 sound issue with UEFI installations. Please just read Nick's post linked on the first page, too.
 
Perfect thanks!

Out of interest why do you prefer the clip programmer?
I normally flash and check the cards without any heat sink in my open 2009 system. So I avoid to waste K5, Artic MX, and a lot of time with properly installing a (non working) card on a heat sink. And I always check my (on the heat sink installed) cards with an external display to avoid installing the LCD in and out again and again.

The clip programmer is a 15 Euro acquisition and you can even reflash you iMacs system boot rom in case of trouble. I always save this after updating it to the latest and greatest version using @dosdude1 RomTool - just in case. I had once a defect boot rom...
[automerge]1587118861[/automerge]
Hi guys,

Lots of nice things going on right here! Thanks for all the information.
I was reading this thread, got to page 80 (many hours later) and didn’t find answer to my problem.
I have a late 2011 iMac doing great service for about 9 years. Upgraded to an SSD many years ago. Since I really want to upgrade to Catalina I decided to install an NVidia GTX 770M. I flashed the card before installing to Nick‘s latest bios. This went fine.

After installing the card to my iMac I am finding strange behavior:

- The iMac will not start with the LCD attached. I get one LED on the logic board and the fans spin for a second when pushing the power buttons.
- With no LCD attached, the iMac starts fine. It boots and I can connect through screen sharing. I can find the GPU, it shows as GeForce GTX 770M by Nick. Macos running fine, how’re all the fans are spinning at the loudest.
- For a second I was afraid I fried my LCD somehow, but reinstalling the original GPU renders my machine fully functional. Fans are at normal speeds.

My question:
Is this known behavior and is there a fix for it (so I have to read through the other 150 pages :) ? Or does this mean my Nvidia GTX 770M is faulty and I have to return it?

Many thanks!
I currently saw this issue with a Nvidia GTX 780M flashed with @Nick [D]vB's BIOS, too. System runs with degraded graphics performance with an external display - I used UNIGINE heaven and valley to get this numbers. When I connect the internal LCD it does not come up or it shows errors which can be recognized as a faulty GPU.
Give it back, if you can!
 
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Sorry... A 27 inch model. I'm trying to get to life another 27 inch mid 2011 to give to a friend of my 19 year old Son, who haves financial problems and his laptop just died. They are at home, but having classes using internet...
I Saw a good deal to purchase a 2600k, but don't know if it works without problems on a iMac 27 mid 2011 (with high sierra, or Catalina)... Can you confirm that works?
No!
i7-2600 is the latest and greatest to be used in our mid 2011 27" models...

And honestly NOBODY needs an i7-2600 compared to an i5-2400. If you have this urgent (scientific) need of a fast CPU than you should probably invest in a more modern system. The only number we all should care about is instructions/watt used.

The most time even this old i7 will idle your system, waiting for the mouse to be moved or the next key to be typed. Additionally hyper threading is not really accelerating all programs. Real cores count and if the program has never been reprogrammed to get multi thread support even the bare CPU frequency is the only advantage you are going to see. Some "multi-threaded-aware" programs runs slower on virtual cores. This is a wide field to discuss...
 
I will attempt to test more tonight with the WX4170. There seems to be some hope with that card at least. I have inspected both cards once again and there are no shorts, I have also attempted the free hanging method yesterday (though really difficult without hole in the back of the case). I think I can safely exclude short circuit as the behaviour is identical off the heatsink. I eventually managed to put the display on and get the 2 green LEDs (I will not expect a third one if that is the case), but then no display was shown whatsoever. One more thought bootrom was modded for the Kepler Beta 3 vbios so I am thinking if that is not the problem? I understand the latest vBios does not require bootrom modification. Any thought on that will be valuable too.

In relation to WX7100 - the board says it is version C & elsemere (I posted photos few weeks back). My take on that is that most of these cards are grey market so one cannot be sure that the original PCB is used. Back to my case I read somewhere on page 96 @highvoltage12v was saying that shut down after a short time one sec usually is symptom for power draw issues? Is it possible the PSU is not supplying enough to power on the WX7100? I am also thinking of maybe flashing back to the original bios that came with the card and attempting with an external monitor. (that worked in the past with some W4170M version of the card... It just takes so long to disconnect/reconnect take MB out, attempt different things, I would love to have another test machine, but I would rather put it into a new customac build instead.
 
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I will attempt to test more tonight with the WX4170. There seems to be some hope with that card at least. I have inspected both cards once again and there are no shorts, I have also attempted the free hanging method yesterday (though really difficult without hole in the back of the case). I think I can safely exclude short circuit as the behaviour is identical off the heatsink. I eventually managed to put the display on and get the 2 green LEDs (I will not expect a third one if that is the case), but then no display was shown whatsoever. One more thought bootrom was modded for the Kepler Beta 3 vbios so I am thinking if that is not the problem? I understand the latest vBios does not require bootrom modification. Any thought on that will be valuable too.

In relation to WX7100 - the board says it is version C & elsemere (I posted photos few weeks back). My take on that is that most of these cards are grey market so one cannot be sure that the original PCB is used. Back to my case I read somewhere on page 96 @highvoltage12v was saying that shut down after a short time one sec usually is symptom for power draw issues? Is it possible the PSU is not supplying enough to power on the WX7100? I am also thinking of maybe flashing back to the original bios that came with the card and attempting with an external monitor. (that worked in the past with some W4170M version of the card... It just takes so long to disconnect/reconnect take MB out, attempt different things, I would love to have another test machine, but I would rather put it into a new customac build instead.
I modded my bootrom when it was needed for prior vbioses. I didn't undo the mod and i'am using the latest vbios for WX7100.
 
I modded my bootrom when it was needed for prior vbioses. I didn't undo the mod and i'am using the latest vbios for WX7100.

Thanks, so I will not go through that unnecessarily... What was your experience during the first installation of the WX7100? You probably did the backlight mod too?
 
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Thanks, so I will not go through that unnecessarily... What was your experience during the first installation of the WX7100? You probably did the backlight mod too?
I did a first backlight mode with a PWM module that i tested with GTX780, to be sure it works. Made it possible to access iMac remotely in case of black screen via Teamviewer. Default booting set to Windows10 directly on the desktop to be able to flash. Connected external screen via TB2-->VGA, just in case.

And, swap the GTX780 and WX7100 (unflashed?).

It booted with black screen on internal monitor, but i had by chance a picture on external monitor. After that it's easy.

This first boot was quite long by the way, you can easily think it's not working.
 
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Thanks, this is how I imagined to work too. This is how I made it work for the nvidias previously. Now I cannot get past the 1second shut down. I am just checking with the programmer and verification is good. Will try again tonight, although I have low expectations...
 
I plan on flashing it with @xanderon 's linux USB, will the type of BIOS chip make a difference in that case?
No it won't. The BIOS chip packaging won't make a difference. WSON chips are starting to be used by most vendors because they offer savings for large scale production. The problem here is, it makes it very difficult for us to use a hardware based programming strategy in case the ROM gets corrupted.
 
Thanks, this is how I imagined to work too. This is how I made it work for the nvidias previously. Now I cannot get past the 1second shut down. I am just checking with the programmer and verification is good. Will try again tonight, although I have low expectations...
Good luck, tag me please if you getting it working.
And then will buy the card of the link of Pascal, or form Des Global.
EDIT DES Global is offline, all the store is empty
 
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What blocks sleep?

I answer my question)
The violation of automatic sleep in my case depended on parsec-fbf agent. This is a known problem for Catalina. I solved this problem by typing the command:
Code:
launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.parsec-fbf.plist

As this agent sends and flushes analytical data (Spotlight, Messages, Lookup & Safari searches) sent to Apple, no any harm happens to you, if you disable this agent, Apple just cannot spoof after you anymore.
parsec-fbf agent reads and writes files in users Cache folder: ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.parsecd. If you want flush these, you can do it manually:
Code:
cd ~/Library/Caches
rm -R com.apple.parsecd

After that, iMac himself goes to bed, as expected. Siri and all services are working.
Снимок экрана 2020-04-15 в 21.35.23.pngСнимок экрана 2020-04-17 в 20.06.58.png
 
hello,

thanks again to everyone who's helped make this all happen

I have 770m with Nik's vbios installed on 2011 27" and everything seems to be running smoothly in both Catalina and windows 10

I've tried to follow the procedure from #3,271 several times but every time my machine kernel panics waking from sleep. I've started fresh now and simply have energy saver set to never sleep and just let the display sleep. no problems there.

my question is what quick sync does other than enable airplay, which I don't need

will not having it enabled effect general performance or is it only needed for certain features?

thanks again to everyone who's done the research, answered questions and especially Nik for the vbios
 
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hello,

thanks again to everyone who's helped make this all happen

I have 770m with Nik's vbios installed on 2011 27" and everything seems to be running smoothly in both Catalina and windows 10

I've tried to follow the procedure from #3,271 several times but every time my machine kernel panics waking from sleep. I've started fresh now and simply have energy saver set to never sleep and just let the display sleep. no problems there.

my question is what quick sync does other than enable airplay, which I don't need

will not having it enabled effect general performance or is it only needed for certain features?

thanks again to everyone who's done the research, answered questions and especially Nik for the vbios
You are correct. My AppleIntelSNBGraphicsFB that I modified is somehow damaged, but yet still working on my 21.5" imac. Will fix this ASAP. In the mean time here is a stock one.


Edit I am also attaching a corrected Modified for iMac Pro Board-ID (Mac-7BA5B2D9E42DDD94) to this post as well. Will also go back and correct post #3,271. Sorry everyone.
 

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  • modifiedAppleIntelSNBGraphicsFB.kext.zip
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