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

[marmalito]

This is not really a iMac issue

You can either chose you startup partition in MacOS in the systems preferences pane looking for start volume OR you may chose in exactly this boot window using the cursor keys the partition you want to boot on default and then you press CRTL and ENTER. This writes this choice down to NV-RAM and boots it.

Of course you loose this while zapping the NV-RAM with the cmd-alt-P-R on boot.

P.S.:
You have two EFI partitions because each HDD/SSD has a single one! You will not delete them

Thanks for responding! The only thing I’m not clear on is that if I select to boot Catalina from within System Preferences, it hangs on a blank screen. If I hold Control in the boot manager, it loads that one time, but not after restarting. Same blank screen. I have to go to the boot manager each time to see my startup disks and manually choose Catalina, or it will simply hang using any other method.

This only happens for Catalina. Windows continues loading each time.

Also, both EFIs take me to the same High Sierra installation, so there are 3 options to boot HS in the startup manager. This isn’t a big deal, just don’t understand why.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Thanks for responding! The only thing I’m not clear on is that I’m not able to select to boot into Catalina. I have to go to the startup manager to see my startup disks and manually choose Catalina each time, or it will simply hang when trying to use Catalina as the startup disk by any other method.

This only happens for Catalina.

Also, both EFIs take me to the same High Sierra installation, so there are 3 options to boot HS in the startup manager. This isn’t a big deal, just don’t understand why.

Lately a some iMac users complained about problems installing 10.15.4. I have no such problems, but you never know if your installer was really in perfect shape to get a working installation.

 

[nathansz]

Good morning all - I have made several updates to the WikiPost for more clarification. @jborko has taken the time to make a chart, as many have requested, which will be added to the first post once it is complete.

While the AMD cards are scarce, they are by far the most compelling option for many people. I've tried to rework the language on the page to less-alienate them, since they are now working well.

We are also trying to aggregate UNIGINE VALLEY scores across different GPUs. Many users want to know performance numbers in order to make an informed decision. In order to keep the thread clean, please fill out this Google Form to the best of your ability. Please run the benchmark at 1080P MEDIUM for standardization.

Hope this is helpful - stay safe.

-N

very cool

would it make sense to add a field for operating system?

I got a much higher score in windows 10 than catalina. I'll probably try high Sierra and some linux as well

 

[nathansz]

thanks. I do have some other ram. I'll try that

I tried some different ram and didn't make a difference

it only happens overnight. when I look at history in istat menus after about 3 hours of sleep power drops off completely

also sometimes when I reboot at this point it takes a long press or two on the power button to start up and sometimes I don't have usb or bluetooth until I smc reset

everything passes on efi asd

I wonder if maybe this could be a power supply issue?

I have another one I could swap in to test but don't really want to open it up unless it seems to others like these could be bad power supply symptoms

thanks again to everyone

other than this issue and the bright screen machine is running super smooth

 

[nekton1]

erihp
I've seen a badly connected clip give a message 'Found Generic flash chip "unknown ...." (screenshot) but reseating the clip worked next time around, so it might be that the clip is the source of the incorrect ID. If all else fails and you have desoldering/soldering skills and an eeprom jig (screenshot) that can fit in the ch341a , that is another way.

Yep... that is the identical card physically, same seller.

View attachment 908429
View attachment 908430

I am certain it is a K2100m but nvflash in Linux refuses to overwrite given the device ID mismatch. Someone must have been playing around with this card before me.

So I attempted to reflash with a programmer + clip, but the one I have was not making a solid connection. Looking at the construction of the one I got, I’m shocked it could work at all.

Next stop before removing the eeprom is flashing in Windows with a modified nvflash.

Anyway thanks for confirming. Will report back when I managed to get it flashed and working.

edit: While I’m here, is this the proper way to cable the programmer?

View attachment 908427

And on the board side, pin 1 (red) on the clip would connect to the eeprom pin near the white dot?

View attachment 908428

 

[erihp]

erihp
I've seen a badly connected clip give a message 'Found Generic flash chip "unknown ...." (screenshot) but reseating the clip worked next time around, so it might be that the clip is the source of the incorrect ID. If all else fails and you have desoldering/soldering skills and an eeprom jig (screenshot) that can fit in the ch341a , that is another way.

Hmm yeah... I didn’t even get that far in flashrom, could never get the chip detected at all. One of the pins/teeth on the clip was out of alignment from the rest, so I don’t think I’m getting enough contact.

I did get a similar springy adapter clip like that with my ch341a kit. So this method will be my last resort. I ordered some seemingly similar MX eeproms just in case.

However, from a tip from another user here I found a very cheap HP desktop system with an mxm slot in it! I will use windows and the modified nvflash instead of doing the blind boot flash (I don’t have windows installed at all — and currently the iMac is in pieces!). The model is an HP 8200 Elite USDT. This unit is a very small form factor, so it does require an external HP laptop power supply but I have a couple laying around. I only paid $40 with shipping included for a barebones i3 And 4GB of ram. The CH341a programmer kit was about $20 by comparison!

Here is the system I bought to reflash my mxm card, there is one left: https://www.ebay.com/itm/174253949444
And maybe even better for some, bare mobs for $14 shipped: https://www.ebay.com/p/1681442472

I have a Bluetooth/WiFi card and adapters on the way. I already have an ssd and an i7-2600s in the machine. The video card is the last thing to button up before going to Catalina. Well maybe one more thing... I’m going to tap into the SATA 12v power for a couple of internal LED strips blasting out of the vents

I can hardly wait to finish this project and finally screw those screen screws back in!
That’s when you really know you’re done!

 

[_Beckett]

so I ordered that K610 - lets see if thats gona work

 

[Panick007]

You may simply to boot the USB stick and follow the readme in the install user $HOME folder. Simply do a "cd ~" and type "more README".
All the commands are written down there and they are also listed in the pictures of the original post.
You may boot from CD, mount the stick and cd to the flash directory on the stick reading again the README there

I was able to boot from the cd and begin the process of copying the original vbios from the GTX 765M, but I couldn’t save the 2 backed up .rom files successfully, I think because I booted from the cd and don‘t know my way around Linux, I don’t know the correct command. I started over, but now when I type the same command ./nvflash_linux —save ~/original.rom nothing happens, whereas when I first tried it returned the EEPROM info. Why would that happen? The attached photo shows my first attempt. Any advice?

 

[highvoltage12v]

Hello everyone,
I'm hearing about 10.15.4 causing Black screens when reaching the login screen, if this is true, I would need to find a AppleGraphicsPowerManagement.kext from 10.15.2 or below to do some testing. If anyone has an iMac with this issue and has a copy of 10.15.2 please do some testing for me.

 

[Mark Meretz]

Simply insert the text from 10.15.2 into 10.15.4 with KextUtilitiy?

 

[highvoltage12v]

Simply insert the text from 10.15.2 into 10.15.4 with KextUtilitiy?

No,
Since this is a system Kext being replaced we have to do one extra step to prevent your iMac from not booting next time
After installing the Kext with Kext utility, Open Terminal and enter "sudo reboot" this will make your iMac properly reboot.
If not your iMac will hang forever on the desktop with a frozen dock, a Catlina issue...

 

[Mark Meretz]

Can you upload the 10.15.2 kext or is it also from Mojave otherwise I have to get an ISO first. But I can boot with OpenCore and do a kext downgrade and reboot with terminal

 

[highvoltage12v]

Can you upload the 10.15.2 kext or is it also from Mojave otherwise I have to get an ISO first. But I can boot with OpenCore and do a kext downgrade and reboot with terminal

I'm doing testing myself I found a Mac with 10.15.1 on it that I'm borrowing kexts from, it looks like its AppleGraphicsControl.kext that needs modification not the powermanagemement one

 

[Ausdauersportler]

I was able to boot from the cd and begin the process of copying the original vbios from the GTX 765M, but I couldn’t save the 2 backed up .rom files successfully, I think because I booted from the cd and don‘t know my way around Linux, I don’t know the correct command. I started over, but now when I type the same command ./nvflash_linux —save ~/original.rom nothing happens, whereas when I first tried it returned the EEPROM info. Why would that happen? The attached photo shows my first attempt. Any advice?

If you from CD-ROM where exactly would you like to WRITE the files to?

Please use the boot stick directly.
From the one photo I read "Saving of image completed!" No you have written the vBIOS from the card down to the $HOME of the user which may be a RAM file system and not persistent at all. Real saving could be done by using scp from the remote second machine your are currently using in the same network.

scp root@yourip:~/original.rom .

password is flash, too.

Do you need the original rom file? If not then follow directly the README with the vBIOS write commands.

 

[Mark Meretz]

can you please upload the kext

 

[highvoltage12v]

can you please upload the kext

dude, please wait.
I'm trying all different types of kexts, nothing is helping the situation. I'm looking into private frameworks next....

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Catalina 10.15.4 on iMac 2011 with K2100M and OpenCore works!

I have already posted this once. I will not deny that there may be problems with the installation attempts on other machines done by other users here, but we should not waste any more time in searching for a single root cause.
Logic tells us if there exist at least one unmodified successful installation there cannot exist a general problem.

Can we agree on this or does anybody really believe that I am the one lucky guy getting it done just by chance?

The main point here: WITH OpenCore. User without seem to have problems...

 

[Niklas Haar]

Hey Everyone, at first sorry for my bad English

I'm new at this Business. I have a mid 2011 21,5 inch iMac and want to change the gpu to have metal support and some extra gpu memory. I have read about flashing the gpu to have a fully work system. What Graphics Card are the best for the 21,5 system (I heard about issues with the power management with some type of cards ?!) and what do I need for the flashing progress ?

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Hey Everyone, at first sorry for my bad English

I'm new at this Business. I have a mid 2011 21,5 inch iMac and want to change the gpu to have metal support and some extra gpu memory. I have read about flashing the gpu to have a fully work system. What Graphics Card are the best for the 21,5 system (I heard about issues with the power management with some type of cards ?!) and what do I need for the flashing progress ?

If you read the very first post of this thread you will get an idea which cards to be used and which ways to go while flashing. This post is the "unofficial" guide through all this. Just read it and follow the links there. It is not necessary to read the entire thread, unless you are interested in six years of hard work.

Normally we recommend the Nvidia Quadro K1100M and K2100M cards for this kind of machine. After reading the not so long post you will know why.

Have fun!

 

[herrdude]

Catalina 10.15.4 on iMac 2011 with K2100M and OpenCore works!

I have already posted this once. I will not deny that there may be problems with the installation attempts on other machines done by other users here, but we should not waste any more time in searching for a single root cause.
Logic tells us if there exist at least one unmodified successful installation there cannot exist a general problem.

Can we agree on this or does anybody really believe that I am the one lucky guy getting it done just by chance?

The main point here: WITH OpenCore. User without seem to have problems...

You can add my computer to your list. 10.15.4 on iMac 2011 with K2100m working! Oh and OpenCore too!

 

[highvoltage12v]

A solution for black screens/no external output on 10.15.4 is just about complete, just waiting on my partner @Ausdauersportler to try a few iMac models he has before I come to my conclusions.

 

[s44sakuni]

Hey, ya'll. I got a mid-2011 21.5 inch iMac and recently the GPU failed. I read through quite a few of the pages in this thread and have some questions.
I have noticed that quite a lot of people have tried the GTX 765M and I wanted to get the NVIDIA Quadro K2100M or K1100M instead (due to budget reason). I will be upgrading my hard drive to an SSD and install os Sierra on it before changing the GPU. I just wanted to verify that this K2100M or K1100M matches what was provided in the OP: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Preci...108503?hash=item34268d8617:g:9OkAAOSw5BpeliEh

Dell 51Y08 Precision M4800 NVIDIA Quadro K1100M 2GB DDR5 Laptop Video Card | eBay

Precision M4800 Laptop Notebook Video Card, NVIDIA Quadro K1100M, 2GB DDR5, Dell P/N 51Y08.

www.ebay.com

Another question I am confused about flashing, are we supposed to flash VBIOS before or after the first boot (post graphics card replacement)?

 

[kral84]

A solution for black screens/no external output on 10.15.4 is just about complete, just waiting on my partner @Ausdauersportler to try a few iMac models he has before I come to my conclusions.

I can help you too...

 

[Mark Meretz]

I can't wait to test this solution

 

[rosens]

This is described and documented in detail on the @dosdude1 website where you downloaded the patcher. You have to boot the installer again, select "postinstall patches" then, deselect the "legacy video patch" by hand and press continue. Patches will be applied and system rebooted.

Thanks! That did the trick
But suddenly I have no sound - i'm pretty sure I had it yesterday and nothing has been changed since. I've reooted a couple of times - and the boot chime is ok. But under configuration I have no sound device.

Could that be a a patch issue? Every patch - except the "legacy video patch" is installed.