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iM 4,1-14,4 2011 iMac Graphics Card Upgrade
- Thread starter MichaelDT
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I think most of us that we are using the k2000m are waiting for future native brightness support!
Please, just search and read the few posts @Nick [D]vB made here to get an idea what is possible and what is pure imagination. Unless other guys are coming in here to take their hands deep into vBIOS programming or modification there will be no changes. On some cards some features are simply not to achieve.
Post #1 : (just copy/paste!)
NVIDIA Quadro K2000M *, * 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.
And that's because I always read the original and updated posts! And I may use my imagination for some things... but in this very certain case, I just follow the written post and I just keep my hopes up... and not my pure imagination! Thanks!
So here more details about how I got the WX4130 to work:
So the card performs very well in Windows 10 (it should be as fast as the 6970M, but with far more features and very low TDP) but very badly in macOS - doesn't even get warm there and performs worse than the K1100M.
Edit: After retesting in Windows 10, 10.14 and 10.13 I got similar frame rates in Unigine Valley Extreme (changed to OpenGL when running on Windows); generally around 20 fps, rarely above 30 fps, with only slightly higher performance when running on Windows. Geekbench 5 Metal and OpenCL scores in 10.14 were within the expected range, a bit better than a Radeon Pro 450.
The Geekbench Metal and OpenCL benchmarks report a totally different name for the compute device containing the word "prototype" compared to when running Geekbench on 10.14 - so I guess the drivers in 10.13 might not fully support the WX4130.
The attached zip file contains both the original and the modified VBIOS - all the changes were copied 1:1 from Nick's VBIOS for the WX4150 (and WX4170), so it's his work and merit.
I never managed to get access to the EEPROM via a CH314a based programming clip - as soon as I connect the clip the CH341a board begins to draw a high current and is switched off by the OS. So any flashing was done in Windows 10.
I bought the card from China via eBay and the listing is still active (the card arrived in bad condition but is working well). The card works in the 27" late 2009 core i (iMac 11,1) and should work in the 2010 iMacs (iMac 11,2 and 11,3) as well.
- luckily I could find the original WX4150 VBIOS for Nick's modified WX4150_GOP;
binary diffing those files showed the replaced GOP driver and some small modifications to another part - copying the GOP driver from Nick's modified VBIOS to the one of the WX4130 was simple - but did not enable any backlight yet
- PolarisBiosEditor can be used to correct the checksum after making any modifications to the first part of the VBIOS - the GOP driver and some other part are not included in that checksum
- ATOMBIOSReader showed the metadata of the other modified part; it's start address and length;
the corresponding section in the WX4130 VIBOS was larger so I had no problem copying the data from Nick's BIOS to the WX4130 one, because those sections start with specifying their length - that did enable backlight in OpenCore, and both macOS and Windows 10
So the card performs very well in Windows 10 (it should be as fast as the 6970M, but with far more features and very low TDP) but very badly in macOS - doesn't even get warm there and performs worse than the K1100M.
Edit: After retesting in Windows 10, 10.14 and 10.13 I got similar frame rates in Unigine Valley Extreme (changed to OpenGL when running on Windows); generally around 20 fps, rarely above 30 fps, with only slightly higher performance when running on Windows. Geekbench 5 Metal and OpenCL scores in 10.14 were within the expected range, a bit better than a Radeon Pro 450.
The Geekbench Metal and OpenCL benchmarks report a totally different name for the compute device containing the word "prototype" compared to when running Geekbench on 10.14 - so I guess the drivers in 10.13 might not fully support the WX4130.
The attached zip file contains both the original and the modified VBIOS - all the changes were copied 1:1 from Nick's VBIOS for the WX4150 (and WX4170), so it's his work and merit.
I never managed to get access to the EEPROM via a CH314a based programming clip - as soon as I connect the clip the CH341a board begins to draw a high current and is switched off by the OS. So any flashing was done in Windows 10.
I bought the card from China via eBay and the listing is still active (the card arrived in bad condition but is working well). The card works in the 27" late 2009 core i (iMac 11,1) and should work in the 2010 iMacs (iMac 11,2 and 11,3) as well.
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Recently I had the same testing a WX7100 in one late 2009, the core clock of the GPU was locked to 300MHz in MacOS. On the OpenCore image within the AMD_ROMS folder there is a little script with keeps track of both the clocks and the temperature during any test.
I have never tried this, I use the clip only when having the mxm card plugged out of the slot. Somehow the voltage gets trough the board and make the status LED burning if you connect a clip to a disconnected system board to flash the boot rom.
Added you efforts and a link to your post to the first page/post, hope nobody is getting confused by my wording.
Thank you!
Hi! Has anyone else confirmed the information quoted below?
I got a WX7100 model 00D here with Ellesmere written on it, no #3 LED, not detected in Linux (lspci) and OSX at all, but boots up fine. Did not try Windows.
Did anyone get a 00D model to work?
Could I flash it in Windows if it is not detected at all by OSX or Linux?
Is buying an EEPROM programmer and flashing the card worth it, or is it a dud?
Apologies if this info is available elsewhere, I could not find it. Thanks!
I got a WX7100 model 00D here with Ellesmere written on it, no #3 LED, not detected in Linux (lspci) and OSX at all, but boots up fine. Did not try Windows.
Did anyone get a 00D model to work?
Could I flash it in Windows if it is not detected at all by OSX or Linux?
Is buying an EEPROM programmer and flashing the card worth it, or is it a dud?
Apologies if this info is available elsewhere, I could not find it. Thanks!
Do you have an iMac 12,1/12,2 you can test with. I know the wx4150 has issues with 2011 models
Hi, new to the forum here. I've got a couple questions. I upgraded my 2011 iMac with a Nvidia K2100 card, upgraded per the instructions in the forum. I've got it upgraded to Catalina using opencore and everything works fine except for sleep. The computer won't come out of sleep, instead it crashes and reboots. I'm thinking I missed something setting this up.
The second question I have is can I dual boot this iMac with the opencore loader? I'd like to put High Sierra on also for a couple 32 bit programs I have.
Any help is appreciated.
Chris
The second question I have is can I dual boot this iMac with the opencore loader? I'd like to put High Sierra on also for a couple 32 bit programs I have.
Any help is appreciated.
Chris
You mind linking to the post that shows this part?
[automerge]1588546045[/automerge]
Congrats on making this far! This post has the 8 kexts/plugins needed for Sleep to be installed to System/Library/Extensions to do this use "Hackintool" to unlock the system partition (Catalina only) then drag all 8 kexts (leave out whatever green/lilu since you're booting with OpenCore) on top of the Kext utility icon and let it install/Timeout with an error. Open Terminal and enter 'Sudo reboot'.
So just to recap here are the 6 kexts being installed, hope this helps.
- AppleIntelHD3000Graphics.kext
- AppleIntelHD3000GraphicsGA.plugin
- AppleIntelHD3000GraphicsGLDriver.bundle
- AppleIntelHD3000GraphicsVADriver.bundle
- AppleIntelSNBGraphicsFB.kext
- AppleIntelSNBVA.bundle
- AppleMCCSControl.kext
- IOSurface
You can also replace AppleGVA in System/Library/PrivateFrameworks with the one attached and re-bless it for Airplay functionality and IGPU H.264 encoding.
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Boot the USB installer open Disk utility and add a NEW APFS container for High Sierra. There is also an open Sata port on the back of your logic board that you can buy a $10 cable for and add a 2nd SSD. Which is how I prefer things personally. You can also remove your Optical Drive for an SSD as well. I have 3 SSD's in My iMac.
Attachments
After retesting in Windows 10, 10.14 and 10.13 I got similar frame rates in Unigine Valley Extreme (changed to OpenGL when running on Windows); generally around 20 fps, rarely above 30 fps, with only slightly higher performance when running on Windows. Geekbench 5 Metal and OpenCL scores in 10.14 were within the expected range, a bit better than a Radeon Pro 450.
The board wasn't inside when I tried to connect the clip...
[automerge]1588548050[/automerge]
Nothing else than that iMac 11,1.
I tried nothing else than my only Intel iMac, the late 2009 mentioned in my signature.
Nick seems to have tried a WX4150 though which didn't work in a 2011 iMac at all. And both the WX4130 and the WX4150 seem to use the same board.
Cheers everyone, I got K1100M to work with OS Mojave. I got scared when during the middle of the installation my 2011 iMac suddenly rebooted (the display was burning hot) so I gave it a few minutes to cool down so I could install Mojave again and as soon as it completed - I was about to hit the restart button and my iMac rebooted again (same the display and the computer itself was hot). I gave it about 3+ hours and then I completed all the dosdude post-installation patches.
I rushed to start the OpenCore portion thinking this full force brightness is probably the issue while completing the OpenCore modification it rebooted about 2 extra times. Finally, I was able to complete the OpenCore usb stick and right now I have yet to have any reboot. Any idea as to why I was getting these random reboots, was it kernel panic?
Since I have completed the OpenCore portion do I still need to replace the SandyBridge kexts?
Edit: The reboot happened again -- this time it lasted a little bit longer than before (took about 1hr before reboot).
I rushed to start the OpenCore portion thinking this full force brightness is probably the issue while completing the OpenCore modification it rebooted about 2 extra times. Finally, I was able to complete the OpenCore usb stick and right now I have yet to have any reboot. Any idea as to why I was getting these random reboots, was it kernel panic?
Since I have completed the OpenCore portion do I still need to replace the SandyBridge kexts?
Edit: The reboot happened again -- this time it lasted a little bit longer than before (took about 1hr before reboot).
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Are the random Reboots happening because the computer is going to sleep? Are you actively moving the mouse when it KP? A k1100m is a pretty tame card that doesn't produce that much heat. Are you still running a 3.5" HDD? Either way download and run SMCFanControl there is also HWMonitor within the OpenCore disk that you can use to monitor temps. What usually is the hottest is something like power supply temperature Location 1. What size iMac do you have for more information.
I have a 2011 mid 21.5" iMac with 500GB 2.5" SSD, NVIDIA K1100M, 8GB RAM
I added all the SAndyBridge kexts and it fixed the sleep bug -- I have confirmed that this is fixed by putting the mac to sleep and it wakes up fine.
No, the reboots are happening when I am actively using the mac. I am running 500GB 2.5 SSD. Once the OpenCore portion was done the display isn't hot anymore. I will have to keep an eye on the power supply temperature in the future if this keeps happening. The random reboot started happening as soon as I started installing Mojave -- was not getting this issue when I was running High Sierra (and the LCD was hot during that time too). Should I reinstall Mojave again?
What you do is set your fans at a high RPM and reboot out of High Sierra to the AppleBoot Picker the fans will still keep their high RPM and you can install Mojave/Catalina.
Do you own another Mac with a thunderbolt port/ cable? You can also put the iMac in Target disk mode and run the installer from another Mac.
Misunderstood this: Sometimes my iMac 2011 refuses to drive the CH341A, too. Get a message about high current drawing by one ore more USB device(s). Replugging helps. Had never a shutdown so far.
I have the same problem on a friend's computer. Nothing works, from what I was reading here : https://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/249847/Unresponsive+white+screen+on+startup
the firmware boot loader has been corrupted. The only solutions are to reprogram the chip or take it in to Apple...