How did you mod your heatsink or are you using a 3 pipe one ?
Considering switching to a Nvidia ......
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
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iM 4,1-14,4 2011 iMac Graphics Card Upgrade
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How did you mod your heatsink or are you using a 3 pipe one ?
Considering switching to a Nvidia ......
Right. You can update the kext files before switching GPU to make sure you don’t look at a black screen.
My mac is a 27" 2011 and I did mod the 3 pipes heatsink to fit the k4100m, you can't install the k4100m without modding it.
Thanks, then my work is over, what a mysterious sh**... not happy with the benchmark result but it's over at least.
For the record, I sugest to upgrade to catalina before installing a new gpu
Installed in IMac 2011 with a WX7100.Seeking Volunteers!Purpose: If this experiment is successful we may replace all extensions scattering around the thread needed to be installed in such installer packages - which may be more easy for most users here.
This little package I attached will install hopefully without any problems the three kernel extensions needed to use the HW Monitor to show the GPU data in the /System/Library/Extensions folder.
You need SIP disabled (which is after @dosdude patcher installation of Catalina and Mojave the default) and your password. After installation the system will need to reboot.
You can check the success by simply open the /System/Library/Extensions folder and search for extensions names starting with FakeSMC and more importantly by running HW Monitor app. After installation you will see the CPU core frequency and some other additional data, the list of sensors becomes much longer. So use the app before and after installation.
To get rid of this files later you may use the uninstall script. Open the terminal app, entersudo(the trailing space is important) and drop the script onto the terminal window. It will ask for the password and remove all files and rebuild the kernel. I tested this on two 2011 systems (Catalina and Mojave).
So please help and post back any problems you experience, possibly attach a screen shot of error messages!
Notes:
Attachments
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Folks,
I want to report a successful WX7100 installation. Thanks go primarily to @Nick [D]vB for making it possible with his vbios, to @vit9696 and all the folks from the Acidanthera/OpenCore development team, for a great piece of code they've developed and more importantly are actively working on, to @highvoltage12v for his kext mods, to @Ausdauersportler for great help with testing and idea bouncing, and @Pascal Baillargeau @LegoNickD @Ooze for the advice and experience they shared of their mods.
I could not believe my ears when I heard the fan spinning with the WX7100 in, and moreover, I could not believe my eyes when I saw the external monitor lit up. Some may know that I am after 5x WX7100 card swaps. Yes, you read it well 5 cards and almost a year after I initially started this project. Now when I think of it I should have probably forgotten about the 2011 iMac and should have saved some more to get one of the newer models. Well, that's life and the excitement of the unknown. 🤷♂️
To the point now:
My WX7100 is version D, but honestly, I personally don't believe it is related to the version of the card as much as it is to the working state of the card. All the previous ones were acting very weird from the start, mostly fans spinning for a second, or not spinning at all - i.e. they were not able to pass the POST (same vbios).
This last card was almost "plug and play". I am saying this because I do not consider the successful flash a problem any more, but I recognize for the newbies it will not be as straight forward as it seems. Yep, after all, you acquire some skills in these projects too.
Hardware-wise you need to properly apply MX-4 or equivalent to the chip and k5 on the memory and components on a 3-pipe unmodded heatsink (yes, unmodded). The card fits like a glove, but you need to be generous with the K5.
That's it. Out goes the original card - in goes the new card. This was I guess the easiest swap out of all I've made.
Without OpenCore, you get output on the external monitor and all works well (with High Sierra) To get the built-in monitor to lit up I used OpenCore configured for AMD cards (my own version of it, but the one linked from post 1 should work too)...
Now, the last remaining step would be to get this baby too lit up the built-in monitor without OpenCore and get Big Sur on it. Now that is going to be the dream configuration of the machine.
BTW I am searching for an HDD fan (very noisy even at 1100rpm) and an HDD bracket for this machine to make it complete. If you guys have some spare let me know in the PM.
I want to report a successful WX7100 installation. Thanks go primarily to @Nick [D]vB for making it possible with his vbios, to @vit9696 and all the folks from the Acidanthera/OpenCore development team, for a great piece of code they've developed and more importantly are actively working on, to @highvoltage12v for his kext mods, to @Ausdauersportler for great help with testing and idea bouncing, and @Pascal Baillargeau @LegoNickD @Ooze for the advice and experience they shared of their mods.
I could not believe my ears when I heard the fan spinning with the WX7100 in, and moreover, I could not believe my eyes when I saw the external monitor lit up. Some may know that I am after 5x WX7100 card swaps. Yes, you read it well 5 cards and almost a year after I initially started this project. Now when I think of it I should have probably forgotten about the 2011 iMac and should have saved some more to get one of the newer models. Well, that's life and the excitement of the unknown. 🤷♂️
To the point now:
My WX7100 is version D, but honestly, I personally don't believe it is related to the version of the card as much as it is to the working state of the card. All the previous ones were acting very weird from the start, mostly fans spinning for a second, or not spinning at all - i.e. they were not able to pass the POST (same vbios).
This last card was almost "plug and play". I am saying this because I do not consider the successful flash a problem any more, but I recognize for the newbies it will not be as straight forward as it seems. Yep, after all, you acquire some skills in these projects too.
Hardware-wise you need to properly apply MX-4 or equivalent to the chip and k5 on the memory and components on a 3-pipe unmodded heatsink (yes, unmodded). The card fits like a glove, but you need to be generous with the K5.
That's it. Out goes the original card - in goes the new card. This was I guess the easiest swap out of all I've made.
Without OpenCore, you get output on the external monitor and all works well (with High Sierra) To get the built-in monitor to lit up I used OpenCore configured for AMD cards (my own version of it, but the one linked from post 1 should work too)...
Now, the last remaining step would be to get this baby too lit up the built-in monitor without OpenCore and get Big Sur on it. Now that is going to be the dream configuration of the machine.
BTW I am searching for an HDD fan (very noisy even at 1100rpm) and an HDD bracket for this machine to make it complete. If you guys have some spare let me know in the PM.
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iMac 2010 and WX4150 4GB HP branded card
My iMac: 27" mid 2010, old GPU: HD5670m; OSX High Sierra.
new GPU: WX4150 4GB (HP mark, blueboard)
1) Flashing tools: HP Prodesk 600G1 USDT, Windows 10, ATIwinflash
=> Install and confirm GPU working well on Windows before flashing. Convenient if your don't have a return policy.
2) VBIOS: GOP ROM (natural Backlight Control, but no bootscreen)
Thank Nick [D]vB for the VBIOS
3) Catalina Loader SD card Bootscreen fixed.
Thank to Ausdauersportler for the disk image.
4) Still has a minor issue on High Sierra: Black screen.
This can be fixed with 1 of the below 3 options
- A second monitor attached to Display Port, or equivalent one (a 2$ dummy VGA Dongle may works just like a real monitor) => I'm using this option right now.
- A second PC/Mac connected to iMac on Target Display Mode, turn it on then off. (confirmed working well from Windows PC or Mac Pro 1,1)
- Software solution AGC Kext (have not tried yet)
Installing Catalina still got issues:
- First installed Catalina using Dosdude1 patch (default patch, no change)
- Catalina was installed and running Everything went well, no blackscreen.
BUT: - No control for Brightness; Only internal monitor work, no video signal to external monitor.
- GPU not recognized correctly in "About this Mac" => 14MB VRAM GPU.
- 3rd party web browser apps are sluggish (Brave, Chrome, Edge)
- Tried to fix by the option "After install patch" of the Dosdude1 USB installer, and uncheck "Legacy GPU patch" => failed (Catalina is running but above issues persist).
- Tried to modify the plist file, as guide by Ausdauersportler but on the USB installer instead of the Dosdude1 patch dmg and re-install Catalina => failed (Catalina is running but above issues persist).
- Tried removing Catalina SD card and boot directly to Catalina SSD => blackscreen.
Next step: 3 options to try for Catalina
- Follow exactly Ausdauersportler's instruction and modify the Dosdude1 path dmg before creating the USB installer.
- Uncheck Legacy GPU patch while making the USB installer.
- Copy the EFI folder from the Catalina SD card to the EFI partition on the Catalina SSD. (Opencore Hackintosh after install process)
Other options I will try:
- Create a USB installer without using Dosdude1 patch (use Catalina SD)
- Install Mojave (dosdude1 patch) to see if the issue persists. (Brightness Control, external monitor, Blackscreen)
Afterall, I can confirm that High Sierra is fully working with the new GPU.
However, please be noted that it's limited to the below combination.
(iMac 27" mid-2010, WX4150 4GB, Catalina loader SD, blackscreen fix)
My iMac: 27" mid 2010, old GPU: HD5670m; OSX High Sierra.
new GPU: WX4150 4GB (HP mark, blueboard)
1) Flashing tools: HP Prodesk 600G1 USDT, Windows 10, ATIwinflash
=> Install and confirm GPU working well on Windows before flashing. Convenient if your don't have a return policy.
2) VBIOS: GOP ROM (natural Backlight Control, but no bootscreen)
Thank Nick [D]vB for the VBIOS
3) Catalina Loader SD card Bootscreen fixed.
Thank to Ausdauersportler for the disk image.
4) Still has a minor issue on High Sierra: Black screen.
This can be fixed with 1 of the below 3 options
- A second monitor attached to Display Port, or equivalent one (a 2$ dummy VGA Dongle may works just like a real monitor) => I'm using this option right now.
- A second PC/Mac connected to iMac on Target Display Mode, turn it on then off. (confirmed working well from Windows PC or Mac Pro 1,1)
- Software solution AGC Kext (have not tried yet)
Installing Catalina still got issues:
- First installed Catalina using Dosdude1 patch (default patch, no change)
- Catalina was installed and running Everything went well, no blackscreen.
BUT: - No control for Brightness; Only internal monitor work, no video signal to external monitor.
- GPU not recognized correctly in "About this Mac" => 14MB VRAM GPU.
- 3rd party web browser apps are sluggish (Brave, Chrome, Edge)
- Tried to fix by the option "After install patch" of the Dosdude1 USB installer, and uncheck "Legacy GPU patch" => failed (Catalina is running but above issues persist).
- Tried to modify the plist file, as guide by Ausdauersportler but on the USB installer instead of the Dosdude1 patch dmg and re-install Catalina => failed (Catalina is running but above issues persist).
- Tried removing Catalina SD card and boot directly to Catalina SSD => blackscreen.
Next step: 3 options to try for Catalina
- Follow exactly Ausdauersportler's instruction and modify the Dosdude1 path dmg before creating the USB installer.
- Uncheck Legacy GPU patch while making the USB installer.
- Copy the EFI folder from the Catalina SD card to the EFI partition on the Catalina SSD. (Opencore Hackintosh after install process)
Other options I will try:
- Create a USB installer without using Dosdude1 patch (use Catalina SD)
- Install Mojave (dosdude1 patch) to see if the issue persists. (Brightness Control, external monitor, Blackscreen)
Afterall, I can confirm that High Sierra is fully working with the new GPU.
However, please be noted that it's limited to the below combination.
(iMac 27" mid-2010, WX4150 4GB, Catalina loader SD, blackscreen fix)
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Bonjour,
Excuse me if the question has already been asked, this time my graphics card is completely dead, so my machine refuses to boot, will it accept to run without a graphics card?
Thank you and have a nice day.
Excuse me if the question has already been asked, this time my graphics card is completely dead, so my machine refuses to boot, will it accept to run without a graphics card?
Thank you and have a nice day.
I was very lucky, the first WX7100 I got in August 2019 was working as you describe in this post. The second one I bought this summer (2020) had 4 or 5 vertical garbage colored lines From the start, Opencore, and on the Windows 10 desktop. I didn’t reached the desktop in MacOS, crash when graphic drivers tried to load and drive the WX7100. No graphic drivers were loaded in Windows 10, error 43. Fortunately I could send it back and was refunded.Folks,
I want to report a successful WX7100 installation. Thanks go primarily to @Nick [D]vB for making it possible with his vbios, to @vit9696 and all the folks from the Acidanthera/OpenCore development team, for a great piece of code they've developed and more importantly are actively working on, to @highvoltage12v for his kext mods, to @Ausdauersportler for great help with testing and idea bouncing, and @Pascal Baillargeau @LegoNickD @Ooze for the advice and experience they shared of their mods.
I could not believe my ears when I heard the fan spinning with the WX7100 in, and moreover, I could not believe my eyes when I saw the external monitor lit up. Some may know that I am after 5x WX7100 card swaps. Yes, you read it well 5 cards and almost a year after I initially started this project. Now when I think of it I should have probably forgotten about the 2011 iMac and should have saved some more to get one of the newer models. Well, that's life and the excitement of the unknown. 🤷♂️
To the point now:
My WX7100 is version D, but honestly, I personally don't believe it is related to the version of the card as much as it is to the working state of the card. All the previous ones were acting very weird from the start, mostly fans spinning for a second, or not spinning at all - i.e. they were not able to pass the POST (same vbios).
This last card was almost "plug and play". I am saying this because I do not consider the successful flash a problem any more, but I recognize for the newbies it will not be as straight forward as it seems. Yep, after all, you acquire some skills in these projects too.
Hardware-wise you need to properly apply MX-4 or equivalent to the chip and k5 on the memory and components on a 3-pipe unmodded heatsink (yes, unmodded). The card fits like a glove, but you need to be generous with the K5.
That's it. Out goes the original card - in goes the new card. This was I guess the easiest swap out of all I've made.
Without OpenCore, you get output on the external monitor and all works well (with High Sierra) To get the built-in monitor to lit up I used OpenCore configured for AMD cards (my own version of it, but the one linked from post 1 should work too)...
Now, the last remaining step would be to get this baby too lit up the built-in monitor without OpenCore and get Big Sur on it. Now that is going to be the dream configuration of the machine.
BTW I am searching for an HDD fan (very noisy even at 1100rpm) and an HDD bracket for this machine to make it complete. If you guys have some spare let me know in the PM.
Attachments
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Yes, it will boot. Enable screen sharing an remote access. The HD3000 will likely not drive the internal screen. Have not tried this for a long time and did not document it. But a 2011 boots fine without the GPU installed.
Link added to my first post of preparation of installation.
I reflashed the blue card with the WX4150_GOP.ROM provided in the Linux flash image by the ch341a programmer in my iMac 2007 and verified it took the new bios.
It was then transferred back to my iMac 2010. The rebooting looping was now gone with only a single boot chime. However, it couldn't boot into my internal HD of High Sierra or Catalina.
There was also no image on the external monitor from the mini-Display port.
I disconnected all the internal drives with only the Linux Flash USB.
The Linux was successfully loaded but still no image on my internal LCD panel nor external monitor.
I was able to ssh to it from my iMac 2007.
I tried to run amdvflash again but the same reading error of the bios occurred - R600 spi, read failed.
I think it is time to give it up ...
Order a K4100m pre-flashed for iMac instead.
But need to buy some dremel tools for heatsink modding ...
Meanwhile as a side project installed USB 3.0 & C in my iMac 2010, sharing the mPCIe slot with Wifi & BT.
Will share in the other forum thread.
If you flash a fully functional AMD card with a working BIOS then you should be able to use the Linux flash utility on the external display - which you of course do not need in this case any longer.
The internal display will only fire up on boot if and only if you use the Catalina Loader (or a similar installation on your boot drive EFI partition).
If you do a PRAM reset the system will search the connected devices for a bootable installation and will pick with first one (connected to SATA 0, I believe). No boot screen, no boot selection possible! An for this reason I strongly recommend to have the Catalina Loader installed on the SD card. Breaking it could be easily fixed using another Mac or with a spare SD card ready to plug in! Breaking the EFI config on an internal disk will end up in opening the iMac.
Having a working card and no Catalina Loader the internal LCD will come up only on complete OS/MacOS boot. Here the graphics drivers of the OS initialise the panel. The Linux flash utility does not enter the graphics mode and therefore will not bring up the panel.
Since you got not even the external display working there may be another issue with this card and we have the next one on our list of completely incompatible ones.
Thanks for sharing!
P.S.:
The ROM size of the R600 is 64K - the provided ROMs cannot fit into this chip.
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As stated in first post, there are multiple ways to flash the vBIOS, which leads me to think that there should be no difference in the outcome if successful. The ch341a programmer can directly flash a bios chip by bypassing any software lock since I can verify the content pre- & post-flashing. It could take up the 512k completely but the original bios that I extracted was only 132K.
Even if I disabled the internal drives with the Catalina Loader in an SD card inserted, and also the Dosdude1 Catalina Installer on another USB, it won't boot into either of them after the chime. Resetting the PRAM won't help but at least the new bios won't cause rebooting loop. Nothing is shown on screen or external.
The link you provided does shed some interesting information on this card.
Hence, I booted the iMac 2010 into Linux and ssh again to it.
I tried to unlock the rom, which seemed successful but still failed to read it.
An extended info showed 64K for the seg 0000. But the rom size is actually 512k by the identity on the chip.
The lspci command seems to show the card installed and registered at 01:00.0
On drilling down into its details, I noticed that somehow all its region memories and I/O ports are disabled !
Pin A is routed to IRQ 0, and it should be of a different value in working cards.
So, POST fails, but the underlying reason is beyond my knowledge to understand and research into.
Hope the information help in understanding the situation.
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Still confused about the fact you got a 512K BIOS into a 64K chip. The BIOS is not completely full of information, but even a compressed version of it is bigger than the chip size we got with amdvbflash. So you can see from this simple example that (sometimes) a software tool (amdvbflash) claiming to have done a successful job is more a bet than a fact.
Did you do a clip read after the clip write and compared the written and the read files? The Unix diff command will do the job, i.e.
diff written read.EDIT:
AMD HP card may be a pain just because HP for security reasons stores the video BIOS within the laptop BIOS. For a long time the cards used by HP have likely been the same as the Dell cards (at least the Kepler Nvidia cards are similar).
With the WX4170 we found the first HP labeled card which does not contain a BIOS chip at all. On the other hand HP spare parts come as AMD labeled cards having a BIOS chip on board and working really good in iMacs.
EDIT2:
This was the blue AMD labeled HP card. It should have a 512K ROM chip capable of holding the GOP BIOS.
truncate -s 524288 small-file.rom will add expand a smaller BIOS file to the full size padding with zero. truncate needs brew...
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Seeking Volunteers!Purpose: If this experiment is successful we may replace all extensions scattering around the thread needed to be installed in such installer packages - which may be more easy for most users here.
This little package I attached will install hopefully without any problems the three kernel extensions needed to use the HW Monitor to show the GPU data in the /System/Library/Extensions folder.
You need SIP disabled (which is after @dosdude patcher installation of Catalina and Mojave the default) and your password. After installation the system will need to reboot.
You can check the success by simply open the /System/Library/Extensions folder and search for extensions names starting with FakeSMC and more importantly by running HW Monitor app. After installation you will see the CPU core frequency and some other additional data, the list of sensors becomes much longer. So use the app before and after installation.
To get rid of this files later you may use the uninstall script. Open the terminal app, entersudo(the trailing space is important) and drop the script onto the terminal window. It will ask for the password and remove all files and rebuild the kernel. I tested this on two 2011 systems (Catalina and Mojave).
So please help and post back any problems you experience, possibly attach a screen shot of error messages!
Notes:
EDIT:
It seems that the successful installation needs to make the root file system writable in advance. Open the Terminal app and entersudo mount -uw /will do this trick. The reason are more sophisticated security measures introduced with macOS 10.8.3.
The uninstall.sh works fine.
Everything works as it should, THNX Very much for this.
My only concern is that, most people from the beginning of this board thread here have GTX 765m & GTX 770m and no firmware for native brightness control has been released yet (even though it has for the GTX 780).
Am willing to test a firmware if there is one for this particular 2 GPUs.
Again thankx to all the people contributing to this thread.
Attachments
Did you make the root files system writable in advance or was the installation working without this?
I have make the root files writable from the beginning.
The installer warn me that this software was incompatible for my imac (27' 2011, i7, gtx765m).
But i have installed it anyway.
The installer warn me that this software was incompatible for my imac (27' 2011, i7, gtx765m).
But i have installed it anyway.
Okay, this warning is "normal" and it is the way it works (or not) currently. Needs more research on this topic...
At least the functionality has been proven.
Thanks!
i will try tomorrow on an external thunderbolt drive just to report the second option without the root directory.
I will also report on mojave how it works.
I will also report on mojave how it works.
Hello everyone!
Yesterday I got a K2100m and installed it on my 21.5'' 2011 iMac.
Flashed it with a linux usb and got Catalina running with OpenCore. Almost everything is working great, I have bootscreen, backlight controls and no blackscreen.
However I'm having very inconsistent performance, sometimes I get around 10-15fps on Valley, and sometimes I get the expected 25-30fps. HWMonitor tells me it doesn't seem to be boosting as it should when I run the benchmark.
I have tried to reset the SMC and PRAM, but I still get mostly poor runs, with a couple good ones. Any ideas on what may be the problem?
Also, another quirk I noticed is that my CPU package average frequency sometimes reports as 2.4THz on HWMonitor lol
Yesterday I got a K2100m and installed it on my 21.5'' 2011 iMac.
Flashed it with a linux usb and got Catalina running with OpenCore. Almost everything is working great, I have bootscreen, backlight controls and no blackscreen.
However I'm having very inconsistent performance, sometimes I get around 10-15fps on Valley, and sometimes I get the expected 25-30fps. HWMonitor tells me it doesn't seem to be boosting as it should when I run the benchmark.
I have tried to reset the SMC and PRAM, but I still get mostly poor runs, with a couple good ones. Any ideas on what may be the problem?
Also, another quirk I noticed is that my CPU package average frequency sometimes reports as 2.4THz on HWMonitor lol
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Possibly you need to patch the AGPM - this is @highvoltage12v 's call. He sent me once this version for exactly this config. Check it out...
And save the original version before you put the patched one in...
Attachments
I had messed up some of the photo attachment in my last post and had corrected them.
2011 iMac Graphics Card Upgrade
As stated in first post, there are multiple ways to flash the vBIOS, which leads me to think that there should be no difference in the outcome if successful. The ch341a programmer can directly flash a bios chip by bypassing any software lock since I can verify the content pre- & post-flashing...
forums.macrumors.com
It is not a 64k EPROM but a 512K chip according to the code label on the chip.
I have a close-up of it in one of the photos.
And as to your query, which I also had initially, I flashed the EPROM directly with a ch341a programmer via a clip several times with different bios versions using flashrom in OSX. I did have the BIOS re-read afterwards to confirm they are the same. Those bios are all of 512K. Amdvbflash had never been able to read or write to the EPROM.
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