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

[nikey22]

Thanks to @Lam Le and @Roman78 for beta testing on their machines.

Tested on a 2011 iMac using High Sierra 10.13.6. Please feel free to test on other MacOS versions, I will update this post as necessary with success/failures.

ROM pending testing

 

[inck243]

I found this on ifixit, might help

To make a non-apple provided Nvidia graphics card work in macOS Sierra you need to do the following…

Start the computer in safe mode by holding shift.

Get your BoardID by running this command in terminal

echo "<result>$(ioreg -rd1 -c IOPlatformExpertDevice | awk -F'["|"]' '/board-id/{print $4}')</result>"

Open the AppleGraphicsControl Kext using this command

sudo nano /System/Library/Extensions/AppleGraphicsControl.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleGraphicsDevicePolicy.kext/Contents/Info.plist

Use the arrow keys to go down until you see <key>ConfigMap</key> followed by a bunch of keys and strings.

LOOK FOR YOUR BOARD ID…

IF IT IS LISTED: Change the string to <string>none</string>

IF IT IS NOT LISTED: Add it in the same format as the ones listed.

Save the file by pressing Ctrl+O, then enter.

Exit by pressing Ctrl+X

Rebuild the kernel cache using the following two commands:

sudo kextcache -system-prelinked-kernel

AND

sudo kextcache -system-caches

Okay so I flashed the card successfully. I still don't have brightness control... so I read through page 1 again and found the above fix that I need to do?? Is this what will fix it? I'm in safe mode right now, I followed those instructions above to add my board ID to the list... pushed CTRL + O to save and push enter just like it says above but I get "error writing /System/Lib........blabl.../AppleGaphicsControl.kext/Contents/ ]

I'm going to just keep High Sierra for the OS..... There are some other things on the page 1 that seem to be other ways to fix this too? Like installing OpenCore? How do I get OpenCore? Is it opencore vanilla? Google seemed to have tons of different results. And Hackentool? I can't find any of those.

 

[highvoltage12v]

More great news thanks @nikey22 seeing a few of these cards less than $50 on the usual "scumbag"-AvE Website. Hope these cards find good homes!

 

[SubDriver]

Okay so I flashed the card successfully. I still don't have brightness control... so I read through page 1 again and found the above fix that I need to do?? Is this what will fix it? I'm in safe mode right now, I followed those instructions above to add my board ID to the list... pushed CTRL + O to save and push enter just like it says above but I get "error writing /System/Lib........blabl.../AppleGaphicsControl.kext/Contents/ ]

I'm going to just keep High Sierra for the OS..... There are some other things on the page 1 that seem to be other ways to fix this too? Like installing OpenCore? How do I get OpenCore? Is it opencore vanilla? Google seemed to have tons of different results. And Hackentool? I can't find any of those.

I am going to save @Ausdauersportler the trouble on this one... Everything you need is either on page 1 or has a link on page 1 that will take you to the needed items which reside in other posts on this thread. This includes all the software you describe.

 

[NOTNlCE]

** NVIDIA Quadro K3000M ROM **
Genuine Native Boot Screen & Brightness Control​

Very nice. Forms documents have been updated with the new card.

 

[TheRetiredOldMan]

I experienced this when I upgraded to Mojave. I fixed it by reinstalling the @dosdude1 patches using the patch updater app that is provided with the @dosdude1 Mojave installer. For an unknown reason, the audio patch did not load properly when the initial patch was applied during the done post-install process. A quick re-install of the post-install patches was all it took and my audio was back to normal.

Hi SubDriver,

Thanks for your information.
I will give it a try.

EDIT:
I have tried to reinstall the Legacy Audio Patch by Patch Updater, but still in vain.
Later, I will open my iMac again to check whether I forgot to attach the audio cable or not.

 

[Lottosmp]

... Now the GPU only works with the 2009 iMac and will not work on the 2011 iMac. When I plug in the GPU into the 2011 iMac, it won’t even power on. It tries to power on for 1-2 seconds then turns off. ...

I had pretty much the same problem. The way I solved it was to install the latest iMac Firmware. The latest firmware version for my iMac 12,1 / 2011 is 87.0.0.0.0.

I can confirm that iMac 2011 firmware/Boot ROM Version 85.0.0.0.0 does not work with my K4100M or even K610M. You need version 87.0.0.0.0. The K610M still worked in my 2009 iMac, and the K4100M worked in my 2010. Now the K4100M works in my 2011 iMac after Boot Rom/Firmware update.

The first page states that you need latest firmware, if you don't some cards will work (GTX765M for me) but others won't (K610M and K4100M).


Installing the firmware can be tricky, you'll need to re-install High Sierra, and also install all the Updates (especially Security Update 2020-0004 I think). Just run sudo softwareupdate --install --all and it should eventually update the firmware on restart when done -- you'll hear a beep and see the old-timey Mac progressbar when the system restarts.
I have read people having problems with modified hardware, I tried a couple times and failed but not sure if I was just missing installing the Updates. Anyway, latest attempt worked with an old Radeon HD4670 and an old 1TB Apple HDD from a 2009 iMac used for installation.

 

[djs1718]

Sadly, you need to unplug any other drives. This will force the iMac to boot with the USB drive. You only need to remove the LCD, which takes just a few minutes. Then you can disconnect the hard-drive and SSD. It is not necessary to remove the motherboard, which is a pain in the butt. You can leave the LCD disconnected until you flash successfully the video card. Then you can reconnect the hard-drive, SSD, and finally the LCD. Good luck!

I figured it out, it was an older version of opencore that was causing it.

 

[highvoltage12v]

Alright, here is a basic Big Sur kext pack for the 2009-2011 iMac. It includes a patched AppleGraphicsControl.kext, Patched @nikey22 /@Nick [D]vB specific AppleBacklight.kext HD3000 kexts Airport and HD audio. If going with the micro patcher from @Barry K. Nathan You don't need to install the HD3000*/IO8211Family.kext kext/AppleHDA.kext as his --2011 command will fix this.

@Barry K. Nathan If you read this you should maybe include an "--iMac" option to your patch-kexts.sh script. You mostly have everything, us iMac users need a Patched AppleGraphicsControl to enable DisplayPort Output on boot. Also AppleMCCSControl from Mojave fixes the garbled graphics output in Safari. Thanks your script has been amazing so far!

 

[highvoltage12v]

One observation from testing K4100M in Big Sur: Making Facetime Calls or Recording the Screen in Quicktime both lead to an immediate Kernel Panic. Not sure how to debug this or if it's a Catalina problem, too.

I was Able to make a FaceTime call and a QuickTime Screen Recording. Using a K4100m on B4 with kexts posted above.

 

[FlorisVN]

** NVIDIA Quadro K3000M ROM **
Genuine Native Boot Screen & Brightness Control​

The following is the UGA equipped rom I put together for:

NVIDIA Quadro K3000M
N12E-Q1-A1, MXM-B (3.0)
2GB VRAM

Thanks to @Lam Le and @Roman78 for beta testing on their machines.

Tested on a 2011 iMac using High Sierra 10.13.6. Please feel free to test on other MacOS versions, I will update this post as necessary with success/failures.

• These ROMs do not require a 3rd party bootloader like OpenCore.
• They will require a modification of the base AppleIntelPanelA/ApplePanels/F10Ta007 brightness stepping (more info to follow soon).
• Stock GPU clock speeds for now
• pixel-depth of native driver capped at 16-bits still. Can be temporarily corrected by entering a sleep cycle.

As previous, these roms should bring back:

⦁ Genuine native brightness control
⦁ Genuine ‘gray’ early-boot screen (stage 1 & 2 progress bar)
⦁ Genuine macOS bootloader compliance


"insanely great!"
-Steve Jobs

**UPDATE**
There may be an issue with the boot menu on this ROM - Do not flash this just yet until it is verified.
I have pulled the ROM until testing, will put back once tested.

View attachment 941642 View attachment 941643

great work again sir !
can't wait for an new rom for our GTX765M equiped iMacs..

keep it going !!

 

[meggle]

I was Able to make a FaceTime call and a QuickTime Screen Recording. Using a K4100m on B4 with kexts posted above.

I reverted the changes to AppleGVA.framework and now Quicktime and FaceTime work here, too! Awesome.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

I reverted the changes to AppleGVA.framework and now Quicktime and FaceTime work here, too! Awesome.

Could you please attach the AppleGVA.framework you used?

Is sleep working for you?
Installing IOSurface fails here (linker error).

 

[kral84]

Alright, here is a basic Big Sur kext pack for the 2009-2011 iMac. It includes a patched AppleGraphicsControl.kext, Patched @nikey22 /@Nick [D]vB specific AppleBacklight.kext HD3000 kexts Airport and HD audio. If going with the micro patcher from @Barry K. Nathan You will not need to install the HD3000*/IO8211Family.kext kext/AppleHDA.kext as his --2011 command will fix this.

@Barry K. Nathan If you read this you should maybe include an "--iMac" option to your patch-kexts.sh script. You mostly have everything, us iMac users need a Patched AppleGraphicsControl to enable DisplayPort Output on boot. Also AppleMCCSControl from Mojave fixes the garbled graphics output in Safari. Thanks your script has been amazing so far!

Is Ethernet fixxed? Try make an speedtest and if you test your upload with ethernet no wifi only cable... And you see that your ethernet crashes and you have no internet you must plugoff and plugin your ethernet cable to.work this back....

 

[highvoltage12v]

Is Ethernet fixxed? Try make an speedtest and if you test your upload with ethernet no wifi only cable... And you see that your ethernet crashes and you have no internet you must plugoff and plugin your ethernet cable to.work this back....

Ethernet didn't require any Kext fix. So if your having Ethernet problems it's an OS issue

 

[kral84]

Ethernet didn't require any Kext fix. So if your having Ethernet problems it's an OS issue

Can you test it on your 2011 imac...and hope anyone can fix that.. you must install the kexts to.identify the ethernet....without kexts you have no audio,ethernet and wifi ...

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Just doing a 8GB single file copy via scp over wire to another iMac (Catalina) and I get the 11 MB/s which is what you can see and get from router offering only a 100BaseT interface, I guess. A direct connection should speed up this by a factor of 10...

Edit:
Direct connection using the 1000BaseT I get 92,3 MB/s - this is wire speed ...copy using scp from Big Sur to Catalina

 

[highvoltage12v]

Can you test it on your 2011 imac...and hope anyone can fix that.. you must install the kexts to.identify the ethernet....without kexts you have no audio,ethernet and wifi ...

Apple has been using the Same Exact AppleBCM5701Ethernet Kext for IDK how many Mac OS versions now, it has a build date of 2013. It's not wise to manipulate IONetworkingFamily.kext, Whatever issue you have is more than Likely a Big Sur issue and hopefully will be solved in coming months.

 

[kral84]

@Ausdauersportler thank you!
@highvoltage12v thank.you too... I install beta 4 tomorrow... I have yet beta 2 .. maybe it has already been fixed in beta 4 !?...

 

[highvoltage12v]

@Ausdauersportler thank you!
@highvoltage12v thank.you too... I install beta 4 tomorrow... I have yet beta 2 .. maybe it has already been fixed in beta 4 !?...

Possibly, I felt like beta 2 was very unbaked.

 

[coops312]

Hi all, hoping I might be able to trouble you for some assistance.

My replacement GPU turned up in the mail last week (K2100M), so after months of research I figured it was time to pull the trigger on this and attempted the swap this weekend.

I have a 27" 2011 iMac running High Sierra 10.13.6, boot ROM version is 87.0.0.0.0. I'm swapping the stock graphics card (Radeon 6770) out for a Quadro 2100M.

I did the physical install and flashed the card over ssh using xanderon's tool. All seemed to work, getting 4 LEDs on the motherboard and the internal display working to the point where I can pick the boot drive through Startup Manager.

Problem arises when I try and boot into High Sierra. Booting through Opencore, I get the loading screen with progress bar. However as soon as it's finished loading the system resets and I get the boot chime. This happens whether or not I boot through Opencore, left unattended the system will boot loop. Occasionally the login screen will momentarily flash up once loading is complete, but the system then resets.

Interstingly I can boot into High Sierra in safe mode, and have both the internal display and an external monitor working.

Thinking this might be some kind of kernel issue with High Sierra, I installed Mojave on a separate volume using dosdude1's pathcher. I was able to get all the way through the installation process, and boot into Mojave once to apply some patches. I haven't been able to get in since, same behaviour as High Sierra except it will not boot in safe mode.

I've reassembled the iMac a few times to check everything is seated correctly, but to no avail. I'm not entirely a novice to this process, I upgraded the cpu to an i7 a few years ago.

I'm at a loss now. Even tried resetting the PRAM. Really hoping I've made some silly mistake in the process but not sure where to look. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. Cheers.

 

[Lottosmp]

I'm at a loss now. Even tried resetting the PRAM. Really hoping I've made some silly mistake in the process but not sure where to look. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. Cheers.

I had the same problem (I think) after I messed up installing the .kexts to fix 2020-0004 security update black screen issues on a freshly installed Mac. I hope someone else more knowledgable will reply but it does sound like the system crashes when initializing the graphical OS subsystem and maybe loading a GPU-related kext? I'd guess safe mode doesn't load a certain kext... maybe.

Once I messed up my kexts on that installation I couldn't recover and I had to do a full clean re-install.

Afaik you don't have to install the kexts immediately, you can avoid the black screen issues by bringing up the boot menu and just starting the system normally form there -- should work on K2100M, just hold ALT (wired USB keyboard) when turning on iMac, and select main HD/SSD and return. Then you can boot the system unmodified and use it a couple times to make sure it's not the kext installation that breaks MacOS. You do want the kexts eventually though.

 

[coops312]

...

Afaik you don't have to install the kexts immediately, you can avoid the black screen issues by bringing up the boot menu and just starting the system normally form there -- should work on K2100M, just hold ALT (wired USB keyboard) when turning on iMac, and select main HD/SSD and return. Then you can boot the system unmodified and use it a couple times to make sure it's not the kext installation that breaks MacOS. You do want the kexts eventually though.

Thanks for the suggestion, I hadn't installed the kexts yet. Just tried that now and I'm still having the same issue.

Note that I'm getting the boot loop regardless of whether I try and load the unmodified system or going through Opencore. I can't actually load an OS other than High Sierra in safe mode.

May need to try a clean install of High Sierra on another partition. However, Mojave was a clean install and is also affected.

I'll probably swap the card back over later today just so I've (hopefully!) got a working system.

 

[coops312]

May need to try a clean install of High Sierra on another partition. However, Mojave was a clean install and is also affected.

Just to update, I've tried a fresh installation of High Sierra onto a separate volume and run into the same issue. Booting unmodified or through OpenCore the system reboots as soon as the load screen is complete. Fresh installation of High Sierra will work in safe mode however.

 

[jay508]

** NVIDIA GeForce GTX780M Mac Edition ROM **
Genuine Native Boot Screen & Brightness Control

View attachment 942195​

There are many members here that have this card now and have been using it with & without Opencore. The previous rom iterations did not initialize the “built-in” iMac LCD screen but instead spoofed it to use the Cinema Display as the internal screen which rendered brightness control non-functional, and forced the use of a bootloader to add the feature back via a kernel extension.


This ROM does not require a 3rd party bootloader like OpenCore.

ROM testing has already been underway for the past few weeks by @Ausdauersportler and @highvoltage12v.

There is an overclock present on the GTX780M from the base rom. I would suggest you to use a 3-pipe heatsink for this GPU. Apply proper thermal pads and appropriate heat dissipating grease like K5pro to the areas that are in contact with the heat sink. Keep mac fans up and running to achieve better control of cooling as well.

As with the K4100M, you will need to use a brightness kext mod to obtain the proper range of brightness in macOS. There will be a separate instruction for Windows 10 users to adjust the RMBrightness scaling accordingly.


Important Links:
USB Flashing for SSH @xanderon method <link>
@Curtis Gross – walkthrough video <link>
Heat Sink MOD to grind down the edges <link>
Heat Sink mounting @tgaillar <link>
Kexts for sleep/iGPU (Mojave/Catalina) <link>



More GPU Roms to come... Enjoy!

** NVIDIA GeForce GTX780M Mac Edition ROM **
Genuine Native Boot Screen & Brightness Control

View attachment 942195​

There are many members here that have this card now and have been using it with & without Opencore. The previous rom iterations did not initialize the “built-in” iMac LCD screen but instead spoofed it to use the Cinema Display as the internal screen which rendered brightness control non-functional, and forced the use of a bootloader to add the feature back via a kernel extension.


This ROM does not require a 3rd party bootloader like OpenCore.

ROM testing has already been underway for the past few weeks by @Ausdauersportler and @highvoltage12v.

There is an overclock present on the GTX780M from the base rom. I would suggest you to use a 3-pipe heatsink for this GPU. Apply proper thermal pads and appropriate heat dissipating grease like K5pro to the areas that are in contact with the heat sink. Keep mac fans up and running to achieve better control of cooling as well.

As with the K4100M, you will need to use a brightness kext mod to obtain the proper range of brightness in macOS. There will be a separate instruction for Windows 10 users to adjust the RMBrightness scaling accordingly.


Important Links:
USB Flashing for SSH @xanderon method <link>
@Curtis Gross – walkthrough video <link>
Heat Sink MOD to grind down the edges <link>
Heat Sink mounting @tgaillar <link>
Kexts for sleep/iGPU (Mojave/Catalina) <link>



More GPU Roms to come... Enjoy!

Hello, everyone, I tried two blue sky gtx780m 4g and gtx870g 3G respectively, and used MXM to transfer pcie 16x on the PC with blue sky. MSI and Dell's vbios can be used normally. I used the programmer and Linux to write the vbios provided by Nick on the A1312 iMac 2011 27-inch i5-2400s 16G 840pro 512G, gtx780m 4g motherboard lights are on, three can not enter the system, no matter 10.13.6 or windows7, gtx870m 3G can only be on The two lights on the motherboard are also abnormal. I also have vbios released by Nick for k610m and gtx880m, which can be used normally.

Blue Sky’s gtx780m 4g and Dell’s gtx780m 4g look the same. Blue Sky’s gtx870M 3G is different from Dell’s gtx870m 3g pcb on the top row of electronic components.