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

[ceejayy]

Hey there. Here’s my contribution to the thread.. hopefully lol.

I bought two cards to test out on my iMac, a Quadro K4100M and a FirePro M6100. Both cards work on the iMac albeit with a couple caveats.

The FirePro boots up with no bootscreen, however give it some time, High Sierra eventually boots and we get an image on the screen. Apparently the drivers are already baked in as the card gets detected as “Radeon HD 8xxx”.Haven’t gotten a chance to test in Catalina.

I have the Quadro in another machine with a Catalina install. No bootscreen, and the screen doesn’t turn on at all. However, I was able to remote into the Catalina install and it detects the card as a Quadro. However it doesn’t detect a display. I suspect I have to edit the dcb table, but hopefully someone can point me in the right direction for that.

other than that, both cards under windows will not run. Boots into code 43 I think it was. Again I didn’t really go that deep into testing. I’d like to continue to contribute so just tell me what to do and if it’s within my scope I’ll do it.

 

[SubDriver]

Hey there. Here’s my contribution to the thread.. hopefully lol.

I bought two cards to test out on my iMac, a Quadro K4100M and a FirePro M6100. Both cards work on the iMac albeit with a couple caveats.

The FirePro boots up with no bootscreen, however give it some time, High Sierra eventually boots and we get an image on the screen. Apparently the drivers are already baked in as the card gets detected as “Radeon HD 8xxx”.Haven’t gotten a chance to test in Catalina.

I have the Quadro in another machine with a Catalina install. No bootscreen, and the screen doesn’t turn on at all. However, I was able to remote into the Catalina install and it detects the card as a Quadro. However it doesn’t detect a display. I suspect I have to edit the dcb table, but hopefully someone can point me in the right direction for that.

other than that, both cards under windows will not run. Boots into code 43 I think it was. Again I didn’t really go that deep into testing. I’d like to continue to contribute so just tell me what to do and if it’s within my scope I’ll do it.

Those on this forum will generally be happy to help and I am sure they would be very interested to get after testing two additional cards that have yet to be reported. However, I have learned that it is most helpful if you add your "system and project info to your personal signature, so we can keep track what your are doing " (See last line of post #7146 and its accompanying signature block)

 

[highvoltage12v]

Hey there. Here’s my contribution to the thread.. hopefully lol.

I bought two cards to test out on my iMac, a Quadro K4100M and a FirePro M6100. Both cards work on the iMac albeit with a couple caveats.

The FirePro boots up with no bootscreen, however give it some time, High Sierra eventually boots and we get an image on the screen. Apparently the drivers are already baked in as the card gets detected as “Radeon HD 8xxx”.Haven’t gotten a chance to test in Catalina.

I have the Quadro in another machine with a Catalina install. No bootscreen, and the screen doesn’t turn on at all. However, I was able to remote into the Catalina install and it detects the card as a Quadro. However it doesn’t detect a display. I suspect I have to edit the dcb table, but hopefully someone can point me in the right direction for that.

other than that, both cards under windows will not run. Boots into code 43 I think it was. Again I didn’t really go that deep into testing. I’d like to continue to contribute so just tell me what to do and if it’s within my scope I’ll do it.

You mind trying to add the patched AppleGraphicsControl.kext for 10.15.4+ to your Catalina install to see if your display shows up? Even supported cards need this fix now.

2011 iMac Graphics Card Upgrade

EDIT: 8/16/20 NEW AGC kexts have been added to change "board-id" to "board-ix" in the AppleGraphicsDevicePolicy binary. This has the same affect as "agdpmod=pikera" from Whatevergreen, this upload is for AMD users. "instant on" K3100m/k4100m/k5100m/780m etc cards need this kext to fix...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[ceejayy]

Those on this forum will generally be happy to help and I am sure they would be very interested to get after testing two additional cards that have yet to be reported. However, I have learned that it is most helpful if you add your "system and project info to your personal signature, so we can keep track what your are doing " (See last line of post #7146 and its accompanying signature block)

Noted. Signature updated.

You mind trying to add the patched AppleGraphicsControl.kext for 10.15.4+ to your Catalina install to see if your display shows up? Even supported cards need this fix now.

2011 iMac Graphics Card Upgrade

EDIT: 8/16/20 NEW AGC kexts have been added to change "board-id" to "board-ix" in the AppleGraphicsDevicePolicy binary. This has the same affect as "agdpmod=pikera" from Whatevergreen, this upload is for AMD users. "instant on" K3100m/k4100m/k5100m/780m etc cards need this kext to fix...

forums.macrumors.com

I had installed the kext using the method you had mentioned. rebooted after it errored out. No go for me, but I think it's due to the fact that my display wasn't detected properly in the first place, again i'm assuming has something to do with the DCB tables on this cards vbios. Tried a dell rom on it too, taken from techpowerup and not recommended if you don't have a clip programmer just in case, and it booted but still no display for me.

Again, it shows as 1280x1024 which sounds like the default VGA driver, so im guessing the card isnt outputting to the LVDS connector at all. The experience is smooth compred to when the 5870 was in there so it sounds like its definitely using the gpu for hardware acceleration. (edited due to serial)

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Hey there. Here’s my contribution to the thread.. hopefully lol.

I bought two cards to test out on my iMac, a Quadro K4100M and a FirePro M6100. Both cards work on the iMac albeit with a couple caveats.

The FirePro boots up with no bootscreen, however give it some time, High Sierra eventually boots and we get an image on the screen. Apparently the drivers are already baked in as the card gets detected as “Radeon HD 8xxx”.Haven’t gotten a chance to test in Catalina.

I have the Quadro in another machine with a Catalina install. No bootscreen, and the screen doesn’t turn on at all. However, I was able to remote into the Catalina install and it detects the card as a Quadro. However it doesn’t detect a display. I suspect I have to edit the dcb table, but hopefully someone can point me in the right direction for that.

other than that, both cards under windows will not run. Boots into code 43 I think it was. Again I didn’t really go that deep into testing. I’d like to continue to contribute so just tell me what to do and if it’s within my scope I’ll do it.

Hi!

You may prepare OpenCore SD cards for Nvidia and AMD to get a boot screen.

You can use the Linux boot stick to flash AMD and Nvidia cards.

Would be nice to know and upload the vBIOS versions you used, the ones found on the card and the links to the versions found in techpowerup.com.

Thanks for sharing!

 

[nikey22]

As mentioned before by others, any Kepler based card can eventually be made to work in the iMac to some degree. A few things to keep in mind: It is not as simple as a dcb table edit; The imac does not us LVDS for output; You cannot "clip" rescue a K3/K4 card with a programmer!

 

[bennyboi04]

Afternoon all,

New to the Mac scene but have been in the IT industry with Wintel for years.

I have purchased a 2011 iMac for my son and added a GTX770m and installed the patched version of Catalina to get him running on the latest iMovie.

Machine boots up fine but then if it goes to sleep I cannot get it back. I have to force power off and then turn it back on, but then I get no display. Power off again and reset NVRAM and it will boot up, but then I hit the same scenario again.

I believe I have followed everything on the start of this thread and also on Dosdude's guide. GTX770M has the modded vBIOS. System preferences are identifying the correct GPU (with reference to custom vBIOS).

Please can I ask for someone's advice on this?

Many thanks in advance.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Afternoon all,

New to the Mac scene but have been in the IT industry with Wintel for years.

I have purchased a 2011 iMac for my son and added a GTX770m and installed the patched version of Catalina to get him running on the latest iMovie.

Machine boots up fine but then if it goes to sleep I cannot get it back. I have to force power off and then turn it back on, but then I get no display. Power off again and reset NVRAM and it will boot up, but then I hit the same scenario again.

I believe I have followed everything on the start of this thread and also on Dosdude's guide. GTX770M has the modded vBIOS. System preferences are identifying the correct GPU (with reference to custom vBIOS).

Please can I ask for someone's advice on this?

Many thanks in advance.

This is my absolute favourite:
Just go back to the first page and the first post (this is the secret guide) and read there, or better search for sleep. @highvoltage12v found a solution and it is linked there.

 

[NOTNlCE]

Machine boots up fine but then if it goes to sleep I cannot get it back. I have to force power off and then turn it back on, but then I get no display. Power off again and reset NVRAM and it will boot up, but then I hit the same scenario again.

Good morning,

Congratulations on your upgrade! Have you installed the patched HD3000 kexts through the modified IOSurface.kext? If yes, try to remove and reinstall - permissions could be wrong, cache could be bad, any number of things. If not, please do so and try again - remember to unlock the system partition with Hackintool.

Q: Sleep is broken in Catalina, how do I fix this?
A: Similar to the above issue in Mojave, the SandyBridge kexts are missing in Catalina. Installing them like Mojave fixes sleep, but causes extended boot times. @highvoltage12v has provided a patched IOSurface.kext containing the SandyBridge kexts in THIS POST which can be installed using the same method as above to resolve both issues.

 

[bennyboi04]

This is my absolute favourite:
Just go back to the first page and the first post (this is the secret guide) and read there, or better search for sleep. @highvoltage12v found a solution and it is linked there.

Many thanks for pointing me in the right direction... a bit overwhelming for a newb on the front page!

So you believe the Kext update will resolve the issue?

Thanks

 

[highvoltage12v]

Many thanks for pointing me in the right direction... a bit overwhelming for a newb on the front page!

So you believe the Kext update will resolve the issue?

Thanks

Follow the guide with the Kexts, use Hackintool to unlock the Catalina system partition. Then take all the needed kexts (not Whatevergreen or Lilu) and drag them onto Kext utility. It should install them, but time out with an error. Just to be safe go to Terminal and enter "sudo reboot" to reboot your iMac.

 

[bennyboi04]

Follow the guide with the Kexts, use Hackintool to unlock the Catalina system partition. Then take all the needed kexts (not Whatevergreen or Lilu) and drag them onto Kext utility. It should install them, but time out with an error. Just to be safe go to Terminal and enter "sudo reboot" to reboot your iMac.

Early indications are good! Thanks for your help... this has been hard work... thought it would be as simple as Windows, but will be a learning curve! Many thanks, really appreciate it!

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Early indications are good! Thanks for your help... this has been hard work... thought it would be as simple as Windows, but will be a learning curve! Many thanks, really appreciate it!

It is my favourite because it was a more or less 100% copy of my very first post in this thread some month, ago. Have fun with this iMac and follow the news on this thread about the recent "black screen" issues after or while installing the latest versions of Catalina. This is an endless source of joy

 

[ceejayy]

As mentioned before by others, any Kepler based card can eventually be made to work in the iMac to some degree. A few things to keep in mind: It is not as simple as a dcb table edit; The imac does not us LVDS for output; You cannot "clip" rescue a K3/K4 card with a programmer!

Thanks for the insight. Care to elaborate? I haven't looked into rescuing the card yet so I didn't really look into the board yet so I apologize for any misinformation. I know I was able to do it with the FirePro card I had and thats it.

So I was thinking maybe changing the framebuffer busid through opencore was the answer? Ill mess around with it today but is it along those lines? Or did you flash a different bios? I noticed you have a similar card in your build.\

Hi!

You may prepare OpenCore SD cards for Nvidia and AMD to get a boot screen.

You can use the Linux boot stick to flash AMD and Nvidia cards.

Would be nice to know and upload the vBIOS versions you used, the ones found on the card and the links to the versions found in techpowerup.com.

Thanks for sharing!

Theres only 2-3 bios listed on the Techpowerup page by Dell and HP and I pretty much tried em all no problem on my card.

 

[Curtis Gross]

I think so... after swapping out the card I didn't stay with High Sierra long. I don't remember any issues though. pretty sure I noticed the sleep issue almost immediately.
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ok... I think I am making some progress. I can confirm that open core is helping and making a difference. hardware encoding appears to be working now as I can now play certain video files now that were unplayable when not using open core, also frame rates are now doubled in unigen heaven test.

still unable to sleep and wake without a crash. The computer now successfully goes into "sleep" and will try to "wake" on keypress, but somewhere after the keypress and machine starts trying to "wake" it crashes and restarts. then this restart is not using open core so I have to force shutdown and manually restart holding option to invoke open core

any thoughts?

Check out minute 14:14 in the video in my signature. You can access the kext files you need within the description of the video!

 

[highvoltage12v]

Check out minute 14:14 in the video in my signature. You can access the kext files you need within the description of the video!

If installing to Catalina you need to replace IOsurface.kext otherwise it will kernel panic on boot you should add this to your Kext pack. MCCSControl.kext is also needed to fix garbled websites in Safari.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Check out minute 14:14 in the video in my signature. You can access the kext files you need within the description of the video!

As much as I like the idea of a learning or how to video, your work will be outdated soon unless you follow this thread (day by day and week by week) and add all the little and big changes to your own video or comments.

The idea of the internet was not to copy information from one computer to another (or one cloud storage to another), the idea was to add your own stuff based on the existing knowledge using (hyper)links.

We have a written OpenCore PDF based documentation ready to publish, but we do not know how to solve the challenge I described.

Sorry, but this nice video has become still history.

 

[Curtis Gross]

If installing to Catalina you need to replace IOsurface.kext otherwise it will kernel panic on boot you should add this to your Kext pack. MCCSControl.kext is also needed to fix garbled websites in Safari.

In my case the dosdude Catalina patcher put those in place automatically, cause I haven't run into those issues.
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As much as I like the idea of a learning or how to video, your work will be outdated soon unless you follow this thread (day by day and week by week) and add all the little and big changes to your own video or comments.

The idea of the internet was not to copy information from one computer to another (or one cloud storage to another), the idea was to add your own stuff based on the existing knowledge using (hyper)links.

We have a written OpenCore PDF based documentation ready to publish, but we do not know how to solve the challenge I described.

Sorry, but this nice video has become still history.

I agree that a video summary will be outdated almost immediately, but that is the nature of any technology. As soon as it is released, it is outdated. There is always new information coming around. The video is meant to help more visual learners who would rather have a summarized video, rather than read a wiki. As for the PDF - do it! Just make it 'versioned' and have a link to central place where you keep updated versions (or link to this tread).

 

[highvoltage12v]

In my case the dosdude Catalina patcher put those in place automatically, cause I haven't run into those issues.

If the Dosdude1 installer is adding those, then it should also be adding alot of frameworks that break metal support. I just did a 10.15.4 install and ran into this issue. I'll look to see if anything for 10.15.5 had changed.

 

[sparky720John]

Is anyone able to possibly show me the proper location of the Vbios location to attach the clip on a Nvidia GTX780M card, i've seen the WX7100 but not able to find a chip looking like that on the GTX780m??

A lot of the chips also look close together that i wouldn't be able to use my C431A clip on them, any possible help to locate chip would be nice, or if its easier to use the linux blind boot i've already created the usb stick for that, and the opencore usb. I can also create the windows bootcamp partition and default boot into that and flash direct from windows if that is even better??

 

[Ausdauersportler]

In my case the dosdude Catalina patcher put those in place automatically, cause I haven't run into those issues.
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I agree that a video summary will be outdated almost immediately, but that is the nature of any technology. As soon as it is released, it is outdated. There is always new information coming around. The video is meant to help more visual learners who would rather have a summarized video, rather than read a wiki. As for the PDF - do it! Just make it 'versioned' and have a link to central place where you keep updated versions (or link to this tread).

I was talking more about your own file repository. While we change and patch the files here in place or change or add the links your data will become obsolete and even worse, people will not get older versions of the MacOS where your files are meant to be used and so you mislead the users. I would delete the repository and use links to this forum instead.

 

[Fourk]

Hey guys,

Update from me, I updated my Graphics card to the R9 M290X (HD 8970M) 4 GB, but currently the VEN and DEV is not supported so I want to flash the correct VBios which are working just fine with the Mac. According to some documents i found it needs to be the originale One VEN1002/DEV6801 but the Card have: VEN1558/DEV0376.

But now I'm Stuck. I have an working VBios but i cant flash it.
Here is the output from the SSH:

root@grml /lib/live/mount/medium/flash # lspci                                                                                                                                                                  :(
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 Processor Family DRAM Controller (rev 09)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200/2nd Generation Core Processor Family PCI Express Root Port (rev 09)
00:02.0 Display controller: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 09)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family MEI Controller #1 (rev 04)
00:1a.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family USB Universal Host Controller #5 (rev 05)
00:1a.7 USB controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #2 (rev 05)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 05)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev b5)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 2 (rev b5)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 3 (rev b5)
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 5 (rev b5)
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family USB Universal Host Controller #1 (rev 05)
00:1d.7 USB controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #1 (rev 05)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Z68 Express Chipset LPC Controller (rev 05)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family 6 port Desktop SATA AHCI Controller (rev 05)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family SMBus Controller (rev 05)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Neptune XT [Radeon HD 8970M]
01:00.1 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Cape Verde/Pitcairn HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 7700/7800 Series]
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries NetXtreme BCM57765 Gigabit Ethernet PCIe (rev 10)
03:00.0 Network controller: Qualcomm Atheros AR93xx Wireless Network Adapter (rev 01)
04:00.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): LSI Corporation FW643 [TrueFire] PCIe 1394b Controller (rev 08)
05:00.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation CV82524 Thunderbolt Controller [Light Ridge 4C 2010]
06:00.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation CV82524 Thunderbolt Controller [Light Ridge 4C 2010]
06:03.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation CV82524 Thunderbolt Controller [Light Ridge 4C 2010]
06:04.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation CV82524 Thunderbolt Controller [Light Ridge 4C 2010]
06:05.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation CV82524 Thunderbolt Controller [Light Ridge 4C 2010]
06:06.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation CV82524 Thunderbolt Controller [Light Ridge 4C 2010]
07:00.0 System peripheral: Intel Corporation CV82524 Thunderbolt Controller [Light Ridge 4C 2010]


root@grml /lib/live/mount/medium/flash # sudo ./amdvbflash -i
AMDVBFLASH version 4.69, Copyright (c) 2020 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.

Adapter not found

So I really dont know what to do from here on. Someone have a advice for me?

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Hey guys,

Update from me, I updated my Graphics card to the R9 M290X (HD 8970M) 4 GB, but currently the VEN and DEV is not supported so I want to flash the correct VBios which are working just fine with the Mac. According to some documents i found it needs to be the originale One VEN1002/DEV6801 but the Card have: VEN1558/DEV0376.

But now I'm Stuck. I have an working VBios but i cant flash it.
Here is the output from the SSH:

root@grml /lib/live/mount/medium/flash # lspci                                                                                                                                                                  
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Neptune XT [Radeon HD 8970M]
root@grml /lib/live/mount/medium/flash # sudo ./amdvbflash -i
AMDVBFLASH version 4.69, Copyright (c) 2020 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
Adapter not found

So I really dont know what to do from here on. Someone have a advice for me?

You can always use a CH341A clip programmer (Amazon less then 20 USD/EURO). And you are already logged in as root - no need to sudo, I guess.

 

[sparky720John]

Wow

I must be the unluckiest guy i just replaced my original card that is working great in the system except it won't of course support metal and replaced with a GTX780m

i didn't flash the card or anything yet i wanted to at least see the system try to post and know i wouldn't get a screen but trying out prior users methods of boot and wait and get screen then flash.

and nothing the entire system did the self same thing as the WX7100 did wouldn't fire up the system at all no post, no fans no anything just the 1 led diagnostic light when plugged in, when i push the power button the light goes off and never comes back on till i unplug and replug in the main power.

I'm kind of now at a total loss of words not sure what to say or even think on having to replace anything or is it just all these video cards I'm getting are just unlucky and DOA

 

[ceejayy]

I would try booting with just the usb drive first, take off power to your SSD/HD, the optical drive, unplug the wifi card (assuming your using ethernet) and the sd card slot. I know I ran into strange issues when I had a spinning drive in my iMac, all gone now that I replaced that thing.