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iM 4,1-14,4 2011 iMac Graphics Card Upgrade
- Thread starter MichaelDT
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Nope, best CPU for that is the i7-880. I did the exact same swap! Gets 1051 on Cinebench R20
Interesting comment regarding a k3100m: "I get this card long time ago on ebay it was flashed for this imac."
It would be interesting to see what kind of bios this card has. Is it possible to export the bios using mac?
This comes across every few weeks, The @Nick [D]vB is selling exactly this card on eBay and he wrote this here a few times. The second thing is that ripping off the vBIOS of a commercial product and redistributing it is not really the best idea I have heard of, especially planned in the public
You will need it likely because you have already changed the HDD against a SSD. The K1100M draws 40W and will unlikely overheat your system.
Without OC and though without brightness control you will need it to shuffle the heat outside...
you can also use the dosdude patched to download the newest version and upgrade in place.
in that case best to download the latest patcher from his site
Please do us a favour and add your hardware and software config to your personal signature - probably add your current project, too. We are not good at guessing.
If you are talking about selecting from the OC-Kernel than my answer would be follow the original @highvoltage12v installation instructions and copy everything to disk - injection does not work with Nvidia and 2011. Put Lilu and Whatevergreen in disk, too.
Well, i'am fighting for few days with an iMac 21,5'' 2010.
Symptoms: LCD light up for a fraction of second on boot and shut off. After, no picture on internal screen, but faint image on LCD, picture on external screen.
Then i change backlight board.
No changes. Maybe another bad backlight board or something else?
Today, i lower backlight level under nearly 40%. Then when the LCD lit up on boot it stayed lit, and reaching desktop i could slowly rise backlight level to maximum. No LCD shut off.
After a few reboots, i have no more problems with backlight. I had to seat and try to understand (and i have no answers!).
I swapped back the "original faulty" backlight board and apply the same process. And i recovered backlight to 100% too.
What do you think, is there somewhere a learning process archived, a behavior history saved somewhere? It's seems unbelievable and crazy!?!?
I tried for nearly one week to solve this problem.
Symptoms: LCD light up for a fraction of second on boot and shut off. After, no picture on internal screen, but faint image on LCD, picture on external screen.
Then i change backlight board.
No changes. Maybe another bad backlight board or something else?
Today, i lower backlight level under nearly 40%. Then when the LCD lit up on boot it stayed lit, and reaching desktop i could slowly rise backlight level to maximum. No LCD shut off.
After a few reboots, i have no more problems with backlight. I had to seat and try to understand (and i have no answers!).
I swapped back the "original faulty" backlight board and apply the same process. And i recovered backlight to 100% too.
What do you think, is there somewhere a learning process archived, a behavior history saved somewhere? It's seems unbelievable and crazy!?!?
I tried for nearly one week to solve this problem.
Where are the backlight settings stored to survive the reboot - I would guess in the NVRAM? Maybe these values where corrupted and lead to this behavior. But I guess the first thing you tried was the famous PRAM reset
Yes, a few SMC's and PRAM's resetsWhere are the backlight settings stored to survive the reboot - I would guess in the NVRAM? Maybe these values where corrupted and lead to this behavior. But I guess the first thing you tried was the famous PRAM reset
It's what is disturbing.
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I was even thinking about revive welds on capacitors as they seemed somewhat corroded.Yes, a few SMC's and PRAM's resets
It's what is disturbing.
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At first I want to say thank you to everyone of you who contributed any information for installing another graphics card in a 2011 iMac. I hope it is okay that I describe what I have done to get things working:
I bought a Nvidia Quadro K2100M already flashed with the right vBIOS by Nick [D]vB.
The iMac was running HighSierra so after installing the card everything was okay for the moment - except brightness control.
After that I installed with macOS Catalina Patcher by dosdude1 macOS Catalina 10.15.5.
Then I used Hackintool and the Kext Utility to patch:
After the first boot native brightness control worked until I reduced the brightness to zero. The screen went of and could no longer turned on. After reboot there was only a black screen, not brightness control. I performed a PRAM reset et volià native brightness control is working at its best.
Thank you for all the great postings in the forum - I recommend to read all of them because there are so many helpful information!
I bought a Nvidia Quadro K2100M already flashed with the right vBIOS by Nick [D]vB.
The iMac was running HighSierra so after installing the card everything was okay for the moment - except brightness control.
After that I installed with macOS Catalina Patcher by dosdude1 macOS Catalina 10.15.5.
Then I used Hackintool and the Kext Utility to patch:
- Catalina Sandybridge graphics by highvoltage12v (without Lilu and WEG)
- patched AppleGraphicsControl.kext by highvoltage12v because I had a black screen in Catalina all the time
(only bootable with option key through the boot picker)
After the first boot native brightness control worked until I reduced the brightness to zero. The screen went of and could no longer turned on. After reboot there was only a black screen, not brightness control. I performed a PRAM reset et volià native brightness control is working at its best.
Thank you for all the great postings in the forum - I recommend to read all of them because there are so many helpful information!
This comes across every few weeks, The @Nick [D]vB is selling exactly this card on eBay and he wrote this here a few times. The second thing is that ripping off the vBIOS of a commercial product and redistributing it is not really the best idea I have heard of, especially planned in the public
Sorry, i didn't know that. Its fine in that case
If you have an ebay link for this item, please send it to me, i want to buy one for my 27".Yes, a few SMC's and PRAM's resets
It's what is disturbing.
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I was even thinking about revive welds on capacitors as they seemed somewhat corroded.
Bootrom restore to the original maybe?
Bootrom was already updated to 99.0.0.0.0 on this iMac 2010 21,5'' before this unexpected backlight resolution (High Sierra). I didn't change anything. Stock I3 CPU, stock HD 4670 256MB GPU ( i do not even wanna try Valley on this one
), stock HDD.Now, i will begin to mod things
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hi,
I tried clover Usb on 27 iMac also for boot, it can load with no kext -no settings, it inject boot -display,device-type correctly, I wanted to use it to load a modified bios with no luck on iMac,
but someone can do test with other cards than k1100.
with no backlight of course.....
;clover usb uefi install
I tried clover Usb on 27 iMac also for boot, it can load with no kext -no settings, it inject boot -display,device-type correctly, I wanted to use it to load a modified bios with no luck on iMac,
but someone can do test with other cards than k1100.
with no backlight of course.....
;clover usb uefi install
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According to some other recent posts the 1GB version seems to work with the same vBIOS, too. No 100% guarantee, but where do you get this
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You can use the OpenCore aka Catalina Loader with all Kepler cards - it will give you immediately the OpenCore boot screen, of course no brightness control. You just have to find a working GOP vBIOS, Dell is always a good candidate.
So I ordered an Xeon 1275 and a R9 M290X
I have the feeling this will work quiet well.
Since yesterday my Mac stoped working (graphical issues w/ vertical lines and reboots).
So I have to wait for the parts.
That’s from me, when everything arrives I will test it out
I have the feeling this will work quiet well.
Since yesterday my Mac stoped working (graphical issues w/ vertical lines and reboots).
So I have to wait for the parts.
That’s from me, when everything arrives I will test it out
I tested today iMac 27'' 2011 WX100 power draw with a power meter plug. (LCD to 40%)
During boot maximum draw was 202W.
Idle on desktop : around 95W average.
During valley benchmark, 190W average, with some higher values up to 220W.
We are far here from maximum power supply capacity 310W.
hi nickIt seems St. Nick is running a few days late this year, 🎅
or maybe a few weeks early, depending on where you live…
Quadro roms attached, for the following cards:
K1000M, K1100M, K2000M, & K2100M
They all have CoreEG2 integrated so no boot-rom mod required.
The clocks should also be unlocked in windows (not P5 limited)
and they have a moderate over-clock which should be stable.
Thanks to @highvoltage12v for running the K2X stability tests,
so if your iMac crashes, for any reason, it’s totally his fault !
I have native brightness control & Target Display Mode working
so far only on the two newer cards (K1100M & K2100M)
At the moment this will require using the OpenCore boot-loader
to do some ACPI injection, and maybe load some additional Kexts.
I’m working on a plug-n-play version that runs from a USB stick,
but there are still some things to fix so that may be a few weeks out.
Not forgetting the red team…
I worked out what was limiting the boost clocks in MacOS,
these Beta3 roms should now be completely un-limited.
I’ve also included an over-clocked version - but be careful,
it will produce a lot more heat so make sure you crank the fans up!
I’m still working on a fix for that code 43 driver issue in Windows,
and hoping we can use OpenCore to work-around the problem,
as it can also be used to enable “iMacPro” HEVC encoding for FCPX etc.
The boot-rom mod is still required for AMD, probably always will be,
It’s included here but there are no changes so no need to re-apply it.
UPDATE for K1100M !
Well this is embarrassing... turns out I'm an idiot!
I accidentally uploaded the wrong file for the K1100M
If you downloaded the previous version do not flash it.
No other cards effected, I have updated the download.
🎅
can you make a nvidia imac vbios for a Nvidia G-force GT 240M 1GB N10P-GS-A2
Guys, there's no need to remove the X-clamp nor to have the "screws" tapped/drilled out!
Just notice:
- the inner-filet of the nut in a MXM card's X-clamp matches an M2 threaded rod (first picture below)
- the captive nuts in the heatsink have a hole in them that's wide enough for M2 (second/third picture below)
Then you'll need:
And that's it (pictures below are worth a thousand words)!
- 4 x 10mm M2 bolts for an MXM-A heatsink (pictures below)
- 4 x 15mm M2 bolts for an MXM-B heatsink
View attachment 896151View attachment 896152View attachment 896153View attachment 896154
Guys,
Helpful post but M2*10mm screws are too short if you're trying to install a MXM-A card in the 27" 2010 iMac. I thought I was going mad when trying to fit a K2100M onto the heatsink as it kept coming out, and realised that the screws were just too short! I wonder if the measurements above are the wrong way around... I am waiting for delivery of some M2*16mm, hopefully these will work...