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

[Ausdauersportler]

in the process of upgrading a 21.5-inch Mid 2011 iMac

I was interested in the power consumption limits so I attempted to obtain some guidelines starting with the Apple power specifications which includes information on thermal output management as well.

The current modified BIOS versions available for the 780M, K4100M, and WX7100 are limited to 70W.
I have never seen a power draw bigger than this value.

EDIT: You can get all CPU TDP values from ark.intel.com - e.g. search for i7-2600 to get this result.

 

[herrdude]

I have tried both with lilu and whatevergreen on and off, the are the latest editions

Are lilu and whatevergreen installed in your /S/L/E?

 

[BadBiscuit]

...
I followed the @Ausdauersportler PDF guide for OpenCore, and got a much improved Valley score, over what I saw from Mojave without OC. Sleep is still not working, so will post a separate query to @Ausdauersportler regarding the kext installs. I suspect I passed on some I shouldn't have, based on section 12 indicating the 8 extensions (i.e. AppleIntelHD3000Graphics* ) are only need for nVidia card users. I suspect that is what is lacking and needed for sleep to work, or perhaps there is something else missing. I feel things are close

@Ausdauersportler ,
I'm still working on my mid-2011 27" iMac. The directions in your PDF are superb, and I tried to followed all the steps as intended, though perhaps I misunderstood section 12. Since I have a AMD WX7100, should I only be installing the 2 kext, and not the additional 6 related to HD3000? When booting off the Catalina Loader I still find sleep is causing a crash. Any suggestion as to what is needed would be much appreciated.

 

[Pascal Baillargeau]

in the process of upgrading a 21.5-inch Mid 2011 iMac

I was interested in the power consumption limits so I attempted to obtain some guidelines starting with the Apple power specifications which includes information on thermal output management as well.

A summary of the 5 relevant configurations

configuration		Power consumption		Thermal output		configuration
		idle	CPU max	idle	CPU max	common: 4GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x2GB
1	27-inch, Mid 2011	142W	200W	485 BTU/h	682 BTU/h	3.4 GHz i7, 1TB SATA HDD, AMD Radeon HD 6970M
2	27-inch, Mid 2011	139W	195W	474 BTU/h	665 BTU/h	3.1GHz i5, 1TB SATA HDD, AMD Radeon HD 6970M
3	27-inch, Mid 2011	135W	170W	461 BTU/h	580 BTU/h	2.7GHz i5, 1TB SATA HDD, AMD Radeon HD 6770M
4	21.5-inch, Mid 2011	85W	114W	290 BTU/h	389 BTU/h	2.7GHz i5, 1TB SATA HDD, AMD Radeon HD 6770M
5	21.5-inch, Mid 2011	81W	106W	276 BTU/h	362 BTU/h	2.5GHz i5 500GB SATA HDD, AMD Radeon HD 6750M

there was no apparent definition of "CPU max".

Attempting to estimate these performance numbers using component values (usually maximum):

component	estimated power consumption	estimate basis
21.5-inch display	51W	Apple document
27-inch display	106W	Apple document
4GB DDR2 SDRAM	4W	Wikipedia article
1TB SATA HDD	2W	Western Digital example
500GB SATA HDD	2W	Western Digital example

CPUs

type	TPD max	estimate basis
2.5 GHz Core i5-2400S	65W	Google search
2.7 GHz Core i5-2500S	65W	Google search result
3.1 GHz Core i5-2400	95W	Wikipedia article
2.8 GHz Core i7-2600S	65W	Wikipedia article
3.4 GHz Core i7-2600	95W	Wikipedia article

GPUs

type	TPD max	estimate basis
AMD Radeon HD 6750M	35W	Web resource
AMD Radeon HD 6770M	35W	Web resource
AMD Radeon HD 6970M	75W	Web resource

With these inputs I calculated the power consumption for "CPU max" (all components excluding GPU) for the 5 configurations:

configuration (see above)	power consumption	fraction of Apple spec
1	207W	1.04
2	207W	1.06
3	177W	1.04
4	122W	1.07
5	122W	1.15

which seems to give a reasonable estimate (slight overestimates).

If I include the GPU max then:

configuration (see above)	power consumption	fraction of Apple spec
1	282W	1.41
2	282W	1.45
3	212W	1.25
4	157W	1.38
5	157W	1.48

for both the CPU and GPU running at max (which may happen with some computationally intensive applications taking advantage of the GPU acceleration).

These numbers to be compared with the 205W 21.5-inch, and 310W 27-inch power supply limits. Presumably, any upgrade (adding disk, adding memory, changing CPU, changing GPU) should observer the appropriate power supply limits.

Additional issues involve managing the thermal output. I believe the power supply limits are more demanding.

The TPD for the GPUs listed are:

GPU	TPD	note
Quadro K1100M	45W
Quadro K2100M	55W
Quadro K1000M	45W
Quadro K2000M	55W
Quadro K610M	30W
Quadro K4100M	100W
GTX 765M	75W
GTX 770M	75W
GTX 780M	100W
Quadro K3000M	75W
GTX 860M	75W	GK104
	45W	GM107
Quadro K3100M	75W
AMD WX4130	50W
AMD WX4150	50W
AMD WX4170	50W
AMD WX7100	130W	mobile
AMD Radeon HD 6750M	35W
AMD Radeon HD 6770M	35W
AMD Radeon HD 6970M	75W

Concerning WX7100, power draw is lower with modified bioses we use. 67W or 75W. Plus Power Control Limit to 50% it cannot go over 100,5W or 112,5W.

 

[Pascal Baillargeau]

@Ausdauersportler ,
I'm still working on my mid-2011 27" iMac. The directions in your PDF are superb, and I tried to followed all the steps as intended, though perhaps I misunderstood section 12. Since I have a AMD WX7100, should I only be installing the 2 kext, and not the additional 6 related to HD3000? When booting off the Catalina Loader I still find sleep is causing a crash. Any suggestion as to what is needed would be much appreciated.

You need to install HD3000 kexts set for proper sleep fonctionality.
I installed these kexts in S/L/E, not injected by Opencore, in my setup.

 

[hacknmac408]

Nobody claimed or promised that these card will work! We had a discussion about that but there was no explanation found until now. @highvoltages owns three of these non working cards, too. You are not alone. For that reason we added this note to the first page:
Note - (Some of) These WX 4130/4150 are not detected by the 2011 iMacs for some reason, and therefore are currently incompatible. Even worse some models are not detected in any iMac model late 2009 to mid 2011.

i most certainly read that part.

my question refers to this exact quote:

"are not detected by the 2011 iMacs for some reason"

my question is:

has anyone figured out that reason?

 

[Ausdauersportler]

i most certainly read that part.

my question refers to this exact quote:

"are not detected by the 2011 iMacs for some reason"

my question is:

has anyone figured out that reason?

No

 

[hacknmac408]

No

thank you for your swift reply .

 

[Ausdauersportler]

@Ausdauersportler ,
I'm still working on my mid-2011 27" iMac. The directions in your PDF are superb, and I tried to followed all the steps as intended, though perhaps I misunderstood section 12. Since I have a AMD WX7100, should I only be installing the 2 kext, and not the additional 6 related to HD3000? When booting off the Catalina Loader I still find sleep is causing a crash. Any suggestion as to what is needed would be much appreciated.

Install or inject following exactly the guide. I never wrote you can ignore these extensions @highvoltage12v collected.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

thank you for your swift reply .

Changed some with unknown in first post.
Funny thing is most guys do not read it and miss the important information at all, and others assume some information is hidden because of (poor) choice of words.

 

[hacknmac408]

so you're telling me that if i put this wx4150 into my 2011 iMac that's already running Catalina as we speak, it will fail to boot ?

 

[Ausdauersportler]

All

so you're telling me that if i put this wx4150 into my 2011 iMac that's already running Catalina as we speak, it will fail to boot ?

All cards we bought and tested failed to survive the post of the 2011 system. Same situation as with many WX7100 not posting in a 2011 model while sometimes running fine in a Dell laptop or in older 2009/2010 iMacs. POST == power on self test - failing the POST means the fans start to spin a quarter round and system shuts down then.

I start to repeat what has been written to the first post and documented in some user posts here. Please, please try to search the thread.

I tell you nothing about the future and what will happen to your system, I can only document the past and what happened to us.

 

[Pacific1972]

in the process of upgrading a 21.5-inch Mid 2011 iMac

I was interested in the power consumption limits so I attempted to obtain some guidelines starting with the Apple power specifications which includes information on thermal output management as well.

A summary of the 5 relevant configurations

configuration		Power consumption		Thermal output		configuration
		idle	CPU max	idle	CPU max	common: 4GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x2GB
1	27-inch, Mid 2011	142W	200W	485 BTU/h	682 BTU/h	3.4 GHz i7, 1TB SATA HDD, AMD Radeon HD 6970M
2	27-inch, Mid 2011	139W	195W	474 BTU/h	665 BTU/h	3.1GHz i5, 1TB SATA HDD, AMD Radeon HD 6970M
3	27-inch, Mid 2011	135W	170W	461 BTU/h	580 BTU/h	2.7GHz i5, 1TB SATA HDD, AMD Radeon HD 6770M
4	21.5-inch, Mid 2011	85W	114W	290 BTU/h	389 BTU/h	2.7GHz i5, 1TB SATA HDD, AMD Radeon HD 6770M
5	21.5-inch, Mid 2011	81W	106W	276 BTU/h	362 BTU/h	2.5GHz i5 500GB SATA HDD, AMD Radeon HD 6750M

there was no apparent definition of "CPU max".

Attempting to estimate these performance numbers using component values (usually maximum):

component	estimated power consumption	estimate basis
21.5-inch display	51W	Apple document
27-inch display	106W	Apple document
4GB DDR2 SDRAM	4W	Wikipedia article
1TB SATA HDD	2W	Western Digital example
500GB SATA HDD	2W	Western Digital example

CPUs

type	TPD max	estimate basis
2.5 GHz Core i5-2400S	65W	Google search
2.7 GHz Core i5-2500S	65W	Google search result
3.1 GHz Core i5-2400	95W	Wikipedia article
2.8 GHz Core i7-2600S	65W	Wikipedia article
3.4 GHz Core i7-2600	95W	Wikipedia article

GPUs

type	TPD max	estimate basis
AMD Radeon HD 6750M	35W	Web resource
AMD Radeon HD 6770M	35W	Web resource
AMD Radeon HD 6970M	75W	Web resource

With these inputs I calculated the power consumption for "CPU max" (all components excluding GPU) for the 5 configurations:

configuration (see above)	power consumption	fraction of Apple spec
1	207W	1.04
2	207W	1.06
3	177W	1.04
4	122W	1.07
5	122W	1.15

which seems to give a reasonable estimate (slight overestimates).

If I include the GPU max then:

configuration (see above)	power consumption	fraction of Apple spec
1	282W	1.41
2	282W	1.45
3	212W	1.25
4	157W	1.38
5	157W	1.48

for both the CPU and GPU running at max (which may happen with some computationally intensive applications taking advantage of the GPU acceleration).

These numbers to be compared with the 205W 21.5-inch, and 310W 27-inch power supply limits. Presumably, any upgrade (adding disk, adding memory, changing CPU, changing GPU) should observer the appropriate power supply limits.

Additional issues involve managing the thermal output. I believe the power supply limits are more demanding.

The TPD for the GPUs listed are:

GPU	TPD	note
Quadro K1100M	45W
Quadro K2100M	55W
Quadro K1000M	45W
Quadro K2000M	55W
Quadro K610M	30W
Quadro K4100M	100W
GTX 765M	75W
GTX 770M	75W
GTX 780M	100W
Quadro K3000M	75W
GTX 860M	75W	GK104
	45W	GM107
Quadro K3100M	75W
AMD WX4130	50W
AMD WX4150	50W
AMD WX4170	50W
AMD WX7100	130W	mobile
AMD Radeon HD 6750M	35W
AMD Radeon HD 6770M	35W
AMD Radeon HD 6970M	75W

👍👍👍 Great work !!!

 

[BadBiscuit]

Install or inject following exactly the guide. I never wrote you can ignore these extensions @highvoltage12v collected.

I’m just relaying my experience in using the guide with a 2011 iMac and AMD WX7100. I went through it twice, once with Mojave and the again with a fresh Catalina install. Admittedly I was less exact with the first pass using Mojave which is why I started over. I did get sleep to work, but only by diverting and installing the HD3000 files and then not using OpenCore.

OC injection alone did not seem to fix sleep for me, and after installing HD3000 I tried removing that line from OC injection but sleep still crashed. I understand the guide is not saying to ignore, only to use injection instead of installing. Other items such as OC boot menu and the board ID changed when using the OC SD, so I know it was in effect.

I’ll keep experimenting, for I like the benefits of OC injection to protect from OS updates. At the very least I need to read up on the kexts I’m now lacking and perhaps install if I’m to continue booting without OC. I suppose as long as it boots after updates, and some kexts must be reinstalled, then perhaps installing them all is tolerable, and the OC SD can serve as an fallback/alternate boot method.

Thanks again for everything you are providing this forum.
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You need to install HD3000 kexts set for proper sleep fonctionality.
I installed these kexts in S/L/E, not injected by Opencore, in my setup.

Are you using OC at all? If so, can you share what you are injecting or provide a copy of your config.plist?

 

[Pascal Baillargeau]

I’m just relaying my experience in using the guide with a 2011 iMac and AMD WX7100. I went through it twice, once with Mojave and the again with a fresh Catalina install. Admittedly I was less exact with the first pass using Mojave which is why I started over. I did get sleep to work, but only by diverting and installing the HD3000 files and then not using OpenCore.

OC injection alone did not seem to fix sleep for me, and after installing HD3000 I tried removing that line from OC injection but sleep still crashed. I understand the guide is not saying to ignore, only to use injection instead of installing. Other items such as OC boot menu and the board ID changed when using the OC SD, so I know it was in effect.

I’ll keep experimenting, for I like the benefits of OC injection to protect from OS updates. At the very least I need to read up on the kexts I’m now lacking and perhaps install if I’m to continue booting without OC. I suppose as long as it boots after updates, and some kexts must be reinstalled, then perhaps installing them all is tolerable, and the OC SD can serve as an fallback/alternate boot method.

Thanks again for everything you are providing this forum.
[automerge]1595173070[/automerge]

Are you using OC at all? If so, can you share what you are injecting or provide a copy of your config.plist?

Here's my EFI folder for WX7100 and a capture of kexts installed on Mac OS Catalina 10.15.5

 

[Ryan Ellinger]

Just finished upgrading my mid 2011 21.5 iMac. Installed a 2600s i7, ssd drive, and a k2100m. I was ready to scrap this iMac before reading this post. Running Catalina with no issues. Big thanks to all of you putting much time and effort into this!

 

[vinceventresca]

Ive searched but cant really get a clear answer: do any cards work even on a basic level on a 2009 27 inch core 2 duo? If so do any offer brightness control in any form? Thanks

 

[FlorisVN]

Ive searched but cant really get a clear answer: do any cards work even on a basic level on a 2009 27 inch core 2 duo? If so do any offer brightness control in any form? Thanks

nope core 2 duo iMac's are not supported.
Only core i models are.

 

[Roman78]

Need some tips for troubleshooting GTX 765M.

I removed the GPU from an iMac in Working condition. Added some copper at the back of the card on the VRAMs. Replaced the GPU in another iMac and it won't work. The 3 diagnostic light is not turning on.

I also placed the same kind of cooling on 3 other cards (K1100M, GTX 780M and a K3000M) all the cards still working.

What could be wrong? Did i killed the card? Is there a way to diagnostic the error?

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Need some tips for troubleshooting GTX 765M.

I removed the GPU from an iMac in Working condition. Added some copper at the back of the card on the VRAMs. Replaced the GPU in another iMac and it won't work. The 3 diagnostic light is not turning on.

I also placed the same kind of cooling on 3 other cards (K1100M, GTX 780M and a K3000M) all the cards still working.

What could be wrong? Did i killed the card? Is there a way to diagnostic the error?

This is hardware!

What shall we do through the net to help you? Do the things one would do to fence out other causes, i.e. use another system to check the card, check the BIOS on the card, check parts of the system you are right no using, check a different card in it...

 

[Roman78]

I checked it in another iMac and I testet another card in the iMac with the GTX, both did work. So i can point it to the card. Can the BIOS get corrupted while removing and replacing the card?

 

[Ausdauersportler]

I checked it in another iMac and I testet another card in the iMac with the GTX, both did work. So i can point it to the card. Can the BIOS get corrupted while removing and replacing the card?

You will know after checking the content. If this is still fine you need more sophisticated tools to check cards components.
My advice is simply: Check what you can using the tools and knowledge available. It is hardware.

 

[Curtis Gross]

Hopefully an easy question - how do I set the Catalina Loader to auto-boot into my Catalina install? I modify the opencore config.plist and always end up with it trying to auto-boot .. itself. Which then just brings me back to the pick list.

So how can I set my other drive as the 'default' once opencore boots?

EDIT: Figured it out. Set 'hide self' and 'hideauxiliary' and that solves having opencore even in the list.
Next unselect 'show picker' and set 'takeoffdelay' to 3 or so. Boom! Auto load opencore, boot into catalina.
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I'm trying to get OpenCore to work, but i'm failing. K1100M + 2011 27". So i installed Catalina, works fine. Did not apply any extra kext(to make sleep work etc...), since it should be in OpenCore. So i restored the iMac OpenCore Loader to a flash drive, i can boot from it fine, but after selecting my boot drive, i can see the Apple logo for a while and then its just a black screen.

Without OpenCore, i can boot into Catalina normally, though only if i hold down option during boot and select a boot drive manually(otherwise i just get the same black screen).

Any ideas? Thanks!

Couldn't see if you were answered or not - but be sure to do a pram reset (shut down, turn on, hold p+r+Command+Option) and that should resolve the black screen when using Catalina Loader as your default boot.

 

[RockettSJ]

I just want to thank everyone that has contributed to this thread. With the video card upgraded, SSD installed and 16GB RAM, this old girl will keep trucking for a couple more years =)

 

[Habanero83]

My very first post on this site . Thank you so much for all the hard work. Its there a way to donate and support Nick and others?

I have 2- 27" iMacs that were purchase new back them. after the years the ATI cards start dying like every ones and i was baking them until they didn't work any more. After reading here I decided to go Nvidia and got a good deal on 2 brand new 770m for alienware.

Istalled one and work like a charm minus the standard problems no boot screen etc... Been using it for like 3 months now in fact its what I'm using right now .. Works great and doesn't get as hot as the ATI..

BUT I HAVE FAILED TRYING TO FLASH THIS CARD. I cant get Windows with this unflashed card to install and in anything i try i get stock somewhere I guess I'm not that good and need many more hrs trying. I order the clip to try flashing externally can any one point me to a simple guide of how to achieve this ?

Its any one interested in flashing these 2 cards for me and ship then back ? I did buy you dinner, beer, coffee, etc, ) to have my two old iMac back together. lol

Thank you every one and excuse my english....