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

[Ausdauersportler]

Sleep, brightness control, etc all work as expected. But acceleration is not enabled (checked with MaxC)

Go back and check what should have done there...and read post #1.

 

[rambo47]

My 2010 iMac 27" is behaving normally now, aside from the noise hard drive. I will be installing a SSD this week to replace it, but for now I'm leaving the graphics card alone. I was briefly getting artifacts on the screen but it cleared up after a restart. Still, once those artifacts appear it often signals a dying graphics card. Ergo, I just bought a new/unused K2100M from a Dell laptop parts supplier. If/when my original card finally goes Tango Uniform I will be ready to replace it immediately. All that remains is to flash the K2100M.

 

[Pacific1972]

The author has been offline for months, now. You may use the Kepler Bios Tweaker to check those values yourself?
No experiences with these cards without brightness control. Unless you have hardware solution for brightness you are overheating a 27” anyway and IMHO no wonder to see dying cards there. Had the K2100M without brightness and the LCD was over 60c all the time.
There are some brand new K3000Μ on the market (unused spare parts). Let’s wait an see how these cards run if @nikey22 solves the current problems. Of course these will offer brightness control...
Three dead cards is not good. But it is not a valid base for statistical conclusions, especially because of unknown former live...
We could create another online sheet with average live times of used cards and a good/bad statistics for new acquisitions of used cards. This may give a new user an impression what to expect from the market....
@NOTNICE was a victim of some online sellers

Thank you, I use Brightness Slider, but "never" know about LED thermal problems as I look
primary on CPU & GPU Temperatures (Macs Fan Control / HWSensors). I have various Suspicion
- should make a small WIN installation for use additional BIOS tools - thanks for your help !

 

[herrdude]

My 2010 iMac 27" is behaving normally now, aside from the noise hard drive. I will be installing a SSD this week to replace it, but for now I'm leaving the graphics card alone. I was briefly getting artifacts on the screen but it cleared up after a restart. Still, once those artifacts appear it often signals a dying graphics card. Ergo, I just bought a new/unused K2100M from a Dell laptop parts supplier. If/when my original card finally goes Tango Uniform I will be ready to replace it immediately. All that remains is to flash the K2100M.

And set up your OpenCore USB drive.

 

[rambo47]

And set up your OpenCore USB drive.

I will have OpenCore ready to go on a flash drive but I plan to keep High Sierra for now.

 

[decat]

Have been running an HD6970 for quite some time and never had any issues with it.
While reading this topic the idea to change it asap popped up and bought a k4100m from xanderon. Thanks again!
While the card was being shipped to home the HD6970 died.

During the last days cpu paste was changed and mounted the k4100m with necessary grizzly & k5 on it's heatsink.
Last night I finally found the courage to remount the iMac. Never worked on these machines before, it's not even my iMac. My mate lets me use it because he doens't really need it, he got it from a client (mate's an ex apple tech & did all the hardware changes for me till now). The client wanted to get rid of it because sometimes it froze and starting screaming like mad.

Anyhow, thanks to all of your previous research, testing a the preflashed card from xanderon the install etc went pretty easy & the iMac seems to be running fine. Still got some more testing to do, install extra drives and last but not least will try to install some extra fans too.

 

[Lady Titan]

Preamble (Last Updated 08/28/2020)
You have probably found this thread because your iMac 2009-2011 is having problems caused by the graphics card. It is well known that these graphic cards are problematic/defective. You will find websites that encourage "baking" the card. Without getting into the technicalities, it will work but this does not repair the graphics card. In fact, it only delays the problem. We have great news for you! You can install another graphics card that does not require much more effort. In addition, this will allow you to install more recent versions of MacOS. This thread has over 300 pages of useful information BUT the good news is all of that information has been summarized in this first post. It is HIGHLY recommended that you read through this post before asking questions. Then, reread the information. You will appreciate that the more experienced users cannot spoon-feed all new users. This distracts them from working on the files and tools that make all of this possible. Enjoy!

Choosing the Right Card
This is the most important part of this process. The following information will help guide you in choosing your card. We have included the issues (loss of brightness control, loss of boot screen, loss of target display mode, etc.) to overcome when installing a non-stock card into a 2009-2011 iMac. When choosing your replacement graphics card, you must take under consideration: your budget, your comfort level with doing modifications, your ability to live with unresolved issues, your computing needs, etc. Unfortunately, this thread cannot help you source cards as there are two many variables involved. Read through this information carefully in order to choose the best card for your needs.

Important Notes Before You Begin

1. The modified (video) BIOS version made by @Nick [D]vB, @nikey22 and @internetzel require an Intel i3 CPU or better. There is currently no way to make the features of these VBIOS working on Core 2 Duo systems (late 2009).
2. Please do not harass the BIOS developers to go faster, release a particular BIOS, etc. Please do not clog up the thread with useless posts asking if your specific card will get a new BIOS. Ask not what this thread can do for you, but what you can do for this thread. It takes several months of reverse engineering and testing before getting a new BIOS working. It took only six years for the first really working card here on this thread! If you would like to use a different card, consider yourself in unknown territory. Of course, let us know if it works! Chances are that Kepler based cards will run using the right (most likely Dell) BIOS but will exhibit the seven problems listed below.
3. There are two type and sizes of cards: Smaller MXM-A cards and bigger MXM-B cards running stable only in the 27" models. While all cards will function in a 21.5" model, they are unstable due to their high power draw. @highvoltage12v tested a 770M here and had frequent Kernel Panics in macOS and BSoD's in Windows. Do not try it!
4. For all Nvidia MXM B cards and the WX7100 you need the MXM-B heat sink from the 27" mid 2011 model. This is the only sink with three heat pipes capable to get the generated heat by using 75W out of the system unter load.
5. You may face all kind of hardware problems after assembling your iMac again. There is an incomplete list of common problems including the links to the original Apple iMac Technician Guides to trouble shoot such problems. Please understand that we cannot remotely repair or identify broken hardware. And there is no proof possible that hardware is broken. Do not ask for one.

Table of Working Graphics Cards (A PDF document of this information is available at the end of this post.)

Card	BIOS link	Boot Screen	Brightness Control	21.5"/27"	Heat Sink Mod	MXM
Quadro K1100M +	ROM	yes (natively)	yes (OpenCore)	yes/yes	no	A
Quadro K2100M +	ROM	yes (natively)	yes (OpenCore)	yes/yes	no	A
Quadro K1000M *	ROM	yes (natively)	no	yes/yes	no	A
Quadro K2000M *	ROM	yes (natively)	no	yes/yes	no	A
Quadro K610M +	ROM	yes (natively)	yes (OpenCore)	yes/yes	no	A
Quadro K4100M ++	ROM	yes (natively)	yes (natively)	no/yes	yes, 3 pipe	B
Quadro K5000M ++	ROM	yes (natively)	yes (natively)	no/yes	yes, 3 pipe	B
Quadro K5100M ++	ROM	yes (natively)	yes (natively)	no/yes	yes, 3 pipe	B
GTX 765M *	ROM	yes (natively)	no	no/yes	yes, 3 pipe	B
GTX 770M *	ROM	yes (natively)	no	no/yes	yes, 3 pipe	B
GTX 780M ++	ROM	yes (natively)	yes (natively)	no/yes	yes, 3 pipe	B
GTX 880M ++	ROM	yes (natively)	yes (natively)	no/yes	yes, 3 pipe	B
Quadro K3000M **	ROM	yes (OpenCore)	no	no/yes	yes, 3 pipe	B
GTX 860M ++	ROM	yes (natively)	yes (natively)	no/yes	yes, 3 pipe	B
GTX 870M ++	ROM	yes (natively)	yes (natively)	no/yes	yes, 3 pipe	B
Quadro K3100M ++	ROM	yes (natively)	yes (natively)	no/yes	yes, 3 pipe	B
AMD WX4130 +++	ROM	yes (OpenCore)	yes (natively)	yes/yes	no	A
AMD WX4150 +++	ROM	yes (OpenCore)	yes (natively)	yes/yes	no	A
AMD WX4170 +++	ROM	yes (OpenCore)	yes (natively)	no/yes	yes, 2 pipe	B
AMD WX7100 +++	ROM	yes (OpenCore)	yes (natively)	no/yes	yes, 3 pipe	B

* BIOS by @Nick [D]vB that currently enable boot screens on your iMac, better performance, and BootCamp support.

** Only Kepler based cards work in iMacs. The K3000M has been used with High Sierra by @Roman78. Using OpenCore all these cards can have a limited boot screen functionality, now.

+ BIOS by @Nick [D]vB, and the Wizzard @nikey22 that currently enable boot screens on your iMac. Using OpenCore with these cards offers right now native brightness control, target display mode, UEFI Windows 10, and more! To enable backlight in UEFI Windows 10, see this post by @internetzel.

++ BIOS by Wizzard @nikey22, and @stephle for the K5000M that currently enable boot screens and native brightness control on your iMac. To enable brightness controls in UEFI Windows 10, see this post and this more recent post. Only the audio support with UEFI Windows 10 would make OpenCore necessary.

+++ These AMD cards are much more modern, but are difficult to source. Check the online offers carefully (the differences are explained below). With custom BIOS and OpenCore, these are very compatible and offer native brightness control, boot screens, UEFI Windows 10, and much more modern capabilities and future-proofing than the NVIDIA cards. They also allow for Sidecar, H.264, and huge HEVC decode/encode gains in production. There are still some problems to solve. Using the GOP BIOS (links within the table above) you will get native brightness and a boot selection only with OpenCore. Using the EG BIOS version you will get a native Apple boot picker with an iMac firmware modification, but no brightness control. Both solutions have their advantages.

1. AMD WX7100 (recognized as Radeon RX 580 in macOS)
   It is important to identify the card. This card has been unpredictable. @Nick [D]vB has obviously a working card with number 109-C95847-00C_02. @Pascal Baillargeau has a card working with number 109-C95847-00D_02. However, other users have not been successful with the same exact models. For example, @Vego17 recently got the same card as @Nick [D]vB. But his card did not work in his iMac 2011 while it does run normally in a Dell Precision 7710 laptop.
2. AMD WX4170 (recognized as Radeon RX 560 in macOS)
   Some come with a blank EEPROM and are missing a resistor. Working models with EEPROM are scarce. User @jborko did a write up HERE on his experience installing a WX4170. You can use the 4GB version of the latest WX4150 rom too (refer to the table at the beginning).
3. AMD WX4130/WX4150 (recognized as Radeon RX 460 or RX560 depending on used BIOS in macOS) - currently 09/10 Only
   This card needs to have an EEPROM chip on board too. There are multiple versions of this card - only the "Dell" branded versions currently work. These WX 4130/4150 are not detected in every case by the 2011 iMacs for unknown reason, and therefore are currently not fully compatible. Even worse, some models are not detected in any iMac model from late 2009 to mid 2011. A few Dell versions will be recognized and run in 2011 models. There is currently no rule available to figure out in advance which model will run. Same situations as with the WX7100.

Issues with an Unsupported PC MXM Card Without a Custom vBIOS (the seven problems):

1. The loss of EFI boot screen;
2. The loss of backlight control;
3. You can only connect one external monitor to 27" iMacs;
4. The loss of Target Disk Mode;
5. The loss of Target Display Mode (TDM);
6. The loss of running the built-in Apple Hardware Test (AHT);
7. The loss of temperature sensors on the new GPU.

1. Boot Screens are now available on all listed cards using custom VBIOS and/or OpenCore

You may use the OpenCore booter to add a boot screen feature to every card - even the Nvidia and AMD cards not listed here or known to have no BIOS support to show the original apple boot picker. There is a small delay between the chime (POST) and the initialization of the actual boot screen on the current NVIDIA modded BIOS. Most of the time (such as a quick reboot in macOS) the system boots too quickly for the EFI portion of the BIOS to initialize, making it appear that you may not have a "boot screen." All is working as intended if you can hold the "Option" key at startup and get a boot picker.

2. Native Brightness control is available for cards marked with + or ++ using a combination of custom BIOS and OpenCore.

For other cards, brightness control may be added in the future. Be aware that without brightness control, the iMac display runs at full brightness by default. For higher powered cards and 27" models, this can generate a lot of heat.

If you would like to "dim" your display using color dimming, many have used the app Brightness Slider, which is available on the App Store for free.
You can also use this app, which works better than most apps in the App Store, because it will dim the colors on the whole screen and it will display the built-in OSD, just like native brightness control.

Additionally, hardware level modifications using a DyingLight module or a Raspberry Pi have been used for brightness control. This software written by @passatgt can be run on a Pi for backlight control.

Nvidia cards marked with ++ with native brightness control may notice their displays are not hitting maximum brightness control Potential. A kext modified by @highvoltage12v can be found here to fix this issue.

Last, but not least: User @Lottosmp came up with a solution based on the former engineering.

3. Despite having 2 miniDisplayPort outputs, the 27" 2011 iMac will only output to one external display. There is currently no fix or workaround for this.

4. Target Disk Mode is available on all cards marked with a + or ++!

5. Target Display Mode (TDM) is available on for cards marked with + when using both custom BIOS and OpenCore. Target Display Mode is *only* stable under High Sierra and should not be used in later OS's.

6. Apple Hardware Test (AHT): There is currently no fix for running the internal service diagnostics. You may search the net for the ASD (Apple Service Diagnostic) package instead. For each system there is a different package. Download and install the package onto a SD card or a DVD, which will give you full functionality. A working download link may be hard to find. It is not open source.

7. GPU Temperature Monitoring is available on cards marked with a + or ++when using both custom VBIOS and OpenCore. A modified version of FakeSMC and GPUSensors is included with the OpenCore bundle to allow monitoring of GPU temps. But you still have to use some third party tool to control the fans. The GPU die temperature is not available and (probably for that reason) the Apple SMC still not running properly.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Q: Is this easy? I need a quick fix for my iMac!
A: Not necessarily. This "fix" is more of a "mod" to revive our iMacs. Depending on your scenario, it will require a full iMac disassembly, knowledge of BIOS flashing, dremel tools, heatsink modification, careful handling of logic board components, etc. With the used/grey market for many of these cards, other issues may pop up as well. Please inform yourself before undertaking this process.

Q: My system boots up, but I don't have internal display, any display, or my GPU is not recognized correctly. What do I do?
A: Your MXM card is likely running an incompatible BIOS and will need to be flashed with the correct one. This can be done from within Windows or Linux using NVFlash, or with a CH341a programmer.

Q: Flash VBIOS? How do I do that?
A: BIOS can be flashed in one of two ways: Either directly with a CH341a clip programmer or with the "NVFLASH" software in Windows or Linux. THIS POST helps describe the flashing process. Others have found THIS POST useful. User @xanderon created a pre-made USB that can flash Nvidia cards in the iMac with Linux over SSH. Many have found this the easiest method. There is an add-on to flash AMD cards using this method, too. Additionally, user @jowaju created a simple Installer package that can be run on macOS Sierra (10.12) and higher that creates a 15GB Windows 7 Bootcamp partition with all the needed tools.

Q: OK, so I need to use the NVIDIA web drivers, right?
A: No - all cards outlined in this guide use the included NVIDIA drivers in macOS. No additional GPU drivers are needed.

Q: Why aren’t you using Maxwell or Pascal cards in the iMac?
A: A lot of people here have tested Maxwell cards with their 2011 iMacs, and have had various issues from no internal display, no backlight on internal display and the card not hitting boost. Additionally, macOS Mojave (10.14) deprecated support for the NVIDIA Web Drivers which allowed the use of Maxwell and Pascal cards. For now, Kepler GPUs and the experimental Radeon cards seem to be our path forward.

Q: Can I use a 4K display with these cards? The original card doesn't support 4K.
A: Yes! So far, the K1100M & GTX 770M have been tested firsthand and successfully provide 4K@60Hz output via mDP to DP adapter on a 4K display. Others should work just as well.

Q: What paste is recommended to cover the VRAM/Components on the MXM card like Apple’s design?
A: For the GPU Die any thermal Paste like Thermal Grizzly’s Kryonaut paste is good for the Die. For onboard components, many recommend using K5 Pro Viscous paste instead of thermal pads, due to the unevenness of the heatsink, it’s also similar to Apple’s original Design. You can get it from the Bay or from the Book Store, too.


Q: What kind of performance can I expect after installing one of these cards?
A: We are still aggregating GPU benchmarks. You can help by running UNIGINE VALLEY on your iMac at 1080P MEDIUM and submitting the OpenGL results. You can also view the results! Since the new GPU ofter native metal hardware support it is worth to measure this running the free GeekBench5 (metal), uploading, or reading the results.

Q: Are there any internal modifications needed for an MXM-A swap?
A: For an MXM-A swap (the shorter/less power draw cards) there are no modifications that are needed for the heatsink on both the 21.5" and 27" model iMacs. The X-clamp still needs be removed from the back of the card and have the screw posts drilled or tapped out (or screws swapped) in order to fit the heatsink's screws. Separate the X-Clamp using a hair dryer before drilling or tapping - it is just glued to the board. Skipping this step can fry or damage your card. If you've cleaned your heatsink, be sure to re-apply thermal pads around the GPU VRAM to prevent contact with the bare metal of the heatsink. Use electrical tape to isolate card components from the sink! Watch closely after installing the card. Take a look at the attached pictures of this post!

Q: Are there any additional internal modifications needed for an MXM-B swap?
A: The MXM-B cards only work on the 27" models due to power restrictions. There is one additional mod needed to make the MXM-B card fit. First you must grind down your heatsink in the area where one or two large coils sit, this way the card will sit flush with the heatsink. You must prepare the the X-clamp in the same way as described with MXM-A cards above. Take a look at the attached pictures of this post!
Some cards may work with the bigger MXM-B heat sinks with 2 copper pipes from the 2009 and 2010 models due to limited power draw. The WX4170 with a TPD of 50W is, the K3000M and K3100M may be such a candidate. The HD 5850M is listed with 40W-60W power draw.

If you have a 2 pipe heatsink that came with the lower end GPUs on these iMacs and want to use an MXM-B Card, you'll have to buy a 3 pipe heatsink to cool cards properly. You can get these on eBay.

Q: After GPU change my system does not boot at all, what is wrong?
A: Most likely the installation of card on the heat sink caused a short, or the card is simply faulty, or the card has not been reseated in the slot properly, check all this out first. Any hardware issue has to be solved by yourself!

Q: I want to help and experiment, what can I do?
A: First, read the full thread. Staying on top of the progress here is key! Currently, backlight mods in BIOS are being researched as well as boot screens and alternate video card solutions.


Installing OpenCore and macOS on your upgraded iMac

With the addition of our newer GPU, Metal is natively supported allowing for installation of macOS Mojave and Catalina with full graphics acceleration. But you need to make sure in advance you have already installed the lastest Apple firmware for your iMac. This can be done by installing High Sierra and all published Apple Update first before you can use the Catalina Loader or Mojave or Catalina.

OpenCore / Catalina Loader:

Before starting this use the RomTool and backup your iMac EFI firmware and save it to an external storage device.

When we use the phrase Catalina Loader and OpenCore at the same time it is because the Catalina Loader is a piece of software based on OpenCore. To use this software to get brightness control or a boot picker just download the latest image based on OC version 0.6.0, copy it to an USB memory or SD card, boot from it and that it is! You will find a short documentation attached to the post. There is no more need for a manual configuration. You just need to rename a file.

If you want to know what happens behind the curtain please read the original OpenCore post for more info. @herrdude provided an additional guide, another longer one by @Ausdauersportler and others named "Using Catalina Loader on an iMac" focussing on the special needs of 2011 models and special settings for AMD cards. All guides are worth reading before starting the installation. And you may take a look at this thread, the MacPro users basically explored the same things.

Using older macOS versions

Currently we have no recent reports of users having a Kepler based Nvidia card installed with an older macOS versions than Sierra. According to this list the Nvidia drivers are part of macOS since 10.8.3. You might check this out on your own.

Installing macOS Sierra
Supported MacOS version can be installed using the original Apple installer.

Installing macOS High Sierra
Supported MacOS version can be installed using the original Apple installer.

Installing macOS Mojave
Since you will have a Mojave compatible GPU, you could run the newest macOS without any serious issues. The recommended method is to have High Sierra as your primary OS and install Mojave alongside on a separate partition. So if anything goes wrong, you can still boot back into High Sierra to fix issues. You could preinstall Mojave before changing your GPU. Use dosdude1's Mojave patcher to do the install.
Important: while running the Post Install tool, make sure you deselect the Legacy Video Card patch option (since you will using a new, compatible metal graphics card).
Mojave 10.14.6 (2020-003) shows the black screen issue solved by this patched extension.

Installing macOS Catalina
The process for Catalina is similar to Mojave as mentioned above. Similarly to Mojave, you could preinstall Mojave before changing your GPU. Use dosdude1's Catalina patcher to do the install:
Important: Post-install patching has changed since Mojave. Patching is now automated if your SMBIOS is detected to be an unsupported machine. Currently, only the 2011 iMacs have the "Legacy Video Card Patch" disabled by default. You will want to avoid this patch (since you will using a new, compatible metal graphics card) and will need to modify a plist file if you are using a 2009/2010 iMac with a Metal compatible video card. While building the patcher, you can go to the "Options" menu and de-select "Auto-Apply Post-Install Patches" to avoid this. See next section to manually fix this issue.


Common MacOS problems:

After every MacOS update you will have to do the patching explaining in the next section to avoid common problems.

Q: I get a black or blank screen on boot, how to fix?
A: Sierra and later has been causing "black screen" issues for many folks. This is caused by a lack of kext initialization due to a lacking board-id in the AppleGraphicsControl.kext. A patched kext and a further explaination can be found HERE, thanks to @highvoltage12v. Please look and the next question and link to get the installation guide, needed.

Q: Sleep is broken on my iMac 2011 in Mojave and Catalina, how do I fix this?
A: Solution for Mojave and Catalina, the SandyBridge kexts are missing. Installing them fixes sleep, but causes extended boot times. @highvoltage12v has provided the needed patches containing the SandyBridge kexts in THIS POST which can be installed.

Q: After installing Catalina on my Late 2009/2010 iMac my animations are broken/choppy, the Dock is grey and the menu bar isn't translucent. How do I fix this?
A: The dosude1 installer unfortunately automatically executes the "Legacy Video Card Patch" leaving Late 09/2010 MXM swapped users with broken/choppy animations. If you did install Catalina and would like to manually reinstall the stock Kexts and Frameworks, a guide has been written by @highvoltage12v to manually overwrite the patched files with stock files.

~~~~~~~~~~

Original Post from @MichaelDT June 14th, 2013.

I will be attempting to upgrade the MXM card in my 2011 21.5 iMac from the factory 6770m 512mb to a NVidia 675m 2GB. I choose this card because the chipset already has support from 10.8.3 onwards and affordability for an experiment. I am hoping that it will work without flashing like many of the other non MXM modern graphics cards (UEFI support) do in 64bit EFI Mac Pros ( I may loose the initial boot screen). But if all else fails I will attempt a flash. I will report back my findings when the card arrives (from Hong Kong). Wish me luck hopefully this will give those of us with the last modular iMac a path forward.

hi! I need the help of a real man) I installed a gtx 880m video card, turned on the mac, how do I flash vbios so that nothing would spoil or break? is there an exact video tutorial for blondes on this forum? I spent a lot of hours on this forum, but did not understand exactly how to do it, final cut pro x do not notice the difference before I had 1 GB AMD Radeon, that is, I want to say that I do not see the full power of the gtx 880m, perhaps after the firmware everything will work at full power? still there is a problem with ssd disc, or I did not choose the right video card for video editing))???

 

[Lady Titan]

 

[herrdude]

View attachment 948820View attachment 948821

Not sure if you have a question, but this is probably not the forum because we are talking about changing the GPU and not SSD installation problems.

 

[kmare]

Any one have luck with Windows 10 (legacy boot mode) on a GTX 780M. I get a freeze at boot selection - nothing beyond. New Bios is amazing for OSX, fast boot screen and brightness. However, reverted back to Nick[D]vB version.

Might need to try windows 10 EFI boot, mixed info. Some saying no audio with EFI boot.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Any one have luck with Windows 10 (legacy boot mode) on a GTX 780M. I get a freeze at boot selection - nothing beyond. New Bios is amazing for OSX, fast boot screen and brightness. However, reverted back to Nick[D]vB version.

Might need to try windows 10 EFI boot, mixed info. Some saying no audio with EFI boot.

Windows 10 UEFI installation works pretty well with my 780M using the @nikey22 BIOS version. If you need audio you have to boot via OpenCore. Check the post #1 and the original OpenCore post for details.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

hi! I need the help of a real man) I installed a gtx 880m video card, turned on the mac, how do I flash vbios so that nothing would spoil or break? is there an exact video tutorial for blondes on this forum? I spent a lot of hours on this forum, but did not understand exactly how to do it, final cut pro x do not notice the difference before I had 1 GB AMD Radeon, that is, I want to say that I do not see the full power of the gtx 880m, perhaps after the firmware everything will work at full power? still there is a problem with ssd disc, or I did not choose the right video card for video editing))???

Probably you should have studied the needs of FCP before changing to this card. You are better off with an AMD card offering native 4K H.264 and HEVC. Apple recommends the RX560 or RX580 for FCP probably for a reason

 

[Ausdauersportler]

I will have OpenCore ready to go on a flash drive but I plan to keep High Sierra for now.

You need OpenCore to get brightness control with High Sierra, too. There is no way around...but I guess you know this.

 

[iPlasm]

decat, Glad for you success new iMac!
Just to know..... with this amount of thermal paste! 😯 I wonder how will your results be fine for years!
you've even pasted on the black Samsung chips!, and the main NVidia GPU Chip! that's a full thermal paste! 😄 will any leaking occur?
I liked to know the recommended amount and how? 🧐

 

[decat]

I love to overdo things.
The white paste is a thermal pad substitute. The paste on de Nvidia chip are 2 drops carefully spread out.
Before starting the first post of this thread was read several times & have been searching on google for quite some time too. The amount of paste used looks normal to me, if it's too much I would like to get confirmation by a regular from this thread.
Compared to the pics in the first post it looks ok to me.

GPU heatsink under load doesn't go much above 50°, one bump to 55°.
The CPU stays around 35-40° and went to 65° max while doing a Cinebench run.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

decat, Glad for you success new iMac!
Just to know..... with this amount of thermal paste! 😯 I wonder how will your results be fine for years!
you've even pasted on the black Samsung chips!, and the main NVidia GPU Chip! that's a full thermal paste! 😄 will any leaking occur?
I liked to know the recommended amount and how? 🧐

The amount of the white K5 pro depends on the width of the gap between components and sink. This sink has not been designed for these Nvidia cards and I would guess there was no K5 pro coming out of the sandwich after fixing the card using the x-bracket and the screws.

If you deinstall an original HD 6970M you will discover nearly the same amount of the K5 pro and you will find it on the six chips between the large two coils, too.

 

[WingedFrost]

Hello everyone, I have a couple of questions.
I have an iMac 21.5 (mid 2010) i3
Interested in installing a WX 4130 video card, does anyone have experience installing this video card?
Can you do the Unigine Valley Benchmark 1.0?
---
If I go the easy way and install Quadro k2100m and upgrade VBIOS + kext to backlight, will I get 100% working product?
Sorry if I didn't read the thread carefully.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Hello everyone, I have a couple of questions.
I have an iMac 21.5 (mid 2010) i3
Interested in installing a WX 4130 video card, does anyone have experience installing this video card?
Can you do the Unigine Valley Benchmark 1.0?
---
If I go the easy way and install Quadro k2100m and upgrade VBIOS + kext to backlight, will I get 100% working product?
Sorry if I didn't read the thread carefully.

Sorry for this kind of answer, but you may start with the first post on the first page and the links there to get an idea what is working and what not. No card on the list is a 100% substitute of the original cards. There are always some shortcoming, but there are huge gains, too.

I will not rewrite the docs and posts we made...

WX4130: difficult to install on the sink without getting shorts
K2100M: needs opencore

 

[Ed Hartouni]

I have been working on the mechanical templates... here are a couple of .jpg files that have the MXM specification height restrictions. Hopefully they load without scale change, I printed them out and compared with an MXM-A and MXM-B card, they line up well.

I also have a solid model of the MXM-A card (and soon an MXM-B) and will try to get these into a .STL formatted file (for 3D printing, and another for CNC machining).

I'm scheduled to take my machine apart again and I'll get the dimensions for a 21.5-inch iMac 2011 heat sink, and mounting yadda, yadda, yadda. I will probably purchase a 3-pipe heat sink for the 27-inch to make a model from it.

 

[natjonesart]

Hi guys, a little off topic but I have an xserve 3,1 flashed to Mac Pro 144 boot rom that has had a WX4150 running for a while, but recognized as a Radeon Polaris. I decided to flash it with the 4150 GOP Rom to have it identify more correctly and now I can't get it to boot in Mojave. It was flashed in Windows10 with Amdvbflash. It still boots into windows but I just can't get it to boot MacOS. I am using Martin Lo's OC 0.6.0 package for Mac Pro. When I try to boot with a MacOS disk in the machine it shuts itself down, no OC boot picker, just black screen. When I remove the Mojave Drive the screen stays black until it boots Windows. If I put the original GT120 back in it will boot into MacOS. OpenCore is blessed. I tried flashing back to the original vbios and am still having the same issues. Any ideas?

 

[InuNacho]

Hello everyone I have a probably rather unusual question about this GPU upgrade path. Right now my 2012 cMBP is running the Purge Wrangler script and connected to a Radeon WX4100 and an external monitor.
I'm picking up a 2011 iMac 27 in a few days and want to drop in a new GPU but want to know if and how to use my current egpu setup with it. I do run some GPU heavy applications like the Topaz AI suite so I would like to get the most out of my already existing setup. I am running Mojave and most likely will until my hardware dies.

Thanks!

 

[jrmhwzblfrg]

I just wanted to thank this thread for getting me up and running with my 27" 2011 iMac. I have a completely functional machine, with the added benefits of the newest OS (Catalina 10.15.6), and even Handoff and Continuity since I did a WiFi and Bluetooth upgrade at the same time. Even for a complete noob like myself who has only opened up their iMac to throw in a new cable and an SSD, I was able to follow the first page to a T and get a WX4170 running beautifully.

I have been a lurker on this thread for a couple of months, and didn't really need an account other than to once again say THANK YOU!

I am still working on getting Sidecar working for my setup, but with some more reading, I am sure I can figure it out. But if someone wanted to point me in the direction of the post that explains it for my card, it certainly wouldn't hurt my feelings

 

[internetzel]

Hi guys, a little off topic but I have an xserve 3,1 flashed to Mac Pro 144 boot rom that has had a WX4150 running for a while, but recognized as a Radeon Polaris. I decided to flash it with the 4150 GOP Rom to have it identify more correctly and now I can't get it to boot in Mojave. It was flashed in Windows10 with Amdvbflash. It still boots into windows but I just can't get it to boot MacOS. I am using Martin Lo's OC 0.6.0 package for Mac Pro. When I try to boot with a MacOS disk in the machine it shuts itself down, no OC boot picker, just black screen. When I remove the Mojave Drive the screen stays black until it boots Windows. If I put the original GT120 back in it will boot into MacOS. OpenCore is blessed. I tried flashing back to the original vbios and am still having the same issues. Any ideas?

Did you try to reset the NVRAM/PRAM after flashing the VBIOS? For me it did always work without a reset but there are cases where this is necessary.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

I just wanted to thank this thread for getting me up and running with my 27" 2011 iMac. I have a completely functional machine, with the added benefits of the newest OS (Catalina 10.15.6), and even Handoff and Continuity since I did a WiFi and Bluetooth upgrade at the same time. Even for a complete noob like myself who has only opened up their iMac to throw in a new cable and an SSD, I was able to follow the first page to a T and get a WX4170 running beautifully.

I have been a lurker on this thread for a couple of months, and didn't really need an account other than to once again say THANK YOU!

I am still working on getting Sidecar working for my setup, but with some more reading, I am sure I can figure it out. But if someone wanted to point me in the direction of the post that explains it for my card, it certainly wouldn't hurt my feelings

Unfortunately no success so far with WX4170 & Catalina & sidecar & my iPad Pro. Grey screen after all this trust settings and enabling HEVC/H.264 was the best so far. Did not spend much time on it.
It would not hurt our feelings if you are going to share your knowledge later here, thanks in advance.

 

[natjonesart]

Did you try to reset the NVRAM/PRAM after flashing the VBIOS? For me it did always work without a reset but there are cases where this is necessary.

Yes, I have reset. Still boots only into Windows.