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

[kakawak]

Hi, I recently installed Catalina without any hiccups however, i've noticed that if my macbook runs out of battery/power and i plug in power cable, my mac won't boot up when i press the power button. The only way to get it to boot again is to press the power button fully for about 15-20 secs then it boots with chime then restarts straight away and boots as normal but with a shut down error ignore alert. Obviously this is not normal and i shouldn't have let my mac run out this way but is there a fix?

Also, i've noticed that when i want to connect to my shield tv through network settings it won't let me. I've tried configuring at both ends but i cannot login to my shield from macbook.

Sorry for the slight deviation from the main thread.

Cheers

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Folks,
after changing the GPU card to the Geforce 765m (with Nick's Beta3 VBIOS) as mentioned in my first post, now I see the progress bar after booting, but 75% the screen turn black and the ODD fan starts at full velocity (ODD is not even present, the temp sensor is on top of a second SSD). My iMac model is 21.5 (2011). I've also tried removing cables and sensor from the second SSD/motherboard, but the fan still starts at that point). What am I doing wrong? Any clue?

Thanks a lot,
Monk

2010-2011 iMac 21.5" iMac MXM card upgrade Q/A
Q: What MXM card(s) are known working?
A: Currently, the NVIDIA Quadro K1000M, K1100M, K2000M, and K2100M are the preferred MXM card's to swap due to space issues and low power draw of these cards. While the GTX series cards recommended above will function in a 21.5" model, they are unstable due to their high power draw. @highvoltage12v tested a 770M here and had frequent Kernel Panics in macOS and BSoD's in Windows.

Or you card is simply dead...

Which OS you are trying to boot?

 

[NOTNlCE]

Alright guys im ready to swap my 770m in my 2011 iMac 12,2 to an AMD again.
3 pipes heatsink is available.
what do you suggest me for as many native compatibility like brightness control, sleep and other stuff as possible.

in that order descending?
wx7100
wx4170
wx4150
wx4130

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? The last two don’t work in a 2011 imac right?

and next big question: where to get one? Trust Ali express?

Currently, ALL listed AMD cards have brightness control, sleep, and boot picker using OpenCore.

It is correct that the last 2 cards will not work in your 2011 model. That leaves you with the WX7100 which is very difficult to source due to multiple PCBs, greymarket supply, and inaccurate listings, though the "00C" model is the one we believe to be best working. You could also use the WX4170, but you'll need to find one with an EEPROM pre-soldered, which are also hard to determine due to the previous reasons. However, if you can acquire a working one, they appear to run very well and give boosts in things like HEVC encoding, etc.

 

[gmonk]

2010-2011 iMac 21.5" iMac MXM card upgrade Q/A
Q: What MXM card(s) are known working?
A: Currently, the NVIDIA Quadro K1000M, K1100M, K2000M, and K2100M are the preferred MXM card's to swap due to space issues and low power draw of these cards. While the GTX series cards recommended above will function in a 21.5" model, they are unstable due to their high power draw. @highvoltage12v tested a 770M here and had frequent Kernel Panics in macOS and BSoD's in Windows.

Or you card is simply dead...

Which OS you are trying to boot?

HI Ausdauersportler,
Thanks for your support. OS is High Sierra.
Now I'm having the same behavior putting back the old AMD card now... I think it's a kind of protection maybe due to some check during OS load phase (about GPU temperature?). Maybe I used too much termal paste... I'll try to clean it and remount it...
The strange point is that the progress bar is visible, then the screen turns black, so the cards are not dead. I think they got disabled later.

Thanks a lot,
Monk

 

[Ausdauersportler]

HI Ausdauersportler,
Thanks for your support. OS is High Sierra.
Now I'm having the same behavior putting back the old AMD card now... I think it's a kind of protection maybe due to some check during OS load phase (about GPU temperature?). Maybe I used too much termal paste... I'll try to clean it and remount it...
The strange point is that the progress bar is visible, then the screen turns black, so the cards are not dead. I think they got disabled later.

Thanks a lot,
Monk

Did you reconnect all temperature sensor cables, especially the heat sink one?
And check the orientation of the card relative to the sink. It has to be parallel to guarantee perfect contact of the gpu to the sink. Otherwise you probably get exactly this overheating and shutdown effect. The same happens if one put a card without a heat sink in. Perfect way to burn it to death ...

 

[highvoltage12v]

... I fear I'll get one of those soon.
Already thinking of whether to return it or try to resell it myself. I consider not even trying it.
We should thoroughly compare the HP cards to the Dell ones - maybe we can find the difference and make the HP cards work by some small soldering work.

Yes, I can't find any close ups of the Dell WX4150/30 and the HP WX4150. On MXM cards there are different pinouts for different OEM manufacturers. I was looking at MXM Pinout PDF's last night.

My accidental message posted here was covering up different pins on the MXM card to see if it will allow the iMac to Post, no success. I believe a resistor is placed in a different spot per OEM (pins 38-45) . I'll PM you all the PDF's I have found.
My original concerns were Pins 20 and 22 (pins 10 and 11) starting from the right of the card. #Th_overT and #Th_Alarm I was thinking the iMac wasn't posting because the card was sending an incorrect signal to the MXM slot saying the card was overheated, but either my tape slipped away enough for the pins to still make contact, or there is another issue.

 

[stephengrenfell]

@stephengrenfell
If your original AMD works somewhat, reinstall it and try to run an Apple Diagnostic to make sure everything else on the logic board is functional. If it passes, then I agree with @Ausdauersportler that your 780M GPU is malfunctioning.

HD6970 re-installed.
- Initial boot sequence back to normal (only 1 power-on button press needed, optical drive noise, then chime, them fan starts).
- Internal display functional again (backlight, Apple logo and progress bar…)
- Won't boot from SSD on SATA0, or from external HDD (same fault as starting point).
- Boots from USB linux ok.
- Apple HW quick test all OK, extended test (which took 3.5hrs) all ok.

So to me logic board etc.. is all OK. But both GPU boards bad…

The GTX780m being sent back.

Back to the drawing board for a new GPU board.

 

[snam11]

Yes, I can't find any close ups of the Dell WX4150/30 and the HP WX4150. On MXM cards there are different pinouts for different OEM manufacturers. I was looking at MXM Pinout PDF's last night.

My accidental message posted here was covering up different pins on the MXM card to see if it will allow the iMac to Post, no success. I believe a resistor is placed in a different spot per OEM (pins 38-45) . I'll PM you all the PDF's I have found.
My original concerns were Pins 20 and 22 (pins 10 and 11) starting from the right of the card. #Th_overT and #Th_Alarm I was thinking the iMac wasn't posting because the card was sending an incorrect signal to the MXM slot saying the card was overheated, but either my tape slipped away enough for the pins to still make contact, or there is another issue.

out of curiosity: did you get the pinout from Aetina_MXM_M3N1050(TI)-LN_Manual_v02 ?

 

[highvoltage12v]

out of curiosity: did you get the pinout from Aetina_MXM_M3N1050(TI)-LN_Manual_v02 ?

Yes those are from there, that is a Nvidia Specific MXM module but i found an AMD one as well.

@internetzel
On the AMD manual all those pins 38-45 are marked as N/A. Both even and odd pins of the card. So if I were to cover them, it shouldn't make a difference to the cards functioning, but maybe the HP revision is doing something with those pins sending something to ground.
It's all something I need to experiment with later today.

 

[gmonk]

Did you reconnect all temperature sensor cables, especially the heat sink one?
And check the orientation of the card relative to the sink. It has to be parallel to guarantee perfect contact of the gpu to the sink. Otherwise you probably get exactly this overheating and shutdown effect. The same happens if one put a card without a heat sink in. Perfect way to burn it to death ...

Yeah, everything is in place. I went further debugging this issue and I saw that I can enter Single User Mode (Unix Shell) at boot without any problem (except the fact that it is checking drives because everytime I have to force the power off).
In Verbose Mode Boot I see some strange stamps regading "Unsupported CPU" two times and "Unsupported PCH". Kinda strange.
I'm trying to capture a video of this process, because it runs too fast to understand what it's doing when the screen goes off.
I suspect some corruption on the drivers. The display goes off just when it switches to the GUI.

Thanks again, your support is really appreciated.

Monk

 

[bigmario]

hi,
did someone ever tried to make a gop rom with winraid gop software ? and flash it....

AMD and Nvidia GOP update (No requests, DIY)

I’m not really the guy to run on unlimited supply of patience, so this will be more a mix of tutorial, tool to do the job for you, assistance (“as long as you don’t insist with unlimited/unrelated questions” kind) and ABSOLUTELY NO GUARANTEES. Users should read this again, I am not offering any...

www.win-raid.com

i made one for k1100 but was too lazy to try it ,flashed with nick rom...

 

[RRPC]

So my main questions for help would be, the computer before installing the video card should have mojave loaded, and should i have a bootcamp windows partition created and installed with windows 7?

Yes if you want to go the way of flash your card via windows, you have to install windows in advance. and set up teamviewer or native windows remote desktop. make sure to backup the bios that is on the card before you flash the WX7100 bios of nickD

when is create the open core usb boot drive will this be created to boot the OS X computer after i install the new card and after installing the new card how will i be flashing the vbios on the computer ?

will i be needing to remote in from another computer to run windows and load the Vbios or can it all be done from a remote login to terminal?

a lot of it all seems confusing and i am all new to this but I want to make this as painless as possible if i understand what to do before removing the current card to make the replacement and upgrade to the WX7100 to understand once its replaced will i still get the boot screen to choose or i'll be flying blind and need to have the open core boot usb to start the system to finish everything?

OpenCore van be Written to a SD card. and you can prepare this to boot your computer of. if set up corect, you can boot windows or macOS form the opencore.
after you flashyour card its mandatory to boot via opencore
1. for the boot screen
2. for the Backlight controls.
if you don't use opencore. you don't have a image on the screen.

as said. you need to set up your windows in a way to remote control your mac booted in windows, via a other PC.
the other way is the clip programmer.
or the Live Boot USB, you also need a second PC to SSH in to the pc. there is info on how to flash a AMD card in this way you might have to search.

Thank you to anyone and everyone that helps and Special thanks to @Nick [D]vB & @highvoltage12v & @RRPC for all their hardworking they have put into this project and the entire project to keep us all informed and updated.
Many thanks to others that have contributed and put in their hard work as well, it is very appreciated.

thx you, but not only thank me. there are a lot of members that are try to find the right card.
please let us know if you succeed your install of your 00C card. pleas let us know where you bought you'r card (seller)

 

[internetzel]

Yes those are from there, that is a Nvidia Specific MXM module but i found an AMD one as well.

@internetzel
On the AMD manual all those pins 38-45 are marked as N/A. Both even and odd pins of the card. So if I were to cover them, it shouldn't make a difference to the cards functioning, but maybe the HP revision is doing something with those pins sending something to ground.
It's all something I need to experiment with later today.

These are the best photos of the Dell WX4150 - identical to the WX4130 I had - I managed to find online.
The resistor(?) arrangement on the top side left to the sticker above the MXM interface seems to be slightly different on the HP board.

 

[Brmp85]

So ... while waiting on my gtx780 ... I put the old amd in the oven. 10 minutes @ 200 degrees celsius. New thermal paste. All back together ... the Mac just boots. Everything works ... I’m so happy

 

[NOTNlCE]

So ... while waiting on my gtx780 ... I put the old amd in the oven. 10 minutes @ 200 degrees celsius. New thermal paste. All back together ... the Mac just boots. Everything works ... I’m so happy

Very nice - you have gotten luck with your bake! Be sure to take it easy until your 780M arrives, because it won't last forever. 👍

 

[highvoltage12v]

These are the best photos of the Dell WX4150 - identical to the WX4130 I had - I managed to find online.
The resistor(?) arrangement on the top side left to the sticker above the MXM interface seems to be slightly different on the HP board.
View attachment 916120View attachment 916121

I'm trying to buy a 109-C98581-00D_02 hoping the D, D=Dell will work with a 2011 iMac. The trend with the wx7100 is that the D version works with 2011 iMacs, I'm hoping this is the same principle as well. Do you/anyone else know if this is the case?

 

[leonsimac]

so guys, I have a little gift for you to give back after such an incredible thread
hope you like it, the headaches to get it running were immens for me as a newb.

I couldn't stand it to use fckin windows to flash the cards and so I prepared this ~350mb drive

I created a Linux Live USB (based on grml.org) Thumb Drive with nvflash_linux and Nicks Bioses preloaded. and its booting by itself so you can work blind with a new unpatched nvidia card plugged in. Also, its starting a ssh daemon and using DHCP to get an IP so you can remote login

Steps

Download
14 days left to download, uploaded here: https://www.mediafire.com/file/cztz4xqj2sru9gj/2011_imac_usb.zip/file

mirror by NOTNICE, thnx: https://cloud.notnlce.com/index.php/s/xkJP34GD6a9WziE/download


Prepare USB Drive or SD Card
so, you take a small usb thumb drive, partition it with disk utility on a Mac: GPT + FAT32
and just unzip the files structure onto the drive, no dd or etcher or something. just copy paste it. folder structure see attached screenshot. (you can remove the .roms I downloaded and download itself if you want to be sure about the correct file size. I did not verify them at all. use/flash at your own risk please)

Test & Try
test your thumb drive with a more or less working GPU/ external Screen or just have faith in me

Swap Hardware
swap your GPU to NVIDIA and (!) disconnect every SSD/HDD, makes it easier to boot blindly from one USB or SD Card, connect the ETH Cable (!)

Find IP
let the iMac boot, everything is black, the boot loader is waiting 20s before booting, so give the whole process 1min time, then head over to your Router Page and find the right IP that the iMac got through DHCP

SSH to the iMac
now fire up your terminal on a Win/Mac/Linux Machine of your choice and ssh to your iMac with
ssh root@YOURIP
Password: flash
Confirm the ssh id with yes and you should be in your iMac

Working Directory
cd /lib/live/mount/medium/flash

read the RADME in there… I will enjoy my brand new k2000m in my 27" 2011 iMac with Catalina 10.15.3
… and because this is so easy, I rebuild it to a K1100M and flashed that also

(someone could write some fancy scripts but I thought its saver that everyone is doing it command by command and don't stop thinking and trusting some scripts)

It does not work for me
I have a iMac 2011 27" With i7 2600, and the 780M .
I created the usb drive, and followed all of your steps, but when i enter (.nvflash_linux --save ~/780M_EG2.rom) it says, that (ERROR: No NVIDIA display adapters found.)
i have no idea what's the problem , can you help?

 

[internetzel]

I'm trying to buy a 109-C98581-00D_02 hoping the D, D=Dell will work with a 2011 iMac. The trend with the wx7100 is that the D version works with 2011 iMacs, I'm hoping this is the same principle as well. Do you/anyone else know if this is the case?

@NOTNlCE has got a WX4130 working in a 2010 iMac and I had one working in my late 2009 iMac. But I don't know whether he also tested it in a 2011 iMac. Maybe @Ausdauersportler will undertake that adventure?

 

[Ausdauersportler]

@NOTNlCE has got a WX4130 working in a 2010 iMac and I had one working in my late 2009 iMac. But I don't know whether he also tested it in a 2011 iMac. Maybe @Ausdauersportler will undertake that adventure?

My 4130 is on it's way, has reached Frankfurt. I will start with the first check in my late 2009 test system and the go straight on to my 2011 system. Everything is prepared!
But keep in mind that the late 2009 and mid 2010 share nearly the same logic board. Only the LVDS display connector has been replaced on the i5 & i7 2010 system. I had one i3 with the old style connector. Do not know if this makes a difference.

 

[leonsimac]

My 4130 is on it's way, has reached Frankfurt. I will start with the first check in my late 2009 test system and the go straight on to my 2011 system. Everything is prepared!
But keep in mind that the late 2009 and mid 2010 share nearly the same logic board. Only the LVDS display connector has been replaced on the i5 & i7 2010 system. I had one i3 with the old style connector. Do not know if this makes a difference.

can someone help me pls?
i tried to flash the rom on my 780M in my 27" 2011 iMac. it was going well, until i had to type (.nvflash_linux --save ~/780M_EG2.rom). then i got an error (ERROR: No NVIDIA display adapters found.) i have no idea, why linux isn't recognizing my gpu, does anyone of you have a idea, or can even help me?

 

[NOTNlCE]

@NOTNlCE has got a WX4130 working in a 2010 iMac and I had one working in my late 2009 iMac. But I don't know whether he also tested it in a 2011 iMac. Maybe @Ausdauersportler will undertake that adventure?

Just for the sake of testing things, I *DID* put my WX 4130 in a 2011 iMac and it was not detected at all, as expected. @highvoltage12v thought perhaps the "00D" revision of the card would work, but I did not have such revision, mine was the "00" revision. The WX4130 seems to be doing very well - running all weekend without any panics or complaints. All I've noted was that my power supply was quite hot, but that is likely to be typical for this machine.

 

[Lottosmp]

can someone help me pls?
i tried to flash the rom on my 780M in my 27" 2011 iMac. it was going well, until i had to type (.nvflash_linux --save ~/780M_EG2.rom). then i got an error (ERROR: No NVIDIA display adapters found.) i have no idea, why linux isn't recognizing my gpu, does anyone of you have a idea, or can even help me?

I had the same thing happen with a K2100M, I am pretty sure now that the card is not working. You can try running `lspci` (or `lspci -M`) when you're in Linux, you should see a device "VGA compatible controller", or "3D controller" or "video controller" I think. I saw neither and that's why I think my 2100 was toast.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

can someone help me pls?
i tried to flash the rom on my 780M in my 27" 2011 iMac. it was going well, until i had to type (.nvflash_linux --save ~/780M_EG2.rom). then i got an error (ERROR: No NVIDIA display adapters found.) i have no idea, why linux isn't recognizing my gpu, does anyone of you have a idea, or can even help me?

When the GPU is correctly seated in the MXM slot you should be able to boot the Linux system and use the flash utility.
Either your card is dead or the card does not sit correctly in the slot. Please check this.

 

[highvoltage12v]

Just for the sake of testing things, I *DID* put my WX 4130 in a 2011 iMac and it was not detected at all, as expected. @highvoltage12v thought perhaps the "00D" revision of the card would work, but I did not have such revision, mine was the "00" revision. The WX4130 seems to be doing very well - running all weekend without any panics or complaints. All I've noted was that my power supply was quite hot, but that is likely to be typical for this machine.

In a couple of days I should have a 00D version of the card! Hopefully I can help solve this mystery.

 

[Lottosmp]

When the GPU is correctly seated in the MXM slot you should be able to boot the Linux system and use the flash utility.
Either your card is dead or the card does not sit correctly in the slot. Please check this.

Oh, and BTW, I may have missed someone else saying this in this long thread:

There's no need to "drill out" the X-bracket (at least on my K2100M and GTX765M). The bracket is glued onto the graphics card with some black sticky tape under the bracket, nothing else. You can gently heat it up a bit a with hair dryer and then use a plastic spudger to get under it - you can also _gently_ push on the threaded screw posts from the other side to help.

I drilled out the bracket on the K2100M and just removed it on my GTX765M - it's possible I shorted something because the drilling causes a lot of little metal swarfs, I scrubbed really hard with a toothbrush but it made think.