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

[liquidtwitch]

WTF do I have to do to get it to install? What video card can I get?

Alienware/Dell 765/780 cards generally work - but no brightness control or boot. Which means doing anything like installing another OS or upgrading is a massive pain. The guy who does http://www.macvidcards.com/ is working on a rom for the 780m that'll offer brightness control and boot (he's already got boot working), but this is a for profit exercise and the chances are you'll need to ship the cards to Los Angeles for it to be flashed.

Otherwise if you have an already working AMD card you may be able to patch kexts to get it working - but no metal support.

 

[highvoltage12v]

So I finally had time to install Mojave (18A391) on my 2011 27" iMac with the 780m. I'm happy to say that waking from sleep is now fully functional. It wasn't functional on the 18a389 but is now which is strange I thought they were identical.
[doublepost=1538022118][/doublepost]

That is me trying to get brightness to work but no success yet...

It sounds like over on Netkas forums Rominator is asking for your help "The guy who got screen showing iMac display as internal and brightness control showing up could be a help." http://forum.netkas.org/index.php?PHPSESSID=mkdv0vpq6ranemedq27rg0lmse3o5imc&topic=13815.30. But if I recall your work over on Insanely Mac it was editing PNLF info in the DSDT. I'm not sure how that would translate to working on a rom and DCB tables though.

 

[liquidtwitch]

I might flick back to the old firmware and see if I get internal display too.

 

[FlorisVN]

Quick reply:
I just installed the GTX 765m. It is really Plug and play, but without bootscreen. See the Screenshots.

I am so happy that you guys managed to fiddle out wich graphiccard is working fine. Thank you all.
That was a 100,- EUR repair and a little performance boost.

Now i will test everything in Windows 10 with Furmark and see, if the Temperature is okay.
What should be max temperature?

You dont know for sure if your GPU is running fine.
in MacOS you cannot measure the GPU die temperature anymore, its not listed/visible in software..
Only the GPU heatsink. (this is logical since it has its own hardware sensor)

Try checking these temps. out in Bootcamp Windows, I think windows can show the real temps...

Somebody else here can confirm this ?
Is it possible to read full GPU temps, within Bootcamp, with GPU-Z for example.. ?


Since you have upgraded you GPU, you can now also run MacOS Mojave, with Dosdude1 patcher, since you have an metal supported GPU !

 

[FlorisVN]

My Dell Nvidia GTX765M has just arrived.

What have you guys done with the Dell original x-clamp on this card.. ?
Have you used a jigsaw to cut away some metal, or remove it and use original Apple HD6970M x-clamp ?
I have seen different things with the GTX780m here and on other places..

The Dell X-clamp looks like it has been sticked with some strong tape.. ?

I suppose the Apple x-clamp can also be used.. ?

I hope somebody can give me some info on this one, of what you have done with it... ?
I'm curious....

Thanks in advance !

 

[highvoltage12v]

My Dell Nvidia GTX765M has just arrived.

What have you guys done with the Dell original x-clamp on this card.. ?
Have you used a jigsaw to cut away some metal, or remove it and use original Apple HD6970M x-clamp ?
I have seen different things with the GTX780m here and on other places..

The Dell X-clamp looks like it has been sticked with some strong tape.. ?

I suppose the Apple x-clamp can also be used.. ?

I hope somebody can give me some info on this one, of what you have done with it... ?
I'm curious....

Thanks in advance !

Look at my post again pages back. I ended up using the Apple X-clamp, I took a Dremel to it to make the sides of the X and the square region skinnier so it doesn't touch any capacitors. I then wrapped it in a small amount of electrical tape.

 

[FlorisVN]

Look at my post again pages back. I ended up using the Apple X-clamp, I took a Dremel to it to make the sides of the X and the square region skinnier so it doesn't touch any capacitors. I then wrapped it in a small amount of electrical tape.

Hi, thanks for your message !

I think I have found them also , i have downloaded your pictures !

It looks like you did not have the option to remove the dell tape, that is beneith the Apple x-clamp now ?
that sticky tape stuff i mean.. ?

I will will check the PCB of the Nvidia GTX765M, but its a little different maybay i dont need a dremmel to modify the apple x-clamp..

I will post some pictures soon...

 

[highvoltage12v]

Hi, thanks for your message !

I think I have found them also , i have downloaded your pictures !

It looks like you did not have the option to remove the dell tape, that is beneith the Apple x-clamp now ?
that sticky tape stuff i mean.. ?

I will will check the PCB of the Nvidia GTX765M, but its a little different maybay i dont need a dremmel to modify the apple x-clamp..

I will post some pictures soon...

When I had my 765m I had to Dremel for 1 cap that was touching. And I left the original dell adhesive, it doesn't cause any harm

 

[liquidtwitch]

Somebody else here can confirm this ?
Is it possible to read full GPU temps, within Bootcamp, with GPU-Z for example.. ?

This is what GPU-Z reports for my 780m, but I'm not sure if that temp is coming from the die or the heat sync sensor.

.

Edit: here's the temps after playing Fallout New Vegas all day:

 

[some_apple]

I have been following this thread off and on, and now that I have access to recycled 2011 iMacs in mass I decided to select one for an upgrade!

I really understand and really do apologize to the iMac users that owned these systems when new, and had to deal with the issues the AMD GPUs posed. I did not own or need one as I was simply a student; I could only watch as these die-to-substrate failures occurred left and right on the notebook GPUs AMD offered. In my position I can simply just apologize and move forward.


Recently I have obtained a nice 2011 iMac that has a failed GPU and HDD it seems, and my (uni)body is ready.

It boots to a flashing folder icon, so either the HDD was removed or the HDD is failed in some way.
When trying to boot into an external OS image (10.12) the system simply reboots when loading bar nearly fills.
I am going to pull the HDD tomorrow and see if I can get get into an OS to figure out if its really a GPU!

I intend to move forward with the upgrade even if the old GPU works. Will post update soon.

Thanks.

 

[FlorisVN]

This is what GPU-Z reports for my 780m, but I'm not sure if that temp is coming from the die or the heat sync sensor.

. View attachment 789833

Thanks for testing !

Thats looks good, your GPU Die is 28 C (celcius) , which is way better than those Apple AMD cards.

Unfortunately gpu-z cannot read the memory temps for this card..
would have been nice, since some of the vram chips are located on the backside, lets hope they don't get too hot...

To be sure what the heatsink temps. are, just run Macsfancontrol within Bootcamp.
https://www.crystalidea.com/nl/macs-fan-control/download
then you can see the full list of sensors..

 

[sirphunk]

You dont know for sure if your GPU is running fine.
in MacOS you cannot measure the GPU die temperature anymore, its not listed/visible in software..
Only the GPU heatsink. (this is logical since it has its own hardware sensor)

Try checking these temps. out in Bootcamp Windows, I think windows can show the real temps...

Somebody else here can confirm this ?
Is it possible to read full GPU temps, within Bootcamp, with GPU-Z for example.. ?


Since you have upgraded you GPU, you can now also run MacOS Mojave, with Dosdude1 patcher, since you have an metal supported GPU !

Heatsink temperature is @42°C in Idle now. You are right - I can't confirm for sure that everything is working fine.

Windows 10 Bootcamp is not booting. Just a black Screen. Since i can't see what is happening, i don't know why it is not booting.
I tried to install the NVIDIA Drivers via VMWare Fusion, but i need to disable MacOS System Integrity Protection to get the Bootcamp Partition working in VMware. To turn SIP off i need to get to the Recovery OS. The Recovery OS is just a black Screen....

Any advice to this problem?

 

[FlorisVN]

Heatsink temperature is @42°C in Idle now. You are right - I can't confirm for sure that everything is working fine.

Windows 10 Bootcamp is not booting. Just a black Screen. Since i can't see what is happening, i don't know why it is not booting.
I tried to install the NVIDIA Drivers via VMWare Fusion, but i need to disable MacOS System Integrity Protection to get the Bootcamp Partition working in VMware. To turn SIP off i need to get to the Recovery OS. The Recovery OS is just a black Screen....

Any advice to this problem?

Hi,

Well i dont think you need to install bootcamp drivers.
Run windows and then gpu-z and macsfancontrol is enough
Hook up an external display to check if you get a screen externelly with bootcamp.

Running virtual machine with nvidia drivers makes no sense, since its virutual machine it will never passtrough the real vm.
And will not display the gpu temps..
This I'm pretty sure about..

 

[sirphunk]

Hi,

Well i dont think you need to install bootcamp drivers.
Run windows and then gpu-z and macsfancontrol is enough
Hook up an external display to check if you get a screen externelly with bootcamp.

Running virtual machine with nvidia drivers makes no sense, since its virutual machine it will never passtrough the real vm.
And will not display the gpu temps..
This I'm pretty sure about..

No screen with bootcamp. External and internal Display is not working. Any other ideas to get Windows working?

 

[Mr-Mur]

No screen with bootcamp. External and internal Display is not working. Any other ideas to get Windows working?

Just wait for a proper ROM
I made this decision for myself

 

[some_apple]

I reflowed the failed AMD GPU on this iMac as a stop gap until I score a nice 780m or maybe something newer! I am looking into maybe a 980m!

Thumbs up for my 128GB SSD in a box! (its a samsung SATA m.2 on an adapter)

 

[Kal-037]

So can I swap out my Mid-2011 AMD gpu for something that supports metal... making it so I can do a regular install of Mojave, or is that improbable?

 

[FlorisVN]

So can I swap out my Mid-2011 AMD gpu for something that supports metal... making it so I can do a regular install of Mojave, or is that improbable?

You still

So can I swap out my Mid-2011 AMD gpu for something that supports metal... making it so I can do a regular install of Mojave, or is that improbable?

you still need to use dosdude1 patcher tool, since your mac is not supported by Apple. (iMac is not a MacPro)
With an Metal GPU, you wont have UI glitches anymore, since the AMD HD5xxx and 6xxx are not supported at all in Mojave.

So upgrade your GPU, and then run Mojave installer with dosdude1 patcher software..
http://dosdude1.com/mojave/

 

[wiruzdk]

i just installed mojave on an imac 2009 with my amd card, it was running very bad since no hardware acceleration so i swapped the gpu with a quadro k3000m and it is stil the same problem the system is running very slow.

 

[FlorisVN]

i just installed mojave on an imac 2009 with my amd card, it was running very bad since no hardware acceleration so i swapped the gpu with a quadro k3000m and it is stil the same problem the system is running very slow.

As far as i remember quadro k3000m does not support metal.
And for your original 2009 amd card (hd 4xxx series) , use legacy video card patcher from dosdude1 patcher tool.

 

[wiruzdk]

As far as i remember quadro k3000m does not support metal.
And for your original 2009 amd card (hd 4xxx series) , use legacy video card patcher from dosdude1 patcher tool.

i do use the patcher but the system is running slow with the amd card and also with the k3000m i also have a gtx765m does that support metal ?

i just installed invidia web driver wich did not help at all stil the same issue.

it should support metal since it´s a kepler architecture.
[doublepost=1538231459][/doublepost]but im not sure if i should have installed the new gpu before the install if that would have given a different result.

 

[FlorisVN]

i do use the patcher but the system is running slow with the amd card and also with the k3000m i also have a gtx765m does that support metal ?

i just installed invidia web driver wich did not help at all stil the same issue.

it should support metal since it´s a kepler architecture.
[doublepost=1538231459][/doublepost]but im not sure if i should have installed the new gpu before the install if that would have given a different result.

Try it with gtx765M, which is for sure metal supported.
I think quadro is a different story with metal..

HD4xxx series is also supported with legacy video card patcher from dosdude1 patcher tool
you still may have ui glitches then, but not so much in darkmode.
Did you disable sip when try legacy video card patch ?

 

[wiruzdk]

Try it with gtx765M, which is for sure metal supported.
I think quadro is a different story with metal..

HD4xxx series is also supported with legacy video card patcher from dosdude1 patcher tool
you still may have ui glitches then, but not so much in darkmode.
Did you disable sip when try legacy video card patch ?

i just swapped the card with a gtx765m and stil the same issue the OS feels laggy and the cpu load is around 20% so it seems and feels like a laggy GPU driver. if i drag a browser windows up and down its laggy and not running smooth.

 

[codesoho]

i just swapped the card with a gtx765m and stil the same issue the OS feels laggy and the cpu load is around 20% so it seems and feels like a laggy GPU driver. if i drag a browser windows up and down its laggy and not running smooth.

ATM there are no NVIDIA Web drivers available for Mojave. What worked for me was doing a clean Mojave install without applying the legacy video card patch.

Don't swap the GTX765. To play around the boot screen issues use Startup Disk to initiate the setup from USB. While installing Mojave open Startup Disk once more (from the apple menu) and be prepared to select and boot to USB the exact moment the setup is complete. You will have 10 seconds to do that at the end or otherwise the iMac will try to boot to the freshly installed Mojave volume and you will be facing a black screen. If you do succeed to boot from the USB post install, the only thing left is to apply all the required patches for your model of iMac except for the legacy video card. Enjoy Metal support

BTW if anyone knows how to remove the dosdudes video card patch pls let us know.

 

[wiruzdk]

ATM there are no NVIDIA Web drivers available for Mojave. What worked for me was doing a clean Mojave install without applying the legacy video card patch.

Don't swap the GTX765. To play around the boot screen issues use Startup Disk to initiate the setup from USB. While installing Mojave open Startup Disk once more (from the apple menu) and be prepared to select and boot to USB the exact moment the setup is complete. You will have 10 seconds to do that at the end or otherwise the iMac will try to boot to the freshly installed Mojave volume and you will be facing a black screen. If you do succeed to boot from the USB post install, the only thing left is to apply all the required patches for your model of iMac except for the legacy video card. Enjoy Metal support

BTW if anyone knows how to remove the dosdudes video card patch pls let us know.

Ok but i Will have to make a clean install with the amd card since i have no picture with the 765m before the os is installed