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

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Hey guys, just jumping into this thread. I have a 2010 27" i7 iMac, with the original HD 5750 Radeon 1GB. It has occasional graphics artifacts, and I have just come across this thread which is very interesting. I absolutely need Target Display Mode as I use the iMac as an external monitor for a PC. Looking for the most compatibility and least issues possible (even if I don't get top performance), and also not to spend very much ideally, which card out of those on the list would you recommend? At a glance, perhaps K1100m or K2100m? If so, which of those would be a better bet?
Thanks a lot,
R
 
I will likely be ordering a 780M on eBay soon, to see if I can revive my 2011 27". Anything specific to look for in the eBay posts, or should I just order the first I see in the list?
 
Due to the TDP of the 780m, you will need this version of heat sink with 3 heatpipes

1590829817136.png
 
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There is some thanking overdue from my side!

About exactly before the overall lockdown I purchased 3 defective 27" 2011 iMacs and one for parts. 2 out of the 3 have been running for more than 2 months perfectly now with K2100M and K1100M's, the third I fixed little more than 2 weeks ago and sold on for a bit of a recuperation on the bunch. I'm over the moon with this nice extra machine and I'm glad I could give one to my uncle who was wanting to dabble around with a Mac for a long time now.

So @Nick [D]vB, @Ausdauersportler, @herrdude, @xanderon, @highvoltage12v, @nikey22 and other contributors that I'm sorry to forget to mention: many many many thanks for all your effort and help! Awesome! I do feel for you guys having the patience to keep refering newcomers to the first post haha

PS: Anyone been trying out 10.15.5 in combination with OC by any chance?
 
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Alright people. So a sad day for me but maybe a happy day for someone else:

I managed to slip removing the logic board of my iMac and knocked off some resistor or cap or something. Tiny little ****er, did it with a thumbnail.

I can't be bothered with this anymore, this was a project mac so I'm just done. Anyone want it for spares?Everything but the logic board (obviously) and the P.O.S radeon card (which died and is the reason I wanted to try the upgrade). Screen is fine, glass is mint, the case is basically mint too. Would be a shame to throw this in the bin but I'm letting you guys know about it before I stick it on ebay. I will post to the UK. Globally if you ask very nicely (and pay extra).
 
z33capt13n said:
... I managed to slip removing the logic board of my iMac and knocked off some resistor or cap or something. Tiny little ****er, did it with a thumbnail.
Click to expand...
Did you try powering it on with the missing bits? Perhaps they were unneeded for it sounds like they wanted to leave.

z33capt13n said:
... I will post to the UK. Globally if you ask very nicely (and pay extra).
Click to expand...
I wish we lived closer for it sounds solid for spare parts, or for a logic board transplant. It probably has one of those funny plugs that would not fit my wall though. 😀🇬🇧🇺🇸🔌
 
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z33capt13n said:
Alright people. So a sad day for me but maybe a happy day for someone else:

I managed to slip removing the logic board of my iMac and knocked off some resistor or cap or something. Tiny little ****er, did it with a thumbnail.

I can't be bothered with this anymore, this was a project mac so I'm just done. Anyone want it for spares?Everything but the logic board (obviously) and the P.O.S radeon card (which died and is the reason I wanted to try the upgrade). Screen is fine, glass is mint, the case is basically mint too. Would be a shame to throw this in the bin but I'm letting you guys know about it before I stick it on ebay. I will post to the UK. Globally if you ask very nicely (and pay extra).
Click to expand...

Sad to hear this mate. I'm in the UK and might be interested. Do you mind sharing the specs?

Thanks,
R
 
r6mile said:
Sad to hear this mate. I'm in the UK and might be interested. Do you mind sharing the specs?

Thanks,
R
Click to expand...

Okay, this is the specs:
It's a mid 2011 27" iMac. Dual core i7 processor.
16gb ram. Optical drive still works, Logic board is most likely dead due to my idocy.
The Radeon 6500m was a 1gb card but it's blown a couple of micro componants- you can actually see a couple split in half...
I've got a nVidea Quadro 2100m card but I'm waiting for aliexpress to confirm or deny they can give me a refund before I sell it.
The screen is in perfect shape (minus the fingerprints haha) the outer glass is mint, the case has next to no damage at all- it was owned by my design studio before I got it so it was looked after.
I can take out any bits you want as well, the heat sinks for the GPU and the CPU are both going spare too.

Also, if you are interested, I've got a car and can deliver within reason for petrol money like
 
Vego17 said:
Still no progress with my wx7100, however I called a friend of mine which has Dell Precision 7710 and at the weekend we will try the gpu in his laptop to have a clear answer whether it's the gpu that's faulty or if the imac is to blame.
Click to expand...
if i don't get mine working, maybe i'll need to send your friend mine to test as well, then i can rule out it being a dud card, or my iMac :)

look forward to hearing your results
 
z33capt13n said:
Okay, this is the specs:
It's a mid 2011 27" iMac. Dual core i7 processor.
16gb ram. Optical drive still works, Logic board is most likely dead due to my idocy.
The Radeon 6500m was a 1gb card but it's blown a couple of micro componants- you can actually see a couple split in half...
I've got a nVidea Quadro 2100m card but I'm waiting for aliexpress to confirm or deny they can give me a refund before I sell it.
The screen is in perfect shape (minus the fingerprints haha) the outer glass is mint, the case has next to no damage at all- it was owned by my design studio before I got it so it was looked after.
I can take out any bits you want as well, the heat sinks for the GPU and the CPU are both going spare too.

Also, if you are interested, I've got a car and can deliver within reason for petrol money like
Click to expand...
I saw somewhere else on these forums that someone did a similar move and another poster recommended using a pencil to draw a line where the resistor connects (between the two pads). The line actually allowed the current to flow. Food for thought before you unload your iMac. Also, what diagnostic lights are you getting?
[automerge]1590863846[/automerge]
BadBiscuit said:
Did you try powering it on with the missing bits? Perhaps they were unneeded for it sounds like they wanted to leave.


I wish we lived closer for it sounds solid for spare parts, or for a logic board transplant. It probably has one of those funny plugs that would not fit my wall though. 😀🇬🇧🇺🇸🔌
Click to expand...
The cable is removable. No need to put an adapter.
 
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I found a Card that I'm thinking of getting but not sure if this will work or not, its a Dell V3G02 Alienware M17X ATI Radeon R9 M290X Gpu does that equal out to any of the models we are currently playing around with? Any thoughts?


I just got a brand new AMD Radeon Pro WX4150 i haven't opened yet as i ordered it and mistakenly thought it would work on the 2011 iMac I'm so thinking i should try flashing it and seeing if it would work, with the new changes and things Nick and everyone else has been doing, Im waiting on a new logic board to come in and will stab the WX7100 one more time to see if it will work, if not, I'll be another one on the list thats gotten a WX7100 with the same ID as Nick, Pascal, with the 00C-002 and it failed to even boot in the iMac or even allow the system to strike a boot and power up.

any thoughts on this chance of doing the WX4150 or anything else, is always appreciated.
I like having a card with more ram on the GPu so any recommendations on a card thats 3-4 gigs by AMD would be cool, i have nothing against Nvidia but if they are at war with apple, i'd hate to get things going and poof the kexts are gone,

Thanks for any input.

stay safe and blessed everyone.
 
Rassmusen said:
So I've done some experimentation this past weekend and I think my power supply may be working but be marginal and providing the current required to boot. I can get the machine to light LED 1 and 2 and hear the boot chime when I have no graphics card installed and no disk drives connected. As I connect items it becomes random how often I can get LED 1 and 2 to light and hear boot chime. Connect 1 item works almost every time, add an additional item 1 in 5 times, add another item 1 in 20 times until it just will not work. I have ordered a new power supply and will let you know if that fixes it.
Click to expand...
Ok, so new power supply fixed the power-up problem but not with the WX7100. It will not boot with that card installed. I have the 860M back in and it works as before. I guess I will join the list of people with non-functional WX7100's.
 
Rassmusen said:
Ok, so new power supply fixed the power-up problem but not with the WX7100. It will not boot with that card installed. I have the 860M back in and it works as before. I guess I will join the list of people with non-functional WX7100's.
Click to expand...
Sorry, please do us a favour posting pictures of both sides of the WX7100 and the zipped original VBIOS, too :)
 
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Hello guys, is it safe to patch catalina with dosdude1? I already installed the new GPU (770m) and flashed Nick's modified rom. I would like to just update my current system (High Sierra) without having to format it and keep my installed apps safe. Can I do it or do I need to format it to change the SSD partition?
I also have a partition of BOOTCAMP with Windows 10.

System: iMac 21.5 mid 2011. 16GB, I5, SSD 500GB, 770m.

Thank you!
 
Antônio Nicola said:
Hello guys, is it safe to patch catalina with dosdude1? I already installed the new GPU (770m) and flashed Nick's modified rom. I would like to just update my current system (High Sierra) without having to format it and keep my installed apps safe. Can I do it or do I need to format it to change the SSD partition?
I also have a partition of BOOTCAMP with Windows 10.

System: iMac 21.5 mid 2011. 16GB, I5, SSD 500GB, 770m.

Thank you!
Click to expand...
After checking @dosdude1 changelog today and seeing 10.15.5 support added, I say go for it. Still no support for Metal iMac's mentioned though :/ So there are some things you have to do manually such as installing AppleGraphicsControl.kext and the sleep kexts for SandyBridge/2011 iMac's.

Your best bet is to install an additional SSD in the optical drive area, or buy the 2nd SSD cable for the 21.5" iMac so you can have both Catalina and High Sierra.

https://www.amazon.com/Deal4GO-Second-593-1296-922-9862-Warranty/dp/B07MWZLDDT This cable+ A right angled sata connector should do it.

PS: with a 770M you have a very high chance of random reboots (kernel Panics) when using Newer Mac OS (mojave+Catalina) on a 21.5" model, the AppleGraphicsPowerManagement kext doesn't load anymore which can cause the iMac to supply more power than it can handle to the MXM card causing kernel Panics, I have documented the dilemma well with my 770M/765M and my 21.5" iMac. You most likely will encounter this when creating a new user account on setup with Mojave/Catalina. This was on page 1, fair warning.
 
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Hi guys
Probably I would find answer if I would read all the pages here, but there is too much, so I ask you.
I have an iMac 2011, I'm really satisfied with it, I've upgraded the RAM to 20GB, there is a 250GB SSD, so it's pretty good for me. The only thing I missed is the newest OS, and I need it cause of I want to learn programming in xcode, and the High Sierra don't support the newest xcode.
Can you recommend me a GPU to resolve this problem?So I don't need the fanciest GPU, just want the Catalina on my iMac. Thanks in advance!
 
venndi said:
Hi guys
Probably I would find answer if I would read all the pages here, but there is too much, so I ask you.
I have an iMac 2011, I'm really satisfied with it, I've upgraded the RAM to 20GB, there is a 250GB SSD, so it's pretty good for me. The only thing I missed is the newest OS, and I need it cause of I want to learn programming in xcode, and the High Sierra don't support the newest xcode.
Can you recommend me a GPU to resolve this problem?So I don't need the fanciest GPU, just want the Catalina on my iMac. Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...
one more time the best value prize/perf no contest is the nvidia Qadro K2100M 2Gb beware buy the Quadro K2100M version not quadro 2100M
 
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ZenSurfeur said:
my feedback about catalina 10.15.4 > 10.15.5

all works fine nothing to do (I use Opencore, AppleGraphicsControl.kext and the sleep kexts for SandyBridge > all installed with catalina 10.15.4)

View attachment 920238
Click to expand...

Thanks! How I did the update from 15.4 to 15.5 and maybe help others:

1) Download the latest Dosdude patcher (thanks @dosdude1 :) )
2) Download the latest full version of Catalina through the patcher
3) Choose Install to this Machine
4) Patcher will notice additional available updates and suggest to install
4) That's it, takes about 20 minutes to complete

I however did have two things: the brightness was stuck to about half brightness although saying it was on 100% and the Intel QuickSync was disabled again. I had this as well with the second iMac I fixed and this issue was resolved after installing the Sandybridge kexts which I still had to do at that point (https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/2011-imac-graphics-card-upgrade.1596614/post-27899047). So I did these steps again and now everything is working properly again, although I don't know if this has any consequences installing the same kexts over the previous ones.

Edit:
To be exact; I use OpenCore with every kext in there enabled except for Lilu and WhateverGreen since they are installed along with the Sandybridge and QuickSync kexts/framework with the post of @highvoltage12v I link to above :)
 
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