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

[herrdude]

OK, I am experiencing some weirdness.

Yesterday, I noticed that my LCD was maybe 70% brightness however when I hit the brightness on the keyboard it is maxed out. I have an attached monitor that works fine. I reboot the computer and during boot it is full brightness. Then as the OS is loading it drops down to about 70%. I reinstalled the kexts for this graphics card (K1100m). Nothing I do will get it back to full brightness. Just for fun I swapped out the LCD but it is the same situation. I am thinking of trying another LCD inverter. But I am thinking this has to be a software issue.

Any suggestions?

 

[Andrés Díaz]

OK, I am experiencing some weirdness.

Yesterday, I noticed that my LCD was maybe 70% brightness however when I hit the brightness on the keyboard it is maxed out. I have an attached monitor that works fine. I reboot the computer and during boot it is full brightness. Then as the OS is loading it drops down to about 70%. I reinstalled the kexts for this graphics card (K1100m). Nothing I do will get it back to full brightness. Just for fun I swapped out the LCD but it is the same situation. I am thinking of trying another LCD inverter. But I am thinking this has to be a software issue.

Any suggestions?

Following,

I've been experiencing this since I upgraded to k1100m, since I have two 2010 imac 21.5 next to each other, I see the one with a stock card is brighter than the one with k1100m.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Following,

I've been experiencing this since I upgraded to k1100m, since I have two 2010 imac 21.5 next to each other, I see the one with a stock card is brighter than the one with k1100m.

Yes, this is "normal" right now. While the programmer tried to get the native brightness working he had to find the brightness levels manually by trial and error. I agree with your observation.

 

[Amsterdamned]

...While the programmer tried to get the native brightness working he had to find the brightness levels manually by trial and error...

Does this mean that brightness isn’t 100%, for a card that doesn’t have brightness control (native or OC)? Is this only the case with a card that has a vBIOS tweaked for EFI/boot screens? For example, would this be the case for both the 780m and the K3000m?

 

[snam11]

Hello to all!

Because of our growing list of working cards (great thanks to @nikey22 and @internetzel) I reorganised the first post and deleted some redundant information. Still not happy with it, because it could have more structure and the same information using less story telling and redundant text fragments coming from copy and paste actions. Feedback is welcome. Error corrections, too.

The language thing should be corrected silently, I will not become a native speaker in this life!

Happy reading....

great job mate. hats off

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Does this mean that brightness isn’t 100%, for a card that doesn’t have brightness control (native or OC)? Is this only the case with a card that has a vBIOS tweaked for EFI/boot screens? For example, would this be the case for both the 780m and the K3000m?

780M, K3000M, K3100M, etc: 100% brightness, probably it is more the the stock 100%, it is uncontrolled and not limited , just the full voltage is applied to the backlight.

K1100M to K4100M, AMD cards: the 100% level of this controlled brightness can be less the the 100% of a stock Apple card. It is hard to find the programming data to get the very same illumination and your would have to measure exactly before and after GPU change in the same machine.

Additionally it is hard to compare even two machines of the very same type: Because of different use pattern in the past the one backlight might not have the same lumen level as the other.

 

[Amsterdamned]

780M, K3000M, K3100M, etc: 100% brightness, probably it is more the the stock 100%, it is uncontrolled and not limited , just the full voltage is applied to the backlight.

K1100M to K4100M, AMD cards: the 100% level of this controlled brightness can be less the the 100% of a stock Apple card. It is hard to find the programming data to get the very same illumination and your would have to measure exactly before and after GPU change in the same machine.

Additionally it is hard to compare even two machines of the very same type: Because of different use pattern in the past the one backlight might not have the same lumen level as the other.

Exactly what I wanted to know. Thanks.

 

[herrdude]

OK, I am experiencing some weirdness.

Yesterday, I noticed that my LCD was maybe 70% brightness however when I hit the brightness on the keyboard it is maxed out. I have an attached monitor that works fine. I reboot the computer and during boot it is full brightness. Then as the OS is loading it drops down to about 70%. I reinstalled the kexts for this graphics card (K1100m). Nothing I do will get it back to full brightness. Just for fun I swapped out the LCD but it is the same situation. I am thinking of trying another LCD inverter. But I am thinking this has to be a software issue.

Any suggestions?

I had to reinstall my OpenCore again. Very weird, but all is good!

 

[Pacific1972]

Unexpected Black screen with Quadro K2000M

after cross-reading I have partially some issues I can't explain myself !

My configuration is 27" iMac 2011, Core i5 3.1Ghz, 250GB SSD & 500GB HDD (Caddy, no DVD)
with HighSierra 10.13.6 and Nvidia Web Driver / Nvidia CUDA Driver / Brightness Slider and
Nicks (DvB) K2000M ROM.

Starting machine as admin and booting from internal SSD. If I want to open a "non-admin file"
on the other Drive (HDD - separate "User folder" - Pictures) my machine is going to get a
black screen (think that hardware components got a power peak) !

After thinking about user action with non admin file and hardware power peak
because of user interference I try to use following:

1.) enable the Apple original Driver and disable Nvidia Driver on Web Driver
2.) disable "Developer / every user" in Driver Manager and turn back to "Admin User"
2.) thinking about disabling / deinstall CUDA Support because of incompatible GPU tasks ?

After several rebooting with Black Screen (!) and no start sound I deinstall the
Caddy HDD 500GB because of the unknown boot sequence (normally SSD),
reset VRAM with ALT-CMD-P-R and after that i become my macOS system back...

The machine runs well for whole week with internet, (Metal) games, Unigine Valley
and the temperatures (Macs Fan Control) looking good so far, but for rare system
interactions which are not compatible (differences between AMD and NVIDIA cards)
the system is going down...

Puh, if making various (forbidden) user interaction the GFX card don't like,
there can be some unexpected results - does anybody have same problems ?

Think about that other components (power supply, Logic board etc) are +10 years
or older and gave oldering level of hardware & power peaks to other system components ?

Hopefully I'm not too boring, sorry of my language level...

Hmm... I wait for ARM IMac 👀

My machine natively support High Sierra, but after that I think about to use
Dosdudes Patch Updater of 10.13.6

Update:
I have yet install AppleGraphicsControl.kext via KextDrop and I hope this
was the solution, but also I deinstall CUDA Driver - check it now long-term...

 

[nols]

Im waiting for the brightness control for the 780m
because my imac 2009 has problems with full brightness. it crashes and rebooting sometimes. I think its because the psu. i7, 32gb ram and the 780m with full brightness is too muicht stress for the psu...

 

[Pacific1972]

Im waiting for the brightness control for the 780m
because my imac 2009 has problems with full brightness. it crashes and rebooting sometimes. I think its because the psu. i7, 32gb ram and the 780m with full brightness is too muicht stress for the psu...

...perhaps you can exchange the Core i7 to Low-Power Xeon CPU that PSU can
"Give more Power to the GPU engines" (I like to play Freelancer 😁) !

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Interesting... Nvidia Webdrivers are giving worse results. I just disabled the Webdirvcer and got some much better results in Valley.

I used this vBios: https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/134051/hp-quadrok3000m-2048-120606

Could you please rerun Valley with the 1920x1080 resolution settings and post the number here? Then we can compare more easily

 

[Redlight-Records]

**** yeah! I finally swapped out my radeon 6970 for a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 765M 2048 MB and it worked! Did the heat sink mod and slathered the mxm in K5. no brighness control or boot screen but that was to be expected. I was worried it wouldn't work with El Capitan, but no probs! -10.11.6 (15G22010)-

iMac (27-inch, Mid 2011) 3.4 GHz Intel Core i7 (iMac12,2)

A strange new issue did come up: odd drive fan runs at full speed and my smcfancontrol will not attenuate it. I downloaded Macs Fan Control and that will allow fan speed control. I know I have the odd temp sensor attached. Anyone know what that's all about?

I thought about doing the vbois flash, but I've no experience with that kind of stuff, and it's unclear to me whether that works with x.11.6 (which I have to have) All the info I've seen in the forums detail flashing with Catalina or higher.

So I bought an oscilloscope, and was going to to enact wlagarde's Backlight Control mod as per the instructions on post 1354 , but Amazon sent the wrong PWM and it will take weeks to get the right part, so I just pieced the iMac back together (along with a second SSD stuffed behind the ODD) and she fired right up!

So I still plan on doing the backlight mod, as the brightness is a bit off-putting, and there's more heat now.

•I do have some uncertainty on the backlight mod. Step 4 is unclear to me. I can't tell if the original 6 pin harness has been removed, or if the 3 new wires (black for ground, red for 12V power, and 3rd color for PWM signal) have been jumpered on in addition to the harness. I bought a 6 pin connector but don't really know wtf I'm doing. Is there a Y-connector that would be easier to use? Can someone give a bit more details on which wire(s) needs to be cut?

I can tell you unequivocally that I would not have been able to save my beloved iMac if not for the help and contributions of all you forum members, particularly FlorisVN and wlagarde.

Thank you all so much!

 

[Ausdauersportler]

**** yeah! I finally swapped out my radeon 6970 for a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 765M 2048 MB and it worked! Did the heat sink mod and slathered the mxm in K5. no brighness control or boot screen but that was to be expected. I was worried it wouldn't work with El Capitan, but no probs! -10.11.6 (15G22010)-

iMac (27-inch, Mid 2011) 3.4 GHz Intel Core i7 (iMac12,2)

So I still plan on doing the backlight mod, as the brightness is a bit off-putting, and there's more heat now. A strange new issue did come up: odd drive fan runs at full speed and my smcfancontrol will not attenuate it. I downloaded Macs Fan Control and that will allow fan speed control. I know I have the odd temp sensor attached. Anyone know what that's all about?

My explanation is still the same: The GPU die temperature is gone with the old ATI card. The original Apple SMC relies on this (and probably on the still existing heat sink temp sensor, too), but it refuses to work. Currently my solution is the Mac Fan Control, too. But I would like to have a system service, not a user land application which starts up on login. No solution, right now.

 

[Andrés Díaz]

I'm uploading a patched AppleGrapahicsControl.kext that is now necessary as of 10.15.4, the symptoms after this update are a blank screen but system sounds are heard when holding down the Escape key, as well a loss of any Displayport output. The cause of this is Apple Clamping down on 3rd party kexts from loading, this mainly affects hackintosh users, but affects us as our iMacs are no longer a supported platform.

What does this patched AppleGraphicsControl.kext do to allow 2009-2011 iMacs to properly boot? We now need our board ID's to be added to the AppleGraphicsDevicePolicy.kext within AppleGraphicsControl.kext, this allows the kext to properly load on boot, before this wasn't necessarily needed. I have so far all known 5 board ID's that are supported on our thread.

iMac12,2	(27-inch Mid 2011)	Mac-942B59F58194171B
iMac12,1	(21.5-inch Mid 2011)	Mac-942B5BF58194151B
iMac11,3	(27-inch Mid 2010)	Mac-F2238BAE
iMac11,2	(21.5-inch Mid 2010)	Mac-F2238AC8
iMac11,1	(27-inch Late 2009)	Mac-F2268DAE

Thanks to @Ausdauersportler for the helping/testing for this kext.

To install this kext unlock your System partition using Hackintool, drag the kext on-top of the kext utility icon let it install/timeout with an error. Open terminal and enter "sudo reboot" skipping this step may leave your iMac hanging at the desktop (A Catalina issue)


How to install:
When booting you need to Hold Alt/Option to bring up the AppleBootPicker, then select the Catalina partition. Since the iMac's Screen is on when using AppleBootPicker the Macs screen will remain on the entire boot process allowing you to log in and then proceed to install the Patched AppleGraphicsControl Kext.


I'm adding 10.14.6 2020-003 here as well as 10.13.6 2020-003. The original file named Simply "AppleGraphicsControl.kext.zip" is still for Mac OS Catalina 10.15.4+

Hi
I am going to install a k2100m on a another 21.5 2010 running High sierra 10.13.6, would I do this procedure before or after the GPU installation?

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Hi
I am going to install a k2100m on a another 21.5 2010 running High sierra 10.13.6, would I do this procedure before or after the GPU installation?

If you get the black screen on boot just restart pressing alt/option to get the boot selection (this activates the LCD) and do the installation as @highvoltage12v described.

 

[ringono-tobira]

iMac 2011 27-inch gtx780m remote ssh nvhlash --check

EEPROM ID (20,0000): Unknown

What should I do?

 

[FlorisVN]

**** yeah! I finally swapped out my radeon 6970 for a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 765M 2048 MB and it worked! Did the heat sink mod and slathered the mxm in K5. no brighness control or boot screen but that was to be expected. I was worried it wouldn't work with El Capitan, but no probs! -10.11.6 (15G22010)-

iMac (27-inch, Mid 2011) 3.4 GHz Intel Core i7 (iMac12,2)

A strange new issue did come up: odd drive fan runs at full speed and my smcfancontrol will not attenuate it. I downloaded Macs Fan Control and that will allow fan speed control. I know I have the odd temp sensor attached. Anyone know what that's all about?

I thought about doing the vbois flash, but I've no experience with that kind of stuff, and it's unclear to me whether that works with x.11.6 (which I have to have) All the info I've seen in the forums detail flashing with Catalina or higher.

So I bought an oscilloscope, and was going to to enact wlagarde's Backlight Control mod as per the instructions on post 1354 , but Amazon sent the wrong PWM and it will take weeks to get the right part, so I just pieced the iMac back together (along with a second SSD stuffed behind the ODD) and she fired right up!

So I still plan on doing the backlight mod, as the brightness is a bit off-putting, and there's more heat now.

•I do have some uncertainty on the backlight mod. Step 4 is unclear to me. I can't tell if the original 6 pin harness has been removed, or if the 3 new wires (black for ground, red for 12V power, and 3rd color for PWM signal) have been jumpered on in addition to the harness. I bought a 6 pin connector but don't really know wtf I'm doing. Is there a Y-connector that would be easier to use? Can someone give a bit more details on which wire(s) needs to be cut?

I can tell you unequivocally that I would not have been able to save my beloved iMac if not for the help and contributions of all you forum members, particularly FlorisVN and wlagarde.

Thank you all so much!


View attachment 932642View attachment 932643

I highly recommend you also flash your vbios, to enable bootscreen support, and better GPU performance within MacOS and Windows Bootcamp.
with a custom vbios beta 3 from Nick, you will have full support on every MacOS which supports Nvidia kepler drivers, starting with Mac OS X Mountain lion and up..

 

[Ausdauersportler]

iMac 2011 27-inch gtx780m remote ssh nvhlash --check

EEPROM ID (20,0000): Unknown

What should I do?

Are you sure to own a working card? Pull and plug in the card in the slot, again? Try to read the existing BIOS, then? Buy a working card at the end? Nobody here can solve your hardware problems...and I cannot see a software related one. right now.

The command was

nvflash_linux --check

??

 

[d4n93r!]

Hi guys,

after scouring this thread up and down I decided to fix and upgrade a broken iMac 2011 "27 I got for free.
I installed a SSD with the OWC cable and bought a pre flashed Nvidia Quadro K2100M from ebay. Following the tutorial i got macOS Catalina up and running with OpenCore. Everything seemed fine except the 32bit support, which i was missing.

So I thought to myself, why not go back to macOS Mojave? Its similiar to Catalina and has 32bit support. But thats where the trouble began. I wiped the SSD and formatted it to APFS for the Mojave install. Everything went fine until I rebooted the machine. Now the screen stays black upon boot. I cannot boot with OpenCore nor the internal SSD. I cant get into the boot picker; holding Option upon startup does nothing. Internet recovery (as expected) doesnt work. SMC reset did nothing. The only time the screen turns on is after a Pram reset. But the screen stays white and only shows a prohibitory sign in the middle of the screen. I dont know what to do anymore.

Can somebody help me?

Edit:
I´m stupid. I use a Windows keyboard and pressed the wrong button. @Ausdauersportler Sorry das ich deine Zeit verschwendet habe.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Hi guys,

after scouring this thread up and down I decided to fix and upgrade a broken iMac 2011 "27 I got for free.
I installed a SSD with the OWC cable and bought a pre flashed Nvidia Quadro K2100M from ebay. Following the tutorial i got macOS Catalina up and running with OpenCore. Everything seemed fine except the 32bit support, which i was missing.

So I thought to myself, why not go back to macOS Mojave? Its similiar to Catalina and has 32bit support. But thats where the trouble began. I wiped the SSD and formatted it to APFS for the Mojave install. Everything went fine until I rebooted the machine. Now the screen stays black upon boot. I cannot boot with OpenCore nor the internal SSD. I cant get into the boot picker; holding Option upon startup does nothing. Internet recovery (as expected) doesnt work. SMC reset did nothing. The only time the screen turns on is after a Pram reset. But the screen stays white and only shows a prohibitory sign in the middle of the screen. I dont know what to do anymore.

Can somebody help me?

Probably another PRAM reset and using an external UBS flash with a @dosdude1 installer to boot from. You should always have this as a fall back. From there you may do a complete reinstallation?

 

[ZenSurfeur]

Aus is right
With catalina I need to do 2 PRAM at the first reboot, and at the end
! important wait until the reboot, don't force it !

 

[andrew_ramii]

I need Big help.. Like Why is it that for the life of me..., i cant get a Win 7 or !0 bootcamp working.
I finally had a Win7 bootcamp start up boot wasn't allowing me to connect to internet or like as if it was useless even folders were all almost blank.
Anyways I put in my GTX765m Inside my Mac thinking i just had to usb files to flash my .ROM
but after switiching (mind you i thought it was an okay Win 7OS) so it took off bootscreens which is normal did all of that, but terminal wouldnt find the files!? so i resorted to more and more testing and finally got VirtualBox For Ubuntu/Linux tried on there but, is super confusing and i need Linux files instead of windows? or like if theres an easier way to get a Flash like. also i had to remove the unuseable win 7 basically to make room for linux partition..
Im kinda in square one again, Ive even read about CH431A but thats even extra for what little knowledge i have for it.
Also im running on High sierra Mac 21.5 mid 2011 I7 thank you
and even worse with no bootscreens.. just dont wanna resort to re-putting the old gpu for not being able to flash it now

 

[LinoGoncalves]

Anyone has tried the NVIDIA k4000m? I just found one for 30£... not sure if I could use vbios of the k4100m or if this would cause damage?!

 

[Ausdauersportler]

I need Big help.. Like Why is it that for the life of me..., i cant get a Win 7 or !0 bootcamp working.
I finally had a Win7 bootcamp start up boot wasn't allowing me to connect to internet or like as if it was useless even folders were all almost blank.
Anyways I put in my GTX765m Inside my Mac thinking i just had to usb files to flash my .ROM
but after switiching (mind you i thought it was an okay Win 7OS) so it took off bootscreens which is normal did all of that, but terminal wouldnt find the files!? so i resorted to more and more testing and finally got VirtualBox For Ubuntu/Linux tried on there but, is super confusing and i need Linux files instead of windows? or like if theres an easier way to get a Flash like. also i had to remove the unuseable win 7 basically to make room for linux partition..
Im kinda in square one again, Ive even read about CH431A but thats even extra for what little knowledge i have for it.
Also im running on High sierra Mac 21.5 mid 2011 I7 thank you
and even worse with no bootscreens.. just dont wanna resort to re-putting the old gpu for not being able to flash it now

Most easy way to flash is using the Linux USB flash stick. Go back to page one and post #1 one and follow the links there and start reading. And get a local guy who is able to enter some lines of terminal commands if you fail doing a copy and paste.
Für W10 bootcamp you will find other threads and other pages using google - this is not our topic.
[automerge]1594493472[/automerge]

Anyone has tried the NVIDIA k4000m? I just found one for 30£... not sure if I could use vbios of the k4100m or if this would cause damage?!

No, you cannot use one of the existing BIOS versions, but you may find a working Dell BIOS or even on the card booting successfully High Sierra or Mojave or Catalina. Check this out and please report back!
If you want to use a K4100M you have to buy one.