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iM 4,1-14,4 2011 iMac Graphics Card Upgrade
- Thread starter MichaelDT
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Please read post #1 and the Big Sur section there or search for my other recent announcements about Big Sur on these iMacs...
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@nikey22, Indeed good news and thank you for all your efforts. Especially since that card (at the moment) can be found at a reasonable price. I see under requirement listed: "iMac (27-inch, Mid 2011)"; can I infer the iMac 27-inch Late 2009 or Mid 2010 do not work with this, or is that just yet to be determined? If by chance other 27" machines may work, then would the <data> section likely be a different for them?
Not tested in any other machine and the data will be the same, the display different.
A fair warning:
I own two brand new Dell labeled K3000M cards not posting in any iMac 2011. We will likely experience issues exactly as with the AMD cards. Have not tested this new BIOS, but the first one published in May or June within an iMac 2009. Have fun on eBay
@Ausdauersportler: Thanks, much appreciated. I ordered a couple of them as replacement spares, or to try if I have cause to tear down a 27" machine. Hoping my boot luck with them is better than yours.Not tested in any other machine and the data will be the same, the display different.
A fair warning:
I own two brand new Dell labeled K3000M cards not posting in any iMac 2011. We will likely experience issues exactly as with the AMD cards. Have not tested this new BIOS, but the first one published in May or June within an iMac 2009. Have fun on eBay
BTW, Also want to thank you for all the Big Sur iMac install work. I updated one machine last night and it could not have gone more smoothly. My OC image is still v0.6.0, and noticed you've updated profiles since, so planning to update that next, then do some more Big Sur installing.
Veri nice work but what About GTX765? Will U also updated flash to support native brightness control?
Me, too! I used a USB installer and I have no problems. Possibly because I patched the system correctly and I read the first post before installing Big Sur. Give it a try, read the first post, please!
I have a 2011 27 imac that has been upgraded to 860M and is currently running Catalina with boot screen. I noticed that I don't have the latest firmware 87.0.0.0.0 and the upgrade path seems to be reinstall High Sierra to get the latest firmware. When I try to reinstall HS from a USB drive i made with createinstallmedia it starts to boot, shows the progress bar until about 2/3 then shows the circle with line through it. Is this related to the Nvidia card change and I need to patch the installer?
Thanks
Thanks
This is odd. Possibly try a PRAM reset before booting into the installer. I have not seen this before.
You might have a bad copy or bad USB stick.
I did not manage to get iMac 21 2010 to work on Mini DisplayPort as a second monitor for iMac 27 2011 gtx880m I did not find an answer for this I write here, will iMac 21 work if I install one of the cards offered from the first page on it? or let it go? I bought it for the second monitor and it does not work(( do I have any chances, if you say that they are not, then I will sell it and be done with it...
Got the 3rd AMD card, the WX4130, since I still prefer their higher metal score with no need for heatsink mod.
A Dell version 00_02 v343 VER 1.1
I removed the LCD panel, disconnected all internal SSDs, connected the Linux Flash USB drive to one of the USB port, and the miniDisplayPort to an external monitor (not expecting anything anyway without flashing).
To my surprise, the external monitor lighted up with the Linux OS.
Thus I abandoned the flashing via SSH and explored further by removing the Linux drive and reconnecting my SSD with a High Sierra and a Catalina partition, the later of which was installed by DosDude Catalina patcher but with Legacy Video patch disabled.
It booted into High Sierra without problem in full function with external display.
Via Startup Disk in System Preference, I switched to the Catalina partition and achieved the same result.
There is full metal support for external display.
I put back the LCD panel and rebooted but the internal display wouldn't light up despite the external display worked flawlessly.
Thus I had to flash the GOP BIOS listed in the 1st post by the Linux Flash USB drive by disconnecting all internal drives again.
This is the final result after the flashing. Both internal and external display work.
With OpenCore 0.6.3 in a SD card, hardware acceleration works by setting it to Startup Disk.
There is native brightness control and Sleep.
Some benchmark:
The 3 pipe heatsink really needs a copper plate for the GPU. The temperature difference between the GPU and heatsink dropped significantly after I made that modification:
At the same time, I also relocated and preserved the Wifi/BT function with PCIe splitters from the mPCIe slot to install an additional USB 3.0 PCIe card in place of the DVD drive. But that is another story to be told in the corresponding thread of USB 3 for iMac mid 2010.
Cheerio.
A Dell version 00_02 v343 VER 1.1
I removed the LCD panel, disconnected all internal SSDs, connected the Linux Flash USB drive to one of the USB port, and the miniDisplayPort to an external monitor (not expecting anything anyway without flashing).
To my surprise, the external monitor lighted up with the Linux OS.
Thus I abandoned the flashing via SSH and explored further by removing the Linux drive and reconnecting my SSD with a High Sierra and a Catalina partition, the later of which was installed by DosDude Catalina patcher but with Legacy Video patch disabled.
It booted into High Sierra without problem in full function with external display.
Via Startup Disk in System Preference, I switched to the Catalina partition and achieved the same result.
There is full metal support for external display.
I put back the LCD panel and rebooted but the internal display wouldn't light up despite the external display worked flawlessly.
Thus I had to flash the GOP BIOS listed in the 1st post by the Linux Flash USB drive by disconnecting all internal drives again.
This is the final result after the flashing. Both internal and external display work.
With OpenCore 0.6.3 in a SD card, hardware acceleration works by setting it to Startup Disk.
There is native brightness control and Sleep.
Some benchmark:
The 3 pipe heatsink really needs a copper plate for the GPU. The temperature difference between the GPU and heatsink dropped significantly after I made that modification:
At the same time, I also relocated and preserved the Wifi/BT function with PCIe splitters from the mPCIe slot to install an additional USB 3.0 PCIe card in place of the DVD drive. But that is another story to be told in the corresponding thread of USB 3 for iMac mid 2010.
Cheerio.
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Thanks. i tried on a new stick an no change. Does anyone have a link to redownload the installer for High Sierra? I got this by using DosDude1's patcher to download it.
Hi all,
First of all I want to thank everbody involved in making this possible!
it's so great that some people still taking care for our beloved iMac's!
I tried to search this tread and form's but can't find the fix.
I have an 2011 27 inch i7 iMac.
Off course my graphic card died.
So I got my hands on an gtx780m.
Flashed it with the Nick[D]vB firmware succesfully.
installed macOS Catalina with the patcher. (10.15.6)
As I read the gtx780m should have native brightness..!?
Tried everything but now brightness showing on my machine.
Nor reaction on the brightness keys on keyboard.
Tried it also on High Sierra same problems with brightness.
tried the kext witch should fix the range.. no change.
(okay maybe I had to have brightness first before it can fix the range ;-)
Is there any one who had the same or can point me in the right direction?
Thanks al lot! Rosiaantje
First of all I want to thank everbody involved in making this possible!
it's so great that some people still taking care for our beloved iMac's!
I tried to search this tread and form's but can't find the fix.
I have an 2011 27 inch i7 iMac.
Off course my graphic card died.
So I got my hands on an gtx780m.
Flashed it with the Nick[D]vB firmware succesfully.
installed macOS Catalina with the patcher. (10.15.6)
As I read the gtx780m should have native brightness..!?
Tried everything but now brightness showing on my machine.
Nor reaction on the brightness keys on keyboard.
Tried it also on High Sierra same problems with brightness.
tried the kext witch should fix the range.. no change.
(okay maybe I had to have brightness first before it can fix the range ;-)
Is there any one who had the same or can point me in the right direction?
Thanks al lot! Rosiaantje
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Just try the internet recovery! Or use this tool to check out all possible MacOS versions...
https://github.com/corpnewt/gibMacOS
Wrong BIOS, check first post and table there. You need the version @nikey22 posted.
@Ausdauersportler thank you for your new 0.6.3 files for Big Sur. I was able to create a Catalina Loader that now boots into Big Sur and gives Brightness controls
Two questions/concerns:
1) After I Option/Boot into Catalina Loader, I choose my Big Sur volume from the OC picker. There is about 25 seconds of verbose output displayed. I have not seen this before. In my .plist/OCC I do see under UEFI that "Hide Verbose" is checked. Not sure if that is related to what I'm seeing?
2) More serious - after every reboot, after login screen I do get a pop-up error "You shut down your computer because of a problem". Notice it is not the "Your computer was restarted because of a problem" error.
Any ideas?
EDIT: I think I cleared issue #2 above with a SMC reset aka unplug for 10 minutes
Still would appreciate any thoughts you have on the verbose output, thanks.
EDIT #2 for verbose issue#1 above: with some trial and error, I removed "-v" from boot-args within NVRAM. Looks good now!
Two questions/concerns:
1) After I Option/Boot into Catalina Loader, I choose my Big Sur volume from the OC picker. There is about 25 seconds of verbose output displayed. I have not seen this before. In my .plist/OCC I do see under UEFI that "Hide Verbose" is checked. Not sure if that is related to what I'm seeing?
2) More serious - after every reboot, after login screen I do get a pop-up error "You shut down your computer because of a problem". Notice it is not the "Your computer was restarted because of a problem" error.
Any ideas?
EDIT: I think I cleared issue #2 above with a SMC reset aka unplug for 10 minutes
Still would appreciate any thoughts you have on the verbose output, thanks.
EDIT #2 for verbose issue#1 above: with some trial and error, I removed "-v" from boot-args within NVRAM. Looks good now!
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A clean install of High Sierra may not work if you have already upgraded the GPU and using the Catalina loader SD.
I tried a clean install of High Sierra using the USB installer (createinstallmedia command) but it stopped at the step of initiating the new OS. Boot screen work well, files were copied to the new SSD, it stopped at the second booting from the new SSD.
This does not worry me, as I already have a back-up HDD with High Sierra OS store away. If something screw-up, I just take it out and clone to another drive to run.
Having a small HDD as back-up plan is very handy. You always have an known--to-be-working OS disk to check hardware faults.
Fresh install resolve all problem. Thanks for help.
Hi
I do not understand this post. After GPU swap I can install High Sierra all the time on any modded iMacs using my prepared USB installer.
But in most case I am going straight ahead to Catalina and now Big Sur all the time...
What is difficult to achieve or watch is the iMac firmware upgrade without the Apple GPU since the very special EFI code showing this on screen does not exist on the new VBIOS of the Kepler or Polaris cards. But it works in general with a mainly black screen causing a load beep tone at the end. Just give it some time and most importantly install all High Sierra upgrades, the firmware upgrade is included in these updates, not in the base installer.
The GPU die temperature sensor problem!
You all know that none of the modified BIOS versions for the Metal GPUs listed in the table on page #1 is able to provide the internal GPU temperature back correctly to be shown in some monitoring programms.
Nevertheless the iMacs internal Apple SMC software to control the (ODD) fan according to the GPU heat sink temperature still works automatically. It kicks in at approximately 80C.
To address this issue we recommended strongly to use a free software called Macs Fan Control. You can enable it to ramp up the ODD fan at temps around 55C.
A different solution has been described several times now and last week and was in the mood to reopen my iMacs again and did this simple mod. The ODD fan is controlled both the the internal GPU temp sensor and the ODD temp sensor. Since we cannot heat up the ODD when the GPU is under stress, we just need to put the ODD sensor on a hot place: The GPU Heat sink!
So I (carefully) separated the ODD temp sensor using my finger nails and placed it on the back side off the GPU sink (side by side with the sink temperature sensor). Then I used a simple and cheap two component epoxy alike glue and fixed the little sensor. Check the temperature resistance of the glue, it should be still good at over 100C.
Just cut off the two cables in the near the sensor and exchange the cable ends with the plugs connecting the same colors simply together (grey to grey and black to black). So you can easily connect the original heat sink sensor to the ODD connector in the logic board and vice versa.
Doing this you have a working fan control again even when doing system upgrades or during the boot phase. As you may have noticed the Macs Fan Control used before is a user land application and it is only working after primary login to your account.
I attached some pictures showing the Macs Fan Control in automatic (i.e. SMC) mode under full Valley load (WX4170) and the hardware mod.
Connect all sensors to the system board as you found them before replacing the sensor. The goal is measuring the GPU sink using the ODD sensor, too.
Notes:
- Please use Macs Fan Control (or a similar software) in any case as a fall back if the replaced internal sensor fails of the glue does not hold it properly. It is a nice tool to monitor what is going on internally. HW Monitor using the FakeSMC extensions gives you graphs.
- The SMC comes in at nearly 55 C of the ODD sensor. This is late compared to my former settings starting at 40 C. There are some websites writing about normal GPU temps, so everything below 70 is perfect, everything below 80 tolerable. But keep in your mind that endless gaming is burning
- Using an original ATI 6970 card I noticed the SMC using the original heat sensor ramps up the ODD fan at 80C - this is late and explains why some or many (or eventually all) cards may have died.
- Having a powerful GPU (780M, K4100M, WX7100, W6170M etc) will burn 70-75W and cause this amount of heat.
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Can you please somehow prove that the problem you are seeing is really related to the lack of NVENC or NVENCODE. My problem is that there was obviously never support within MacOS to use this features with Kepler cards. Even the NVIDIA SDK did not support this on MacOS.
Possibly you need some upgrades to get your software working, again.
So I doubt your analysis ....
Edit: After a while we found out it is the missing HD3000 support on Big Sur and later.
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Someone has tried a CPU benchmark with Mojave, Catalina, Big Sur OS?
I've this result on my iMac 27" 2011 i7-2600 3.4Ghz on Catalina (and also Big Sur).
From Geekbench results seems very poor compared to original iMac 2011 i7 benchmark.
So I'm try to understand if my CPU is a bit tired 😄 or can be a normal result on non "typical" OS.
Thanks for report
I've this result on my iMac 27" 2011 i7-2600 3.4Ghz on Catalina (and also Big Sur).
From Geekbench results seems very poor compared to original iMac 2011 i7 benchmark.
So I'm try to understand if my CPU is a bit tired 😄 or can be a normal result on non "typical" OS.
Thanks for report