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

[basstrombone1]

so guys, I have a little gift for you to give back after such an incredible thread
hope you like it, the headaches to get it running were immens for me as a newb.

I couldn't stand it to use fckin windows to flash the cards and so I prepared this ~350mb drive

I created a Linux Live USB (based on grml.org) Thumb Drive with nvflash_linux and Nicks Bioses preloaded. and its booting by itself so you can work blind with a new unpatched nvidia card plugged in. Also, its starting a ssh daemon and using DHCP to get an IP so you can remote login

Steps

Download
14 days left to download, uploaded here: https://www.mediafire.com/file/cztz4xqj2sru9gj/2011_imac_usb.zip/file

mirror by NOTNICE, thnx: https://cloud.notnlce.com/index.php/s/xkJP34GD6a9WziE/download


Prepare USB Drive or SD Card
so, you take a small usb thumb drive, partition it with disk utility on a Mac: GPT + FAT32
and just unzip the files structure onto the drive, no dd or etcher or something. just copy paste it. folder structure see attached screenshot. (you can remove the .roms I downloaded and download itself if you want to be sure about the correct file size. I did not verify them at all. use/flash at your own risk please)

Test & Try
test your thumb drive with a more or less working GPU/ external Screen or just have faith in me

Swap Hardware
swap your GPU to NVIDIA and (!) disconnect every SSD/HDD, makes it easier to boot blindly from one USB or SD Card, connect the ETH Cable (!)

Find IP
let the iMac boot, everything is black, the boot loader is waiting 20s before booting, so give the whole process 1min time, then head over to your Router Page and find the right IP that the iMac got through DHCP

SSH to the iMac
now fire up your terminal on a Win/Mac/Linux Machine of your choice and ssh to your iMac with
ssh root@YOURIP
Password: flash
Confirm the ssh id with yes and you should be in your iMac

Working Directory
cd /lib/live/mount/medium/flash

read the RADME in there… I will enjoy my brand new k2000m in my 27" 2011 iMac with Catalina 10.15.3
… and because this is so easy, I rebuild it to a K1100M and flashed that also

(someone could write some fancy scripts but I thought its saver that everyone is doing it command by command and don't stop thinking and trusting some scripts)

Quick question: I just saw a post on LinuxMint Forums stating that the Nvidia Quadro K1100M works fine under Linux Mint. If that is true, and because I have LM as my primary OS (High Sierra is my secondary OS) can I simply flash the GPU from within Linux Mint after swapping the new GPU in?
If yes, I would just have to open the terminal (where the rom is located) and bash it?
Thanks so much in advance

 

[nikey22]

The mmod for the iMac Late 2009 A1312 (EMC 2374) "Core i5"

 

[Nando Lorenzachio]

Hello. I have a k3100m card. I want install in an imac 27 mid 2011. Iam using a @nikey22 bios. The imac is not recognozing the video card. It is doing the mac sound start indefinitely.

Which can be the problem?

Thank you. Nando

Hello. I need the old firmware for imac of Quadro k3000m video graphic card? Can you send me one link whit it? Thank you. Fernando

 

[Chris2020]

Quick question: I just saw a post on LinuxMint Forums stating that the Nvidia Quadro K1100M works fine under Linux Mint. If that is true, and because I have LM as my primary OS (High Sierra is my secondary OS) can I simply flash the GPU from within Linux Mint after swapping the new GPU in?
If yes, I would just have to open the terminal (where the rom is located) and bash it?
Thanks so much in advance

My k1100m seemed to operate under Linux ok, too. You have to put the new video bios on a usb drive so you can use nvflash_linux to put it onto the k1100m.

 

[KennyW]

Quick question: I just saw a post on LinuxMint Forums stating that the Nvidia Quadro K1100M works fine under Linux Mint. If that is true, and because I have LM as my primary OS (High Sierra is my secondary OS) can I simply flash the GPU from within Linux Mint after swapping the new GPU in?
If yes, I would just have to open the terminal (where the rom is located) and bash it?
Thanks so much in advance

Depending on the PC vBIOS of your K1100m, you may have an external display active but NOT the internal display.
Thus, when you put it in place of your old GPU, you see nothing on internal display but may have display in an external monitor connected to your iMac's miniDP port. With that of course you can proceed to flash your new GPU in situ.

Otherwise, you need to ssh to your iMac from another Mac/PC to do the flashing, or flashing the GPU in a Windows laptop or in Bootcamp Windows, or directly flash the EEPROM on the GPU with a EEPROM programmer like the ch341a clip.

 

[Ekki83]

Hi all together,
I am new to the blog.

I have the endless Nightmare of fixing my graphics card.

I have ordered a K31000 already flashed, cause I am not skilled enough to flash the card the right way.
Also I am a bit scared of disassembling the whole machine.
Is there anybody close to Stuttgart who might could help me exchanging the graphics card?

Does the trick work and just remove the graphics card without taking the logic board out?

Thanks for your reply - you are the best blog ever I found in the www

 

[spwnrpe]

Memory is good, SSD is good, Graphics card *should* be good as once it stops rebooting suddenly, it'll run for hours upon hours without a hiccup (as long as I don't try to install anything from the App Store). I maxed out both the CPU and GPU many times to test the heat theory, not it

The people responsible for the information in this thread is nothing short of amazing, I get if they get annoyed by impatient/messy questions...

But... for what it is worth... I had similar problems and mine began shortly after I opened the iMac and messet about... and it turned out to be a faulty sata cable, causing intermittent issues and reboots.

I’m not saying that is your issue, but just some insight into the fact that it can be just about anything... and thus really hard to find.

I hope you are able to find the cause of your issues as well!

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Quick question: I just saw a post on LinuxMint Forums stating that the Nvidia Quadro K1100M works fine under Linux Mint. If that is true, and because I have LM as my primary OS (High Sierra is my secondary OS) can I simply flash the GPU from within Linux Mint after swapping the new GPU in?
If yes, I would just have to open the terminal (where the rom is located) and bash it?
Thanks so much in advance

Possibly not that easy.

If the card has no valid BIOS on board you will not have an internal or external display working. But you can install the NVIDIA linux flash utility and copy the K1100M rom onto the system in advance, install the K1100M, let the system boot (without any working display) into your main OS (Linux) and login remotely using SSH and flash the card in the same way the Linux flash utility is working...

So I see no gain to go around the preconfigured utility ....

 

[KennyW]

Hi all together,
I am new to the blog.

I have the endless Nightmare of fixing my graphics card.

I have ordered a K31000 already flashed, cause I am not skilled enough to flash the card the right way.
Also I am a bit scared of disassembling the whole machine.
Is there anybody close to Stuttgart who might could help me exchanging the graphics card?

Does the trick work and just remove the graphics card without taking the logic board out?

Thanks for your reply - you are the best blog ever I found in the www

We have undergone the same experience as a newbie.
Luckily there are many forefathers who can share here.
And nowadays there also many visual aids for us to learn, say thru the YouTube videos or iFixit Disassembly Guides.

Probably Mac users are less like the Windows guys to temper the inside of their Macs since we like it to work as it is, but when you want to go into uncharted land, you have to explore yourself for the adventure and fun, and the risk.

If you are not prepared or dare to do so, then better withhold your journey which would not be easy, unless as your request, you can find a good guide to lead you, at additional cost if any

Wish you success in your brave step forward.

 

[basstrombone1]

Possibly not that easy.

If the card has no valid BIOS on board you will not have an internal or external display working. But you can install the NVIDIA linux flash utility and copy the K1100M rom onto the system in advance, install the K1100M, let the system boot (without any working display) into your main OS (Linux) and login remotely using SSH and flash the card in the same way the Linux flash utility is working...

So I see no gain to go around the preconfigured utility ....

Well,

I will think about it and keep you posted
Again thank you for taking the time

 

[rtagliavia]

Hello. I need the old firmware for imac of Quadro k3000m video graphic card? Can you send me one link whit it? Thank you. Fernando

Nando you can download the HP VBIOS from this website for the K3000M.
https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/

If you need assistance let me know.

 

[Nando Lorenzachio]

Is you very friendly. Thank you

 

[Jforte]

Hi!

Has similar issues with various Kepler cards in the 2011 model, now. Unless you connect the internal screen they work well using the external display, if you connect the internal display cable and power in it does not POST at all (like some AMD cards) or turns off again immediately.

This is gambling - but I would guess this particular K4100M may run in 2009/2010 systems fine. At least my Kepler cards behaved in such a way. Problems came only up with the 2011.

If you are really brave you might test "hot plugging of the internal display cable"

I did the “hot plugging”... no good...

 

[Ausdauersportler]

I did the “hot plugging”... no good...

Too bad...

As I wrote before some cards behaving exactly the same way. But you can still use it in a 2009/2010, at least my cards did it. Currently I have all three systems here at home in my lab: 2011, 2010, 2009...easy to compare and sort errors out.

 

[Carriba]

Hello
Help me please, anybody
I bought gpu 780m. Installed correctly in my iMac (2011 i7 high sierra bootrom: 87.0.0.0.0). Whith USB nvflash_linux uploaded new bios, tried 3 firmware options (780m_br2 ; 780m_eg2 ; gtx780m_001). There is always one problem : I can see only with HDMI (on the second monitor), monitor iMac the black. Everything is well displayed on the second screen (loading screen). PRAM reset. Disabled HDD (only SSD).
Put the old gpu 6970m 2g, everything is fine, monitor iMac light.
I noted: On the motherboard iMac light 3 diodes out of 4 diodes. On the gpu780m around the chip (from above) no two small details (Photo 4. Maybe it should be, I do not know).
what should I do?
help please ...
4 photo my gpu 780m

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Hello
Help me please, anybody
I bought gpu 780m. Installed correctly in my iMac (2011 i7 high sierra bootrom: 87.0.0.0.0). Whith USB nvflash_linux uploaded new bios, tried 3 firmware options (780m_br2 ; 780m_eg2 ; gtx780m_001). There is always one problem : I can see only with HDMI (on the second monitor), monitor iMac the black. Everything is well displayed on the second screen (loading screen). PRAM reset. Disabled HDD (only SSD).
Put the old gpu 6970m 2g, everything is fine, monitor iMac light.
I noted: On the motherboard iMac light 3 diodes out of 4 diodes. On the gpu780m around the chip (from above) no two small details (Photo 4. Maybe it should be, I do not know).
what should I do?
help please ...
4 photo my gpu 780m

Have you checked the first post for the magical black screen issue coming up with all these Nvidia cards and nearly all macOS versions since Sierra? It is most likely not a problem of your card, not a problem of the BIOS flashed, it is just a problem with reading and gathering the most important facts from the docs prepared on post #1

For heavens sake: Use the 780m_br2...

 

[Carriba]

Have you checked the first post for the magical black screen issue coming up with all these Nvidia cards and nearly all macOS versions since Sierra? It is most likely not a problem of your card, not a problem of the BIOS flashed, it is just a problem with reading and gathering the most important facts from the docs prepared on post #1

For heavens sake: Use the 780m_br2...

you mean this post:

2011 iMac Graphics Card Upgrade

Sierra and High Sierra Package Installer ( iMac 2009-2011 AGC, FakeSCM, Lilu, WhateverGreen, AppleBacklightFixup installer) Attached you will find the a kernel extension package installer currently working on Sierra 10.12 and later. SIP needs to be disabled. Boot into recovery, start Terminal...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[Ausdauersportler]

you mean this post:

2011 iMac Graphics Card Upgrade

Sierra and High Sierra Package Installer ( iMac 2009-2011 AGC, FakeSCM, Lilu, WhateverGreen, AppleBacklightFixup installer) Attached you will find the a kernel extension package installer currently working on Sierra 10.12 and later. SIP needs to be disabled. Boot into recovery, start Terminal...

forums.macrumors.com

This is one way to come around this. There are other packages for Mojave and Catalina including this patch and you can find the patched AppleGraphicsControl.kext for each macOS version and install it yourself. There are several ways to reach Rome....

 

[Flotation]

Hi!
Thanks for this thread and all th great informations in it. After a lot of reading I thought it would be a good Idea to upgrade my old and already twice backed GPU in my iMac.
So I upgraded my 2010 21.5 iMac with a New HP WX4150.
Now I get the issues, that the iMac won't boot with attached SSD.
Without SSD I can boot in to Linux and I can flash the card from my MacBook Pro. No problems.
The card is already completely covered in electric tape - except GPU and RAM of course.
I double and tripple checked. Can't see any shorts.
I used Grizzly Kryonaut with a 1mm copper plate on the die and K5 Pro on the RAMs. But I don't think this has something to do with my issues.
Any ideas?

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

Hi!
Thanks for this thread and all th great informations in it. After a lot of reading I thought it would be a good Idea to upgrade my old and already twice backed GPU in my iMac.
So I upgraded my 2010 21.5 iMac with a New HP WX4150.
Now I get the issues, that the iMac won't boot with attached SSD.
Without SSD I can boot in to Linux and I can flash the card from my MacBook Pro. No problems.
The card is already completely covered in electric tape - except GPU and RAM of course.
I double and tripple checked. Can't see any shorts.
I used Grizzly Kryonaut with a 1mm copper plate on the die and K5 Pro on the RAMs. But I don't think this has something to do with my issues.
Any ideas?

Unplug the SSD and do PRAM reset?
Then plug back the SSD and reboot?
Sometimes, my iMac 2010 was bricked, and I was able to put back the old HDD in, reset PRAM to get it worked again.
Won't boot here mean "nothing moving, even the fans" or "nothing showing on the screen"?

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Hi!
Thanks for this thread and all th great informations in it. After a lot of reading I thought it would be a good Idea to upgrade my old and already twice backed GPU in my iMac.
So I upgraded my 2010 21.5 iMac with a New HP WX4150.
Now I get the issues, that the iMac won't boot with attached SSD.
Without SSD I can boot in to Linux and I can flash the card from my MacBook Pro. No problems.
The card is already completely covered in electric tape - except GPU and RAM of course.
I double and tripple checked. Can't see any shorts.
I used Grizzly Kryonaut with a 1mm copper plate on the die and K5 Pro on the RAMs. But I don't think this has something to do with my issues.
Any ideas?

Broken SATA cable?
Yes, get the GPU out, do three (3) PRAM resets wo GPU and install back.
Boot from your SSD using a SATA-USB connector..

 

[Flotation]

Unplug the SSD and do PRAM reset?
Then plug back the SSD and reboot?
Sometimes, my iMac 2010 was bricked, and I was able to put back the old HDD in, reset PRAM to get it worked again.
Won't boot here mean "nothing moving, even the fans" or "nothing showing on the screen"?

Thanks for the quick reply!
PRAM reset already done couple of times.
Without SSD booting in to Linux from SD is possible but black screen.
With SSD the iMac is doing nothing. No Fans, no moving. Sounds like a short, but nothing to find.
With attached screen only two of the LED are on.

 

[Flotation]

Broken SATA cable?
Yes, get the GPU out, do three (3) PRAM resets wo GPU and install back.
Boot form SSD using a SATA-USB connector..

Will try this. Thanks!

 

[Ausdauersportler]

EDIT:

SOLVED:
OpenCore 0.6.5 DRM fix for Big Sur with iMac 2011: panic on wake

four panics with 20C2069 (Release 1.1) and 20D5042d (Beta 1.2) so far after changing to new open core and new config files.

no problems using Catalina (19H2) on the very same machine using the very same opencore and config files to exclude hardware problems.

Simply forgot to patch the system after the complete OTA upgrade

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Will try this. Thanks!

I did several installations and I exchange the 10 years old SATA cable now in any case immediately. It is not worth the trouble it may cause.

You may just found another HP card not willing to run in an iMac 2011 system, we have now two kind of symptoms:

1. system is simply not posting when the new card has been installed (some WX7100, all RX480, most HP 41x0 cards)
2. system is not booting/not posting when internal LCD has been connected (some other HP AMD cards and some Kepler cards, too)