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

[Ausdauersportler]

Hi, I'm sorry to bother, but I bought a wx4170 mxm card for my Zbook laptop and the Eeprom chip was blank.
I needed a ROM to be present so my virtual machine could use the GPU, so after days of hunting for the right VBIOS, my search led me here.

The modified ROMs that exist scattered in this thead "work" but there are problems with the device info, the connectors, TDP, is for the 4130, uefi broken, etc... so while they "work" the card is not getting the performance, and/or autodetect plug for outputs, as well as if I switch the bios to GPU only, the screen is black and I have to take the card out to revert to hybrid mode.

I tried getting the VBIOS out of the bios update as well as from the windows registry, but no luck.

I know this is not a Zbook support forum and I apologize for the request, but I hope someone with a similar card has the vanilla unmodified ROM for the WX 4170 card, as this is the only place I've found with some answers.

Thank you

Try this...pulled this from one of my WX4170 cards. Both cards were sold as HP spare parts. HP stores the GPU BIOS within the laptop BIOS. So you may get a working one searching the HP site for upgrades... I never checked this particular BIOS myself. There are tools available to edit AMD Polaris BIOS versions...

 

[BeatCrazy]

I'm not sure where to begin with debugging this. Presume I may have something not quite right in my Opencore configuration, though all I've changed from @Ausdauersportler 0.6.0 bundle is rename "config.NVIDIA.plist" to "config.plist" ("config.NVIDIA-2011-27.plist" for 0.6.2).

Also noticed I don't get a brightness slider in Mojave system prefs (I think it's there in HS). This is less of an issue as I can control with another app, but maybe another symptom of something I've missed.

When you edit your config.plist, make sure you have your picker selected as Built-in. If you get it to boot properly, you can then edit the config.plist to uncheck "Show picker", as long as you used CTRL+ENTER to make your Catalina Loader and also your OC boot picker selection.

I also cannot get 0.6.2 to work. Just gets hung on a verbose output.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

I'm not sure where to begin with debugging this. Presume I may have something not quite right in my Opencore configuration, though all I've changed from @Ausdauersportler 0.6.0 bundle is rename "config.NVIDIA.plist" to "config.plist" ("config.NVIDIA-2011-27.plist" for 0.6.2).

Also noticed I don't get a brightness slider in Mojave system prefs (I think it's there in HS). This is less of an issue as I can control with another app, but maybe another symptom of something I've missed.

Unless you add a signature with your hardware and software nobody will be able to comment on your request. All config files (except the new BigSur versions) are completely independent of the target MacOS version. So you have a brightness control with High Sierra you will have it with Mojave and Catalina, too.
An how do we find out what you possibly missed from this post??

 

[coops312]

Unless you add a signature with your hardware and software nobody will be able to comment on your request. All config files (except the new BigSur versions) are completely independent of the target MacOS version. So you have a brightness control with High Sierra you will have it with Mojave and Catalina, too.
An how do we find out what you possibly missed from this post??

Fair enough, have updated my signature with system details. The steps I had taken were in my post I replied to, they possibly didn't show up. To summarise: iMac 2011 27" GPU swapped to a K2100m and card firmware successfully flashed. I've updated the kext files in Mojave and have sleep/wake working. System works fine when I can get Opencore to boot, however having intermittent issues in getting to this point. From my post yesterday:

I find if I get the boot picker with the flat white icons things generally work. However I often get the Opencore boot picker with the 3D icons (like the system), I can't get either Mojave or High Sierra to load. Mojave hangs at the grey apple screen with no progress bar, and High Sierra hangs with the progress bar at about 60%.

I think this covers off the steps I've taken but let me know if there are any other details I can provide. Cheers.

 

[coops312]

When you edit your config.plist, make sure you have your picker selected as Built-in. If you get it to boot properly, you can then edit the config.plist to uncheck "Show picker", as long as you used CTRL+ENTER to make your Catalina Loader and also your OC boot picker selection.

I also cannot get 0.6.2 to work. Just gets hung on a verbose output.

Thanks, I'll give that a go (it's set to "External" currently). I'll leave the "show picker" checked however as I have both HS and Mojave that I need to switch between for the moment.

 

[Jazzandmac]

Yet another succes story here with a GTX 780m on a mid 2011 27" iMac!

Thanks to all of you who made this possible!!

Cheers

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Fair enough, have updated my signature with system details. The steps I had taken were in my post I replied to, they possibly didn't show up. To summarise: iMac 2011 27" GPU swapped to a K2100m and card firmware successfully flashed. I've updated the kext files in Mojave and have sleep/wake working. System works fine when I can get Opencore to boot, however having intermittent issues in getting to this point. From my post yesterday:


I think this covers off the steps I've taken but let me know if there are any other details I can provide. Cheers.

Just press one time during the EFI selection on the Catalina Loader icon or preselect it once using CRTL + ENTER. Then you automatically boot into the Catalina Loader. Here you have the full view on all bootable device and you can - again - preselect one with CRTL + ENTER and the net boot all goes automatically using some time ours defined somewhere in OpenCore. Did I mention to read the OpenCore guides? This cannot be the OpenCore thread, but there is one available....

A PRAM reset will delete those pre selections...

 

[coops312]

Just press one time during the EFI selection on the Catalina Loader icon or preselect it once using CRTL + ENTER. Then you automatically boot into the Catalina Loader. Here you have the full view on all bootable device and you can - again - preselect one with CRTL + ENTER and the net boot all goes automatically using some time ours defined somewhere in OpenCore. Did I mention to read the OpenCore guides? This cannot be the OpenCore thread, but there is one available....

A PRAM reset will delete those pre selections...

No worries, thanks for the feedback. I'll go through the guides again and double check. Appreciate this is more an Opencore issue than GPU related. Can I trouble you for a link to an appropriate Opencore thread? I thought I had found one but I must have closed the tab at some point.

 

[hugodlc]

Try this...pulled this from one of my WX4170 cards. Both cards were sold as HP spare parts. HP stores the GPU BIOS within the laptop BIOS. So you may get a working one searching the HP site for upgrades... I never checked this particular BIOS myself. There are tools available to edit AMD Polaris BIOS versions...

Thank you for the quick reply, I downloaded and checked the ROM and unfortunately it is for 4130/4150 Cards (device-id 67E8)

I've tried using the Polaris editor in the past, but it breaks the signature and it doesn't/can't edit the uefi part of the ROM, and needless to say the ROM doesn't work. Also can't modify the connector information with those editors.

I'll try to flash it and see if the connector information is correct, I may get lucky and be able to fake the other information.

Thank you anyways, as this was a last straw attempt, I already tried AMD and HP support, and they didn't help.

 

[astuermer]

Trying to install Catalina on my iMac with K1100M.
With 4 mins left it reboots, no chime sound and the screen stays black.
If I shut of and reboot, then select the installation drive for Catalina I get the „prohibited symbol“.
I just found help for Catalina already running and getting black screen, installing some kexts...
Any idea?

 

[Jazzandmac]

as far as I know, this is a known bug in the K4100M firmware.
@nikey22 explained in the past, he is aware of this.

As far as I can remember do a sleep mode, and wake and this should fix the color problem.
To be sure, look up his post from nikey22, it is a few pages back or just use the search function..

Same issue here with a recently installed GTX780m with @nikey22 bios.

 

[cheaptech]

on 27" 2011 models IIRC you won't have full brightness but a fixed, dimmed value.
as it's not on full brightness temps are safe.

Thanks for recalling that. I thought I read that somewhere. If someone picked that they did a great job. It is right at maybe 75%.

This config is running Catalina like a champ. And no OC is good. Now back to the books to figure why I get a black boot screen unless I press Option.

I just got k2000m for $10. I wonder if it’s brightness is fixed. Do you know?

 

[KennyW]

Thanks for recalling that. I thought I read that somewhere. If someone picked that they did a great job. It is right at maybe 75%.

This config is running Catalina like a champ. And no OC is good. Now back to the books to figure why I get a black boot screen unless I press Option.

I just got k2000m for $10. I wonder if it’s brightness is fixed. Do you know?

Everything is in the first post

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

Trying to install Catalina on my iMac with K1100M.
With 4 mins left it reboots, no chime sound and the screen stays black.
If I shut of and reboot, then select the installation drive for Catalina I get the „prohibited symbol“.
I just found help for Catalina already running and getting black screen, installing some kexts...
Any idea?

You got the same issue as I did.
Machine hung while upgrading from High Sierra to Catalina.
It refused to turn-on no matter what.

How I fixed it:
Open the iMac, remove all SATA drive, Catalina Loader SD, GPU.
Turned it on again and did the routine NVRAM reset.
Turned it off, took the SSD to another machine to reformat. (GUID, APFS)
Put back the known working High Sierra HDD, the formatted SSD, GPU (not the SD card)
My machine booted back to High Sierra with the HDD OS.
Cloned the HDD to SSD.
Formatted the SD card and remake the Catalina Loader SD.
Rebooted to High Sierra.

Now I am back to the begining and ready for the next round.
Maybe I'll try to install Catalina to a new SSD, but that's another day's job. Just be consent with High Sierra now.

 

[carl varley]

No, this is not entirely true. I really didn't want everyone to think that. Maybe I misunderstood @nikey22 answer from previous posts and thought there was a solution, but it turned out I was wrong. Sorry.

Using the same theory by putting your machine to sleep but doing it at start up with a script so you don't notice.

You could use this script below. Paste it into a text file and save it without a file extension:

pmset sleepnow

If using High Sierra or below go to terminal and use chmod a+x ( chmod 755 in anything above I think) and drop in your file to the terminal window e.g.:

chmod a+x /Users/Username/Desktop/sleep

Press return and it turns your text file into an executable

Go to system prefs, User & Groups and add the file to login items.

You could even get it to wake after a few seconds or do other other tasks too. I use it to put unmount my HDD so my iMac is not so noisy

 

[Lady Titan]

NVIDIA Quadro P5000 MXM 16 ГБ GDDR5 - I wonder if anyone has tested a similar video card?​

 

[Ausdauersportler]

NVIDIA Quadro P5000 MXM 16 ГБ GDDR5 - I wonder if anyone has tested a similar video card?​

This is no Kepler card, just out of curiosity: Did you ever read the first post?

 

[Lady Titan]

help me choose a suitable amd radeon wx7100 video card that will definitely work, what should I pay attention to? are there any special features? from the first post, it is clear that not all fit...

 

[Lady Titan]

This is no Kepler card, just out of curiosity: Did you ever read the first post?

yes. sorry))

 

[JohannusNL]

I got a nice comparison between my iMac 2011, with a Gforce GTX880M with 8 GB, and my new iMac 2012 with a 2GB Gforce GTX 680MX.

 

[JohannusNL]

i'm about to sell the Gforce GTX880M 8 GB, pm me for more info.

 

[Jazzandmac]

Seeking for Beta Test Users (Package Installer)
(Catalina iMac 2011 sleep/AGC/iGPU/backlightfixup installer)

​

Spoiler

Attached you will find the a kernel extension package installer currently working on Catalina 10.15.4 and later. It will install all the packages listed in this post @highvoltage12v made years ago.

It also contains the latest version of the patched AppleGraphicsControl (AGC) from this post addressing the black screen issue and the AppleBacklightFixup needed for ++ type Nvidia cards.

After starting the Apple package installer (double click) you can choose the destination and select the packages to be installed according to your system and card type. For this reason I separated the complete sets in several subsets. You can use the installer to install AGC, BacklightFixup, FakeSMC, and WhateverGreen/Lilu on 2009 and 2010 systems, too.

1. 2011 HD3000 sleep extensions (Mojave & Catalina)
2. 2011 sleep extensions (Catalina, only)
3. Nvidia AppleGraphicsControl AGC (all iMacs, Nvidia card users, only)
4. Nvidia BacklightFixup (all iMacs, Nvidia card users, only)
5. AMD HD3000 sleep (AppleIntelSNBGraphicsFB.kext, 2011 iMac AMD Polaris card users only)
6. Nvidia AppleGVA.framework (2011 only)
7. FakeSMC Package (all iMacs, all graphics cards)
8. vit9696 WhateverGreen and Lilu (all iMacs, all graphics cards)

Attached you will find some selections screen shots. You can use the installer to select a single package only. You can use the installer with 2009 and 2010 iMacs, too. I marked all 2011 specific packages.

Note: This installer currently will only install files on Catalina 10.15.4 and later!

Recipe:

If you are not willing to experiment on your current Catalina installation please create a new APFS Container, installer Catalina 10.15.7 into it (it will use barely 15GB on your disk), boot into this newly created MacOS, and use the installer package to do the final adjustments.

​

Have fun!

Thank you for this. I've recently used this and got sleep working in Catalina, but failed to get igpu and h.264 acceleration functioning with newly installed GTX 780M. I reverted back to the original post by @highvoltage12v, following the steps and got video-acceleration working this way. (and also got the newly released lilu/whatevergreen kexts installed in the process)

But i am unsure if i just misunderstood the function of the package installer. I disabled SIP beforehand, but i have a few extra questions for clarification.

1. Do you need to use Hackintool to unlock S/L/E folder and system disk for the package to function properly?
2. Do you still need to use the sudo commands after install to get the AppleGVA.framework to actually activate the gpu acceleration?

Thanks

 

[astuermer]

You got the same issue as I did.
Machine hung while upgrading from High Sierra to Catalina.
It refused to turn-on no matter what.

Thanks! Installation of Catalina somehow worked after a few tries.

Currently my problem is system stability.
I installed the mentioned kexts from the two posts mentioned in the first post.
But sometimes when opening a .dmg or when launching a program or just recently when syncing Apple Music.... the screen turns black and iMac turns off and I can hear the chime sound 2 times. Like I did a PRAM reset, but I didnt. Then it reboots.

Then for a short time I can see a small black console area over the Apple logo, then it boots again.
From what I've filmed (because it's quite fast) it shows a kernel panic.

1. I am on Catalina 10.15.7
2. 16 GB RAM (4x 4GB and already tried only with one)
3. I already installed the Kexts attached with KextUtility as well as current versions of LiLu and WhateverGreen (screenshot)
4. MacsFanControl keeps the GPU Heatsink below 55 degrees, usually around 44
5. Already did a PRAM reset
6. After the 8th kernel panic now the system refuses to start (gray crossed out circle)
7. It also seems the permanent panics have killed my SSD. It freezes even my working High Sierra partition and shows many inode_val errors 🙁

Did I missed something?

IOSurface and AppleMCCSControl quits "successfully" with this message:

Updating the system cache files .....................KernelCache ID: 2C332994420727364B257CFF463F42F0
........................................ False
-- Timeout 120 sec.
-- Unknown error --
Syncing disk cache ... Done.

 

[astuermer]

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.

Thanks! Since I never heard of "pads that are like paste" I will give it a try.
My question was more like for other users if they have tested different (real) pad thicknesses.
Also the Kryonaut seems to have better thermal capabilities as my Arctic MX4.

 

[FlorisVN]

Same issue here with a recently installed GTX780m with @nikey22 bios.

For your 780M, you can switch to Nick [D]vB's vbios rom for example, this does not have this bug as far as I know.
You will lose the backlight controll options from Nikey22's rom as far as I know..