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

[Khadam]

I though you use a non K610M/K1100M/K2100M NVIDIA card. Having a signature helps... You may should use the NVIDIA_BigSur config file. It will fit with the installation made by the micro patcher.

Honestly: Post #1 told you to use OpenCore from the beginning!

Sorry for misunderstanding. Previously I didn't have signature because I didn't know about it so I set it up as soon as you told me to .

I used NVIDIA_BigSur config - it's the same as it was with the custom config you attached for me in your previous post. I need to have my USB with Catalina Loader plugged in, when I do and I set CL as a bootdrive I boot menu with my main drive. Nothing changes.

EDIT:

Ok, so after another reboot and uplugging Catalina Loader, refreshing NVRAM, using EFI Boot from my modified BigSur and rebooting again with no USB plugged in it works! BigSur takes a little bit long to start (it takes 10s for screen to light up white and another 5s to show me a wall of text and another 5s to show me Apple logo) and I don't have brightness control anymore.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Sorry for misunderstanding. Previously I didn't have signature because I didn't know about it so I set it up as soon as you told me to .

I used NVIDIA_BigSur config - it's the same as it was with the custom config you attached for me in your previous post. I need to have my USB with Catalina Loader plugged in, when I do and I set CL as a bootdrive I boot menu with my main drive. Nothing changes.

EDIT:

Ok, so after another reboot and uplugging Catalina Loader, refreshing NVRAM, using EFI Boot from my modified BigSur and rebooting again with no USB plugged in it works! BigSur takes a little bit long to start (it takes 10s for screen to light up white and another 5s to show me a wall of text and another 5s to show me Apple logo) and I don't have brightness control anymore.

Yes, you will not get brightness control on a K2100M without OC.

But you can copy the EFI folder from the USB/SD to your EFI partition of the internal SSD. Then you will start OC automatically after every reboot and even after a PRAM reset. No more black screen.

To do this read the OC guides on GitHub...

BTW:
This is the solution for all owners of 2009 systems facing a black screen with NVIDIA cards. I do not recommend this for users of AMD cards - no EFI Boot screen in case OC config sucks.

 

[Khadam]

Yes, you will not get brightness control on a K2100M without OC.

But you can copy the EFI folder from the USB/SD to your EFI partition of the internal SSD. Then you will start OC automatically after every reboot and even after a PRAM reset. No more black screen.

To do this read the OC guides on GitHub...

BTW:
This is the solution for all owners of 2009 systems facing a black screen with NVIDIA cards. I do not recommend this for users of AMD cards - no EFI Boot screen in case OC config sucks.

Oh, ok I get it now. I wasn't sure if OC is something that is installed or not. Now I know how it works. The lack of brightness control doesn't bother me, but I used it to check if OC is currently running or not.

But I wonder, why using OC once fixed the issue. Does it mean that enabling OC just once, installed necessary kexts/scripts/other stuff needed for removing black screen issue while you patcher could not?

Or your patcher didn't provide these files at all and you didn't know it because I didn't have signature which informed you that I have K2100M in my system?

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Oh, ok I get it now. I wasn't sure if OC is something that is installed or not. Now I know how it works. The lack of brightness control doesn't bother me, but I used it to check if OC is currently running or not.

But I wonder, why using OC once fixed the issue. Does it mean that enabling OC just once, installed necessary kexts/scripts/other stuff needed for removing black screen issue while you patcher could not?

Or your patcher didn't provide these files at all and you didn't know it because I didn't have signature which informed you that I have K2100M in my system?

Thus is too much, now. We had just 10 posts to get you into the Big Sur and now I am starting to explain the things you can read yourself in the OC docs I mentioned more than one time.

Start to swim alone. The water is not that deep.

 

[Carriba]

Hello everybody (sorry for my english). Can anyone help me with advice? I have iMac 2011 27 i7 6970m2g SSD OS (for work) and SSD Windows (for games). I read post from the first page and want to update my gpu on gtx780m (4g) or gtx880m (8g). Who will say why in the table written specified: 780m - 200%, 880m - 150%? 880m newer and more powerful... or I'm wrong? What gpu would you recommend for my iMac (for game)? And advise on what to look for when buying GPU 780m or 880m ?
Thank you

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Hello everybody (sorry for my english). Can anyone help me with advice? I have iMac 2011 27 i7 6970m2g SSD OS (for work) and SSD Windows (for games). I read post from the first page and want to update my gpu on gtx780m (4g) or gtx880m (8g). Who will say why in the table written specified: 780m - 200%, 880m - 150%? 880m newer and more powerful... or I'm wrong? What gpu would you recommend for my iMac (for game)? And advise on what to look for when buying GPU 780m or 880m ?
Thank you

The perf column reflects the OpenGL performance relatively to the original HD6790M (Unigine Valley).

Copied this line from the first post - just below the table. There is a performance section on the first post, too. There are links to benchmark results, too.

The 880m is an overclocked 8GB 780M using the same core coming most likely from the same fab and same production line only with better production conditions. If you want a really fast GPU buy an M1 or an AMD GPU for this system. Do not waste money on overpriced 7 year old Kepler MXM cards....

EDIT: Corrected the table reflecting all recent results. Performance is nearly the same....and limited by the heat dissipation within this iMac. It cannot sustain more that 70W while these cards can consume more than 100W. You will not see any differences above the power limit.

 

[Pascal Baillargeau]

The perf column reflects the OpenGL performance relatively to the original HD6790M (Unigine Valley).

Copied this line from the first post - just below the table. There is a performance section on the first post, too. There are links to benchmark results, too.

The 880m is an overclocked 8GB 780M using the same core coming most likely from the same fab and same production line only with better production conditions. If you want a really fast GPU buy an M1 or an AMD GPU for this system. Do not waste money on overpriced 7 year old Kepler MXM cards....

I agree with you, AMD graphic cards is the best choice for now and for future. hardware HEVC and H264 enc/dec on AMD exclusively. I am in love with AMD cards.
But if someone wanna stay with NVIDIA, between 780M and 880M, i tested both, 780M is the best choice. There's no real gain using 880M and you need to dissipate too much heat.

 

[Carriba]

Столбец perf отражает производительность OpenGL по сравнению с исходной HD6790M ( Unigine Valley ).

Скопировал эту строчку из первого поста - чуть ниже таблицы. В первом посте тоже есть секция производительности. Также есть ссылки на результаты тестов.

880m - это разогнанный 8GB 780M, использующий то же ядро, скорее всего, от той же фабрики и той же производственной линии, только с лучшими производственными условиями. Если вам нужен действительно быстрый графический процессор, купите для этой системы M1 или AMD. Не тратьте деньги на приобретение 7-летних карт Kepler MXM по завышенной цене ....

РЕДАКТИРОВАТЬ: исправлена таблица, отражающая все недавние результаты. Производительность почти такая же ... и ограничивается тепловыделением внутри этого iMac. Он не может поддерживать мощность более 70 Вт, в то время как эти карты могут потреблять более 100 Вт. Вы не увидите никаких различий выше предела мощности.

Thanks for the quick response. As I understand Apple M1 is a new chip in 2020 models. I love my iMac and I want to improve it. Best map (from information on the first page) FirePro wx7100 and her difficult to find. on the site aliexpress only two types of gpu 109-c95847-00c 02 and 109-c95847-00d 02 (300$), if i read correctly any of them will do? And how difficult it is to adapt to the iMac?
I'm not a professional, maybe then I'm better than 880m(200$) or 780m(150$) ? Seems to mess with them less... or I'm wrong?
Thanks!
p.s. sorry for the importunity, I want to figure it out )

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Thanks for the quick response. As I understand Apple M1 is a new chip in 2020 models. I love my iMac and I want to improve it. Best map (from information on the first page) FirePro wx7100 and her difficult to find. on the site aliexpress only two types of gpu 109-c95847-00c 02 and 109-c95847-00d 02 (300$), if i read correctly any of them will do? And how difficult it is to adapt to the iMac?
I'm not a professional, maybe then I'm better than 880m(200$) or 780m(150$) ? Seems to mess with them less... or I'm wrong?
Thanks!
p.s. sorry for the importunity, I want to figure it out )

I sold all my Nvidia cards and own two WX4170, one RX480 and a WX4130.

Take a look at the Metalbench results on post #1 and think again about Nvidia cards.

 

[Carriba]

I sold all my Nvidia cards and own two WX4170, one RX480 and a WX4130.

Take a look at the Metalbench results on post #1 and think again about Nvidia cards.

WX7100 shows the best results. How to choose this card correctly for iMac 2011 i7 (2600)?
By what parameters: 109-c95847-00c(d) 02 or DEL/308VY ?
Thanks.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

WX7100 shows the best results. How to choose this card correctly for iMac 2011 i7 (2600)?
By what parameters: 109-c95847-00c(d) 02 or DEL/308VY ?
Thanks.

I cannot and will not do any sales consulting here. This has been a long ongoing problem to find the working WX7100 cards. Try to get a WX4170 (easy to identify, just need the BIOS chip on board and runs in any 2011 as far as I know).

 

[plasticpippo]

This is quite clever!
I'll give it a try!

it was driving me nuts too. make sure you are not connected to internet

 

[mdgm]

If the Integrated Graphics card driver is installed if you can boot to safe mode (after three tries it should give you the option to boot into it or if you can get to the login screen if you hold down shift whilst selecting restart from the power button you can get into safe mode) you can remove it from there.

Also if you have sysprep'd an image and it has the integrated drivers still in it, you can boot off a Windows 10 installer USB go into the command prompt and remove the driver and then reclone the image (e.g. using Winclone).

I think if you sysprep the image the group policies are lost so you will need to reapply the group policy each time you restore a sysprep'd image.

Sysprep is mainly useful if you have multiple machines or you want to clone Windows onto an external drive.

 

[KennyW]

Thanks for the quick response. As I understand Apple M1 is a new chip in 2020 models. I love my iMac and I want to improve it. Best map (from information on the first page) FirePro wx7100 and her difficult to find. on the site aliexpress only two types of gpu 109-c95847-00c 02 and 109-c95847-00d 02 (300$), if i read correctly any of them will do? And how difficult it is to adapt to the iMac?
I'm not a professional, maybe then I'm better than 880m(200$) or 780m(150$) ? Seems to mess with them less... or I'm wrong?
Thanks!
p.s. sorry for the importunity, I want to figure it out )

Consider the return on investment. If you are really into gaming, buy either a PC or a new M1 (or X-Box, Playstation).

If you like your Mac and just want to use it for daily work for an extended period of a few years, get an AMD GPU.
But getting a high end one that works is like a lottery.
I won't recommend the expensive WX7100. Get the RX480 (the 4GB version of WX7100) at < $200.
Or better still just get the more readily available and often working and much cheaper WX4130 (Dell version).
That should match your iMac for improved performance and support Catalina & Big Sur.

 

[Audiologist1974]

Done my mod last night after the second 6790m failed to work. I have replace the original bad 6790m with another 6790m a year ago. The second 6790m decided to rest in peace after one year, so now got myself a K5100M.
Also upgrade the CPU to i7-2600 3.4Ghz, the old CPU was a i5-2400 3.1Ghz.
Flashed the rom with SSH, everything went smooth. The new K5100M and the i7 CPU works like a charm.
I am staying with High Sierra at the moment, just to make sure everything stable.
Expected boot screen and screen brightness is working, sleep also works fine.
I am planning to move to Mojave later, so question is, is the sleep problem only occurs in Mojave and later OS? Because now seems fine with High Sierra. I didn't do any software patch or mod except flashing vbios.
I also use the original X bracket that come with the K5100M, just drill the holes to fit the screws.
Big thanks to nikey22 for the custom bios and xanderon for the SSH method.

Des.

 

[hondarider115]

Hi everyone,


I am having some issues when I upload the kext files to repair the sleep mode and brightness control on my 2011 27in iMac running dos dudes patcher Catalina. I have downloaded the kext files from Curtis Gross's youtube. I am successful installing the Catalina Os and it runs flawless, however when I upload the kext files through opencore hackintool they install fine and I restart my computer. When I restart and select my drive, because I am booting off my new SSD externally and the computer begins to boot. The progress bar reaches half way and the computer restarts by itself. I hold down option to select my drive again, restart the booting process into the Catalina SSD the progress bar reaches halfway and restarts by itself. I can not get my computer to reboot into Catalina after I install the kext files. Has anyone experienced this issue yet, and if so do you by chance have a remedy to resolve this issue.



I have attached the Kext files that I uploaded through open core to get the brightness and sleep mode resolved, however these are the same kext files that consistently make my computer restart automatically during the booting process.

My current setup has an NVIDIA quadro k2100m with the VBIOS flashed to support the GPU. A 3.4 GHz intel core i7 with 32GB of ram with a 1Tb sandisk 860 Evo SSD. The graphic card works flawless on my other SSD running High Sierra OS.







Thank you
Best regards,
Brad O.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Hi everyone,


I am having some issues when I upload the kext files to repair the sleep mode and brightness control on my 2011 27in iMac running dos dudes patcher Catalina. I have downloaded the kext files from Curtis Gross's youtube. I am successful installing the Catalina Os and it runs flawless, however when I upload the kext files through opencore hackintool they install fine and I restart my computer. When I restart and select my drive, because I am booting off my new SSD externally and the computer begins to boot. The progress bar reaches half way and the computer restarts by itself. I hold down option to select my drive again, restart the booting process into the Catalina SSD the progress bar reaches halfway and restarts by itself. I can not get my computer to reboot into Catalina after I install the kext files. Has anyone experienced this issue yet, and if so do you by chance have a remedy to resolve this issue.



I have attached the Kext files that I uploaded through open core to get the brightness and sleep mode resolved, however these are the same kext files that consistently make my computer restart automatically during the booting process.

My current setup has an NVIDIA quadro k2100m with the VBIOS flashed to support the GPU. A 3.4 GHz intel core i7 with 32GB of ram with a 1Tb sandisk 860 Evo SSD. The graphic card works flawless on my other SSD running High Sierra OS.







Thank you
Best regards,
Brad O.

Okay, we have our own (original and evolving and maintained) repository and docs all linked from post #1 - read it and give it a try.
For everything you found externally please ask the maintainer of this external repository.

 

[splifingate]

We replace dead HD Radeon 6xxx cards...

Exactly. Thank you

Regards, splifingate

 

[G3llings]

It's more for fun, and to say I did it. After making some trades I only had about $150 into the iMac. The Xeon was another $30 so not a big deal there. $150-200 gpu upgrade will bring my cost to just around $350 and make the value hopefully over $500. I love the Mac form factors but prefer windows since I mainly game on the computer. I build and sell windows desktops all the time, and always try to do something new. I enjoy the challenge.

I picked up a quadro m4000m today on eBay for $122 after tax+shipping. Supposedly it beats the 970m slightly, can't wait to get it installed and upgrade to my Xeon e3-1240! Do you think I can install both at the same time and boot with basic graphics? Or should I keep the i5 installed just in case and update the m4000m drivers, then disassemble a second time to install the Xeon?

 

[Puppers8]

Hey Pascal Baillargeau, Hows the 880m working for you? I was thinking about upgrading to one of those or the wx7100. I have a i7 late 2009 iMac if that helps.

 

[Puppers8]

I picked up a quadro m4000m today on eBay for $122 after tax+shipping. Supposedly it beats the 970m slightly, can't wait to get it installed and upgrade to my Xeon e3-1240! Do you think I can install both at the same time and boot with basic graphics? Or should I keep the i5 installed just in case and update the m4000m drivers, then disassemble a second time to install the Xeon?

Lmk how that goes if it really has that kind of performance I might get one of those cards. My cpu is a measly i7 860 though.

 

[G3llings]

Lmk how that goes if it really has that kind of performance I might get one of those cards. My cpu is a measly i7 860 though.

Will do. However, not sure if you read my post from yesterday but I am strictly running Windows 10, no macOS installed at all.

 

[decat]

Possibly the WhateverGreen+Lilu combo addresses the same color issue. I do not have the time to investigate this but it would be nice if there is someone out to read the docs on GitHub and check this out and post back.

The problem came up to the public with the Nvidia cards in the very same moment when @nikey22 published the first OpenCore free BIOS - before we had only the few cards needing OC with enabled WhateverGreen+Lilu

No need to investigate because it didn't solve the reboots. In the night from Monday > Tuesday it rebooted again.
TG Pro mentioned it could be a memory-related issue. Got no idea if this message is trustworthy or not, swapped ram from the other iMac and seems to be running fine so far. No reboots during the latest 14h it has been running.

Here u go

Lol, I didn't even know these things existed. Have been searching for days to use the iMac as an external monitor on my work laptop but couldn't find jack sh*t. The only solution so far was using a dummy HDMI dongle on the laptop and connecting the iMac to it through Teamviewer. It works quite pl but generates unnecessary VPN traffic.

 

[KennyW]

I picked up a quadro m4000m today on eBay for $122 after tax+shipping. Supposedly it beats the 970m slightly, can't wait to get it installed and upgrade to my Xeon e3-1240! Do you think I can install both at the same time and boot with basic graphics? Or should I keep the i5 installed just in case and update the m4000m drivers, then disassemble a second time to install the Xeon?

Generally speaking, it is better to troubleshoot one by one instead of both together.
But for 2011, the screws for the GPU are on the other side of the main board, and more difficult to change.
If you think you can manage, and could save some time in re-opening your iMac, you can install both together.
But that's not the point of discussion in this iMac GPU thread

 

[KennyW]

Hey Pascal Baillargeau, Hows the 880m working for you? I was thinking about upgrading to one of those or the wx7100. I have a i7 late 2009 iMac if that helps.

Putting a $300 WX7100, of unpredictable compatibility, in your iMac 2009?
Really not worth it in my opinion