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

[Aesthetica]

780M: Currently the fastest one and only a good choice if you add a hardware mod to control the brightness. Otherwise gaming will fry the display...

Do you know if this is the case with the 770m? The TDP is lower at 75w, but obvious the display will be running full blast at all times

I can tell you there is hope for the 780M having brightness control, just buy that card and hang with it for a bit.

Great

 

[IMREK]

Hello,
I choose NVIDIA Quadro K2100M: what is the marking on the HF Board? is this normal? on such video cards, there is no compound around the chip... is this the norm? (sorry if it was already discussed). The seller claims to have removed it from the Dell m4800

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Hello,
I choose NVIDIA Quadro K2100M: what is the marking on the HF Board? is this normal? on such video cards, there is no compound around the chip... is this the norm? (sorry if it was already discussed). The seller claims to have removed it from the Dell m4800

Looks quite similar to my card and perfectly normal. Just use google and you will find hundreds of similar pictures of this card.

 

[nathansz]

I can tell you there is hope for the 780M having brightness control, just buy that card and hang with it for a bit.

presuming this applies also to 770, should i learn to use open core in preparation for this or will it just be in the vbios?

 

[Ausdauersportler]

presuming this applies also to 770, should i learn to use open core in preparation for this or will it just be in the vbios?

We are beating around the bush, here: Nobody can tell this for sure, but please, please go back to the first post, read the section about the currently supported cards, the differences and the wording. I assume this wording has been chosen intentionally.

 

[highvoltage12v]

Hello,
I choose NVIDIA Quadro K2100M: what is the marking on the HF Board? is this normal? on such video cards, there is no compound around the chip... is this the norm? (sorry if it was already discussed). The seller claims to have removed it from the Dell m4800

Completely normal, here is how mine looked. You should have been more concerned with the Bios sticker that is slightly out of frame. If it's a dell card, which yours is, the Bios version is 80.06.61.00.08

BTW yours is probably the same listing as my card, also from a Dell Precision M4800.

 

[xanderon]

I can tell you there is hope for the 780M having brightness control, just buy that card and hang with it for a bit.

aaaand 770m? please please please, I'm willing to donate … a liver or so

and I'm good at being a beta tester

 

[nathansz]

We are beating around the bush, here: Nobody can tell this for sure, but please, please go back to the first post, read the section about the currently supported cards, the differences and the wording. I assume this wording has been chosen intentionally.

i’ve read the first post many a time

obviously no one knows for sure what someone may or may not be able to make work in the future

my question was merely speculative as in IF x were to happen do we think it will involve y

y = open core

 

[Ausdauersportler]

i’ve read the first post many a time

obviously no one knows for sure what someone may or may not be able to make work in the future

my question was merely speculative as in IF x were to happen do we think it will involve y

y = open core

Copied the one line about the Kepler 765/770/780 from the first post to read (and changed the type setting) :

"* These cards have modded VBIOS by @Nick [D]vB that currently enable boot screens on your iMac, better performance, and BootCamp support. In the near future, they might also allow for native brightness control, target display mode, and more."

Here is nobody else posting here is in the position to explain the single word "might" than @Nick [D]vB . We should stop this now and start to learn vBIOS programming.

 

[nathansz]

Copied the one line about the Kepler 765/770/780 from the first post to read (and changed the type setting) :

"* These cards have modded VBIOS by @Nick [D]vB that currently enable boot screens on your iMac, better performance, and BootCamp support. In the near future, they might also allow for native brightness control, target display mode, and more."

Here is nobody else posting in the position to explain the single word "might" than @Nick [D]vB . We should stop this now and start to learn vBIOS programming.

not a bad idea!

 

[Marsupio]

The #1 post is improving from day to day... EXCELLENT.

Is it possible to have the native xls file instead of the PDF table (difficult to read) ? I imagine that xls files are not allowed to be attached to a post ? Or a plain page in PDF with the entire table displayed. Many thanks to all the contributors.

 

[Marsupio]

not a bad idea!

From #1 post :

For K2100M / K1100M : "Using OpenCore these cards offer right now native brightness control, target display mode, UEFI Windows 10, and more!"

For GTX 7xxM : "In the near future, they might also allow for native brightness control, target display mode, and more."

Definition of "native" brightness ? I would consider that "native" is associated to access to brightness control with everything included in the vBIOS and not thanks to OpenCore.

Must we understand that for K2100M / K1100M we would always need OpenCore for that feature and for GTX 7xxM there is hope that brightness control is directly included in the vBIOS ?

 

[Ausdauersportler]

This new table does not make things really better:

Before we had the new posts and the post #1 to keep in sync, now we have another presentation of the same facts. If something new comes up we will have to change everything and It will end in endless proof reading - I already believe to have seen some errors.

We could probably agree to have a table on post #1 instead of the old presentation. BUT we should have one single source of information. Downloaded files create copies and these copies will getting old and float around and will cause confusion, again.
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Must we understand that for K2100M / K1100M we would always need OpenCore for that feature and for GTX 7xxM there is hope that brightness control is directly included in the vBIOS ?

Same question, same answer:
YES for K1100M/K2100M, only with OpenCore and it is native because there is no additional software or hardware necessary after the boot.

NO for the 7xx Kepler cards. If we get it there, we will need OpenCore, too!

If you want to have this so badly you have to buy @Nick [D]vB 's eBay offer. Is this a Déjà-vu?

 

[Pascal Baillargeau]

This new table does not make things really better:

Before we had the new posts and the post #1 to keep in sync, now we have another presentation of the same facts. If something new comes up we will have to change everything and It will end in endless proof reading - I already believe to have seen some errors.

We could probably agree to have a table on post #1 instead of the old presentation. BUT we should have one single source of information. Downloaded files create copies and these copies will getting old and float around and will cause confusion, again.
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Same question, same answer: YES, only with OpenCore and it is native because there is no additional software or hardware necessary after the boot.

The PDF on the first page when you see it is on multiple pages, and not easily readable. A plain .xls file zipped would be better. As it should be the source file it's not a big deal.

Is it possible to have the native xls file instead of the PDF table (difficult to read) ? I imagine that xls files are not allowed to be attached to a post ? Or a plain page in PDF with the entire table displayed. Many thanks to all the contributors.

It's what Marsupio wanted to say.

 

[nathansz]

If we get it there, we will need OpenCore, too!

THIS is the question i was asking

thanks

 

[it1slang]

Hi
need your help (and forgive my bad english).
i bought from Ebay two 2011 27" iMacs with defective 6790 GPUs and bought two Quadro K2100 2 GB (from HP).
I flashed the new GPUs firmware chips with an external programmer (using @Nick [D]vB's file) and all went ok.
Assembled the first machine, powered it up ok, with sound and apple logo on the sreen (i thought: wow, so simple... 😫; so i tried to install Catalina patched (i forgot to apply the Bootrom for APFS (i know about nothing about the "story" of these machines) but i think that it isn't the cause of my troubles..., i hope).
Installer started ok but after about 5-10 minutes, in the middle of Catalina installation screen gone black and nothing more happened.
Now i can restart the iMac, hear the Booong sound but the screen stays black: checked the diagnostic leds on the MB and the fourth one doesn't light up.
So i tried with the second iMac: i installed the 2nd flashed k2100, started the machine, hear the Booong sound but this time no screen backlight, no logo, nothing: screen black too; and 4th diagnostic led off.
Now, on both machines, if i wait 20 seconds i can hear the left fan spinning very fast: but i am sure that all sensors are correctly connected to the MB.
I don't think that both k2100 cards are faulty (vendor claimed them were new; and the first one worked about ten minutes); and them are well installed.
So, now, the actual situation is: both iMacs start with the usual sound but screen stays black and fourth diagnostic led is off. Afer 20 sec left fan start spinning fast.
Any help?
F

 

[Ausdauersportler]

The PDF on the first page when you see it is on multiple pages, and not easily readable. A plain .xls file zipped would be better. As it should be the source file it's not a big deal.



It's what Marsupio wanted to say.

Your answer does not really address my concern about the single source of information thing. The PDF or XLS itself is a copy generated manually and error prone.

If we get some more cards supported we will have at first a announcement post, than somebody will manually modify the post #1 and later the XLS and then we generate PDFs and these will spread out containing after a while outdated information. This is simply not the idea of having a wiki...it is even as naive as sending attachments by eMail.

We have internally the same problem with our manually modified kernel extensions. These are attached to personal conversations and after a while we have 20 of them attached to 20 of such posts instead having a single source (common file share) with some versions.

Making digital copies does not cost very much compared to the monks work coping books, but here and in general it does not make any sense.
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Hi
need your help (and forgive my bad english).
i bought from Ebay two 2011 27" iMacs with defective 6790 GPUs and bought two Quadro K2100 2 GB (from HP).
I flashed the new GPUs firmware chips with an external programmer (using @Nick [D]vB's file) and all went ok.
Assembled the first machine, powered it up ok, with sound and apple logo on the sreen (i thought: wow, so simple... 😫; so i tried to install Catalina patched (i forgot to apply the Bootrom for APFS (i know about nothing about the "story" of these machines) but i think that it isn't the cause of my troubles..., i hope).
Installer started ok but after about 5-10 minutes, in the middle of Catalina installation screen gone black and nothing more happened.
Now i can restart the iMac, hear the Booong sound but the screen stays black: checked the diagnostic leds on the MB and the fourth one doesn't light up.
So i tried with the second iMac: i installed the 2nd flashed k2100, started the machine, hear the Booong sound but this time no screen backlight, no logo, nothing: screen black too; and 4th diagnostic led off.
Now, on both machines, if i wait 20 seconds i can hear the left fan spinning very fast: but i am sure that all sensors are correctly connected to the MB.
I don't think that both k2100 cards are faulty (vendor claimed them were new; and the first one worked about ten minutes); and them are well installed.
So, now, the actual situation is: both iMacs start with the usual sound but screen black and fourth diagnostic led off. Afer 20 sec left fan start spinning fast.
Any help?
F

Go back to first post and check for latest changes regarding the 10.15.4 installation. The fourth LED comes only up when you have installed the internal LCD. The black screen is a new Apple Catalina feature

 

[jborko]

We should perhaps create a github Wiki similar to the Vanilla OC guide. If you guys think there is a sense to create one I would gladly help with that.

 

[internetzel]

No, Me and Nick have tried it. Backlight never becomes detected.

If you look at my post #5,615, you'll see how I enabled brightness control in Windows 10 with a K1100m. It's working perfectly, at least when booted using OpenCore - I don't know whether it works without. So when it's possible with the K1100m I suggest it should work the same way with the K2100m.

 

[highvoltage12v]

If you look at my post #5,615, you'll see how I enabled brightness control in Windows 10 with a K1100m. It's working perfectly, at least when booted using OpenCore - I don't know whether it works without. So when it's possible with the K1100m I suggest it should work the same way with the K2100m.

I'll have to take a look at this, is your windows 10 partition EFI booted or legacy booted? It makes a difference with how the iMac enables/disables items. Pretty sure your post says UEFI, just checking.

 

[internetzel]

I'll have to take a look at this, is your windows 10 partition EFI booted or legacy booted? It makes a difference with how the iMac enables/disables items. Pretty sure your post says UEFI, just checking.

It's UEFI booted, indeed.

I'm hoping to have time this weekend to get the GOP driver from Nick's WX4150 BIOS working in the BIOS the WX4130 came with.
The only difficult thing seems to be the PWM table for the backlight. I cannot directly take the values Nick put into the 4150 BIOS because the table doesn't match in size and/or amount of entries.

 

[it1slang]

Thank you for your answer.

The fourth LED comes only up when you have installed the internal LCD.

I always installed the internal LCDs to test, but on both machines, with NO HDD installed, screens remain black.
I can see diagnostic leds keeping LCD panel a little "opened" (but with all cables connected, of course).

The black screen is a new Apple Catalina feature

I read but i am not to that point: my problems begin first.
S

 

[rodolfo.araujo]

Found a 27inch mid2011 iMac at a bargain price because the GPU is broken. Excluding other possible hardware problems, will my AMD Radeon HD 6770M (removed from my 21inch mid2011 iMac) work and make this device workable again until I source a newer GPU?

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Thank you for your answer.

The fourth LED comes only up when you have installed the internal LCD.

I always installed the internal LCDs to test, but on both machines, with NO HDD installed, screens remain black.
I can see diagnostic leds keeping LCD panel a little "opened" (but with all cables connected, of course).

The black screen is a new Apple Catalina feature

I read but i am not to that point: my problems begin first.
S

Have you installed the latest firmware on your iMac 2011? It is the 87.0.0.0. - start with this by installing High Sierra and all the patches and updates without OpenCore.
When you are done with that go on and install Catalina using the @dosdude1 patcher ...
Than get a 2 GB SD card and get OpenCore working...
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Found a 27inch mid2011 iMac at a bargain price because the GPU is broken. Excluding other possible hardware problems, will my AMD Radeon HD 6770M (removed from my 21inch mid2011 iMac) work and make this device workable again until I source a newer GPU?

Yes, I guess it was even a supported config from the store in these days having the 2500S cpu installed...

 

[internetzel]

I'll have to take a look at this, is your windows 10 partition EFI booted or legacy booted? It makes a difference with how the iMac enables/disables items. Pretty sure your post says UEFI, just checking.

Now I finally tested - by adding the necessary registry entries I've got Windows 10 native brightness control even without OpenCore.