Thanks for your help! Drivers for Kepler cards are included in the macOS Mojave and Catalina. No need to change things here. Please run the Valley benchmark using (1920x1080, medium, no AA) and upload here...
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iM 4,1-14,4 2011 iMac Graphics Card Upgrade
- Thread starter MichaelDT
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You have not configured and enabled the OpenCore, I guess - Connection Type: DisplayPort? But this should not give you this message, I assume @nikey22 has to answer.
Downloading OpenCore now...
Oh and left speaker not working. Time to take it apart again...
Oh and left speaker not working. Time to take it apart again...
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You already have the latest firmware installed on your iMac?
You need the @highvoltage12v patches to get sleep back!
The best method known is installing them directly in /S*/L*/E* exactly as described in his post. No short cuts, please.
Have fun and success!
other than lack of sleep I haven't had these problems. internal display worked on windows and Mac before flashing, and this card has one of the highest benchmark scores on our speadsheet
something else is happening in my case (bad logic board? bad firmware? don't know.) other possible related symptoms are that it will not boot in to any os unless opt key is held or reFind is installed, and opt key/reFind do nothing if certain disks are attached internally or externally (possibly narrowed to disks with empty efi volumes)
BUT
other than these things(and the brightness) the machine and the card run great. I just set all os's never to sleep, keep reFind installed and hit option key if it gets hijaked. works great for me. I now have a 780 on the way
Thats some great advice, and I will give yours and Ooze thoughts another go, since i only can drop everything to one internal SSD and get rid of the optical drive, all i'll need to do is find which one slot of memory may work.
with all that done and tried, it may just come down to my system just maybe aged to much beyond saving LOL
i'll try the last recommendations and if nothing else i'll get another card and try again, I have already started the return process so we will see if they take it back. considering it said no returns on his seller post I may be out the 300 dollars unless eBay steps in
Installed OpenCore (which took me longer then I care to admit)
I now have brightness controls back.
Have a working left speaker
Still can't run Valley and I still get corruption on Safari tabs which makes me think that it's an issue with the graphics driver or lack there of.
Thanks for your help Ausdauersportler. You have been amazing.
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All credits to you, @nikey22 and @Nick [D]vB!
Create another APFS container and check Catalina or High Sierra.
Create another APFS container and check Catalina or High Sierra.
Maybe something like installing lower power VBIOS would work?
guys, i don't know what is it and searching the thread seams like encountered by others - just an observation, booting via OpenCore would peg the GPU clock on K2100M. Unigine banchmark varies between aprox 10 FPS when booted via OpenCore and 29.4 FPS when not using OpenCore.
I like the idea of that,
except one big thing is, the card hasn't even got the Bios flash done from @Nick [D]vB yet so i can't say that would even be the problem.
I may chalk it up and say that i got a dud from China and will have to try another one, apart from trying everyone that has posted in regards to the problem, i thank everyone of you, and think unless we have a problem matching that has a working solution I'll have to look at making my iMac a beast with another card and pray the next one comes working and not another broken dead card.
I know most or all say 100% tested or even like mine new, but we have to accept that it maybe bad, unless we have a dell or hp machine we can test the cards in that are meant for them we have to say its like coming to Vegas where i live and playing craps, you win some you lose some,
everyone who has been working so hard on this I for one appreciate you and all the hard work we all are doing to solve and help one another.
Millon thank you's from myself.
No, I cannot confirm this. The only difference you can get is running the benchmark with or without the internal LCD installed. Without the LCD the CPU is clocked down and the benchmark results go down, too.
The AMD card are completely different story here, all have some boost problems with OpenGL benchmarks like valley which can be solved using different tools.
I get these approx. 30 FPS running our internal standard bench with 1920x1080 medium on my K2100M all the time, now - nearly independent which CPU installed (2400, 2500S, 2600).
The only reason i posted was that i have seen this behavior in my Catalina setup with unedited OpenCore installation shared earlier here. In addition the results shared here for K2100M: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...3iXxe42LJjv2qRwVtVWCjobhxLI/edit#gid=63976567 indicated results that are inline with what i have observed and others might be seeing also? I see that after fresh boot HWMonitor GPU Clock would show 405Mhz then drop to 270Mhz and stay at it even when running the benchmark. Aslo the GPU Rail never draws more then 15W in that state. It probably can be explained, but for me booting w/out OpenCore makes that difference... @Ausdauersportler did you change or play with OC config.plist?
No, this list indicates nothing because first we both do not know under what circumstances theses results may have been produced. I do not trust in a list with NO description of hardware/software/open or closed/author etc...there may be even broken cards used. An even better - if you sort the values shown in that list by machine all the K2100M results for a 27" 2011 and a K2100M are in the very same range I posted before.
I had several K2100M and all were ok and I got and get the same values regardless which CPU has been installed in the 2011 systems. I got some lower values in 2009 and 2010 systems. The Valley scores always have some variation depending on the software running in background (spotlight is a threat). The CPU is mostly running a maximum frequency, but only at approx 1/3 of maximum power draw.
No, I use with the Nvidia cards more or less the stock OpenCore - have upgraded Lilu and Whatevergreen on this particular machine, recently.
Just compared two cards running at 42FPS and 60FPS in two 27 2011 drawing the same CPU power according to the HW monitor....of course after booted via OpenCore:
| GPU | Valley | GPU Power | CPU Power |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nvidia | 60FPS | 80W | 30W |
| AMD | 42FPS | 45W | 30W |
If I got you right you see higher values of 30 FPS without OpenCore. All my values were obtained with OpenCore.
thanks for your notes @Ausdauersportler. after few more tests i am also seeing different results between 10.13.6 and 10.15.4 In other words it might be isolated to my catalina setup , behaviour/benchmark results are inconsistent with 10.15.4 independent of OpenCore. Mainly its seams to be related to GPU power management in 10.15.4 based on what the HWMonitor is reporting while the benchmark is running...
Just FYI, I've ordered 4 of these cards and should receive them the coming week. I have 3 or 4 A1312 2011's with fried GPU's from customers here, waiting to be repaired. I'll use the method as described by Xanderon and install the OpenCore bootloader, and report back here. I don't intend to install newer MacOS than High Sierra, customers just want their devices fixed. If I get any feedback later on from customers, I'll report that back here, too.
Forgive my ignorance,
the linux tool, thats bootable, is that the tool we would use with the ch341a tool,
or do we have another guide that shows us how to setup a flash drive to login and the commands used to work that tool??
I just got the tool and now just need to figure out if i use a windows pc and a usb to boot into or if i use MacBook and boot from it and use the clip?
thanks
the linux tool, thats bootable, is that the tool we would use with the ch341a tool,
or do we have another guide that shows us how to setup a flash drive to login and the commands used to work that tool??
I just got the tool and now just need to figure out if i use a windows pc and a usb to boot into or if i use MacBook and boot from it and use the clip?
thanks
NO, the linux tool can be used to boot the iMac after installing the card and flash a new VBIOS. In your case this does not work. You need another working system with an USB port and the latest and greatest version of the flashrom software installed...can be another Mac or a Windows system....you connect the USB CH341A clip programmer with this system and use the software to read the original VBIOS and save it and share it and then you are going to write the WX7100_GOP.ROM to you card.
Perfect, ill load it on my mac mini and use it to take the flashrom and backup current WX7100 rom then flash the new one,
least it will give me a bit of practice, if the thing don't work anyway, then i can be prepared for the next card i get
In that case follow the guide here - the Mac uses systems like brew to install standard unix alike packages. If you search this thread for flashrom or going back to page one you will find th posts linked showing the command lines to enter...Perfect, ill load it on my mac mini and use it to take the flashrom and backup current WX7100 rom then flash the new one,
least it will give me a bit of practice, if the thing don't work anyway, then i can be prepared for the next card i get
Good afternoon, please help
I bought a Nvidia 780m on ali, when the video card was delivered, I tested it without a heatsink for performance. At High Sierra, I got a desktop image. When the updated heatsink came to me, I updated the i7-2600 and installed 780m, but when I try to turn on imac 27 2011, I get a black screen. When connecting an external display via DP, I see the desktop and normal performance, without an internal display. I successfully flashed the video card blindly using usb-linux, but this did not produce results. The screen is black. When you install an old ATI 512mb graphics card and the screen works. Who faced this problem? OS High Sierra installed it clean half a year ago.
I am writing through a translator from Russia, I hope for your help, thanks!
I bought a Nvidia 780m on ali, when the video card was delivered, I tested it without a heatsink for performance. At High Sierra, I got a desktop image. When the updated heatsink came to me, I updated the i7-2600 and installed 780m, but when I try to turn on imac 27 2011, I get a black screen. When connecting an external display via DP, I see the desktop and normal performance, without an internal display. I successfully flashed the video card blindly using usb-linux, but this did not produce results. The screen is black. When you install an old ATI 512mb graphics card and the screen works. Who faced this problem? OS High Sierra installed it clean half a year ago.
I am writing through a translator from Russia, I hope for your help, thanks!
