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

[Brian Y]

Hey guys, i'm reading this forum for a while but i never had the need to register, since now. Because you all did a great job I think there's someone who can help me.

Today i upgraded my iMac 2010 model from:

Core i5-680 => Core i7-880
2TB Fusion Drive => 3TB Fusion Drive
Radeon HD 6970M (upgraded from 5750) => Geforce GTX 780M

I followed the guides from iFixit and this thread. Everything was running very well. I installed my backup from my Time Machine without any issues. Okay, i lost my initial boot screen, but I knew that and that's okay. Somehow I missed stuff like putting the CPU temperature sensor back to the logic board, so I have to disassemble my iMac to push it in.

But now the monitor stays black. The startup sound appears but then… nothing is showing up. It do before my disassemble. I knew that the login screen is there, because if I type something and press, I can hear the beep of enter the wrong password. When I type the correct password my Mac goes on.

Btw: No problems with my old graphics card.

Do anyone have a tip for me?

Which diagnostic LEDs are on?

Do you get any image on an external monitor with the new graphics card?

 

[DriveSlow]

Which diagnostic LEDs are on?

Do you get any image on an external monitor with the new graphics card?

Hey Brian Y, thanks for answering.

Till now i didn't check any diagnostic LEDs.

I can connect via Screen Sharing but didn't try an external monitor because i got no Mini Displayport to HDMI Adapter.

Here are two screenshots i took this morning.

The problem seems to be that the graphics card is not initialized correctly, but before the last disassemblement the card was correctly listet with "NVIDIA Geforce GTX 780M 4095MB".

 

[DriveSlow]

I got a thought about my issue. The first time i tried boot the system, when it works, i don't have my Time Machine backup restored. It was a clean Mavericks install. Is it possible that I have to remove the old graphics card driver/plist?

 

[DriveSlow]

Just for you guys to know. I got it. Please don't ask me how it works, but it do.

I think it was an hardware issue, because I removed the graphics card, cleaned it, removed the X-Bracket and now it works.

Do somebody know IF it's possible to flash the EFI ROM? I read something about that the ROM chip is too small to get flashed.

 

[shunn]

Hello can someone please enlighten me.Are all current nvidia UEFI cards compatible now? As i just want to get my imac working again having a faulty 4850.I am self employed and just injured my back so in the financial poo a bit and would be more than happy to go with a cheaper lower spec card if that is an option.Any knowledge on the subject would be much appreciated.

 

[Hiiambo]

Does anyone know if this card would work in a 27" mid-2011 iMac?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/For-ALIENWA...445?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item4ad9e99f4d

 

[denisvj]

Does anyone know if this card would work in a 27" mid-2011 iMac?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/For-ALIENWA...445?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item4ad9e99f4d

Want to know this too, have an iMac 2011 21.5' and could try to upgrade the video card .

 

[mhafeez]

Just want to ask...

Hi MacRumors,

I have been following this thread for quite a while and I am excited seeing those who have successfully upgraded their iMacs with a more powerful GPUs. Here we have seen 21'5" mid 2011 iMac upgraded it's GPU to GTX680M. The latest shocks me where a 2010 iMac successfully tamed a GTX780M.

Now I have a question here. Have anyone tried installing GTX880M 8GB GDDR5 in their iMac?

Sorry for my bad English

 

[dajaj]

GTX680M or GTX780M in a late 2009 imac (i7 version)

Hi all

This thread has inspired me and I want to go through with an update of my GPU.

I were however not able to find any previous cases of nvidia gpu upgrades on late 2009 (only ati 6970)

What are the chances of getting a GTX680M or GTX780M running on a late 2009 mac? Its the i7 version so it should be similar to that of 2010.

Hope u can help. Any remarks would be appreciated.

 

[diafebus]

Just for you guys to know. I got it. Please don't ask me how it works, but it do.

I think it was an hardware issue, because I removed the graphics card, cleaned it, removed the X-Bracket and now it works.

Do somebody know IF it's possible to flash the EFI ROM? I read something about that the ROM chip is too small to get flashed.

hey!! congratz on this working I'll do this to mine could you tell us which brand of Geforce have you bought? Alienware…, and that stuff?

Thank you!!

 

[DriveSlow]

hey!! congratz on this working I'll do this to mine could you tell us which brand of Geforce have you bought? Alienware…, and that stuff?

Thank you!!

Hey, I bought it on eBay. The seller said it was pulled out a Clevo Laptop (here's the link)

But I had to flash the Video BIOS to get full speed in Windows. Mine was stucking at 400 MHz instead of the 771 MHz it should have. The flashing itself was easy. Using nvflash for Windows, choose the right BIOS and it worked flawlessly.

 

[diafebus]

Great good to know! What do you mean about installing the right BIOS? could you put BIOS files here?

Anyway I understand you did that using bootcamp, but does it work good in Mac OS X too? I mean you said something of "Set your OS environment up before installing the card to your iMac." What do you mean with that?

Thank you man Is great news we can upgrade gfx without needing to buy appleshit! hahaha

 

[DriveSlow]

Great good to know! What do you mean about installing the right BIOS? could you put BIOS files here?

Anyway I understand you did that using bootcamp, but does it work good in Mac OS X too? I mean you said something of "Set your OS environment up before installing the card to your iMac." What do you mean with that?

Thank you man Is great news we can upgrade gfx without needing to buy appleshit! hahaha

The graphics card is working great under OS X. Maybe you got more luck than me and didn't need to flash the Video BIOS. The right ROMs are accesible at the Techinferno forums.

With "Set your OS environment up before installing the card to your iMac." I mean, that you should install your OS X, BootCamp or Linux like you want to use them on your Mac, before installing the new graphics card. Because you'll lost your boot screen, the installation with a black monitor is hard!

 

[shunn]

Sorry to ask again but does this mean i can install any nvidia mxm card in an imac 27 or just the 7 series?If someone who knows could provide a simple explanation of what they know is and is not compatible it would be much appreciated.

 

[diafebus]

Sorry to ask again but does this mean i can install any nvidia mxm card in an imac 27 or just the 7 series?If someone who knows could provide a simple explanation of what they know is and is not compatible it would be much appreciated.

It looks like it work because is the same model as the new imac late 2013, chek the configuration on the latest macs. You might be able to use any of the cards available for mac… but we're not sure atm we just got this guy using the 780m on a 2010 imac so… that would mean longer life for the same computer I think it is worth it.

BTW it looks like http://www.techinferno.com/2013/06/29/unlocked-nvidia-gtx-780m-vbios/ Unlocked Bios for nvidia is what our friend installed here, maybe this is the way to make any card work on any computer Mac or PC

 

[DriveSlow]

Almost all GTX Series till 7xx should work out of the box. The 600 and 700 series are 100% working. I didn't try others yet.

 

[postmortempries]

Your old GPU's ...

Hello there,

I just bought some nice 27, i7 IMac which unfortunatly contains this AMD6970M -GPU.
The life-expectation of this card is more or less a matter of luck and I still pray that it's going to die before the extended coverage of Apple's replacement-program ends.

But ... maybe just because I'm an addicted and like to have things in spare ...

Does anybody out there wanna sell his old MXM -card?!

Best regards

Andreas

 

[JustKay]

Almost all GTX Series till 7xx should work out of the box. The 600 and 700 series are 100% working. I didn't try others yet.

675m is a rebranded 580m, it wont work, no EFI support. I have one sitting on my desk waiting to go to the trash because it's useless to me ^^

 

[ZX.81]

AMD hd6990m

Hi,
just registered to MacRumors.
I have an iMac 27" early 2011 with a dead AMD graphic card.
My AMD card is showing the following code: 109-C29657-10 BLACKCOMB and From a research it should be a AMD HD6990M; I am attaching a picture.

Do you know if this AMD HD6990M card found on eBay ( http://www.ebay.com/itm/111311445789?_trksid=p2060778.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT ) or this AMD HD6970M also found on eBay ( http://www.ebay.com/itm/111311448424?_trksid=p2060778.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT ) can work out of the box in my iMac (both OSX 10.9.4 and Windows 7 64bits) ?

Best regards to all !

 

[Czo]

Apple sells 2011 line with 6950M and 6970M. If you have 6970M, this may help: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS5167?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

 

[defektion]

i have a late 2009 iMac and the original 4850 is about to give out and I'm not looking for an expensive upgrade. Would I be able to purchase a mxm 57XX type A video card work and does it have to be an GPU produced specifically for Apple?

Seeing how some people are swapping in 680M's it seems possible Apple opened that up?

I also don't do any gaming on my iMac, some photoshopping, and programming. I just want my iMac going for another few years.

EDIT: How about a 6770M from a Dell/Alienware Laptop? Considering these go for $100 on eBay.


EDIT EDIT: Would one from this seller work? http://www.ebay.ca/itm/ATI-216-0810...891?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item2a26d0e973

EDIT EDIT EDIT: Looks like thats a Type A board, I'm assuming the 4850M is a Type B Board so I should find something simiar.

 

[yojitani]

Just for you guys to know. I got it. Please don't ask me how it works, but it do.

I think it was an hardware issue, because I removed the graphics card, cleaned it, removed the X-Bracket and now it works.

Do somebody know IF it's possible to flash the EFI ROM? I read something about that the ROM chip is too small to get flashed.

Maybe you or someone else here can help me out a bit. I'm considering buying a mid-2010 27" iMac that I know has a graphics card problem. It seems like it might be worth it because the machine itself is not that expensive and I normally wouldn't be able to pick up an i7 for so little. I honestly don't need a 4GB GPU. What I'd like to know is what should I be looking for? I don't work with computers for money or anything, but I've got plenty of experience taking apart iMacs (and ipods and macbooks etc) and replacing parts. The thing is, if you look for Apple OEM parts, the markup is insane. So, what I've gathered from this thread is that the replacement part:
needs to be mxm (but what about the ii and iii numerals? are those important?)

needs to be UEFI compatible

needs to be a mobile part (i.e. not desktop)

After that, I'm a bit lost. I believe the part I want to replace is an HD 5750, if anyone has any direct suggestions, that'd be great, but suggestions that would help me sift through ebay and at least isolate a few candidates that might work would be welcome. Ultimately, what I want to work out is the cost of replacing the part. $250~ for it is not an option.

 

[DriveSlow]

Maybe you or someone else here can help me out a bit. I'm considering buying a mid-2010 27" iMac that I know has a graphics card problem. It seems like it might be worth it because the machine itself is not that expensive and I normally wouldn't be able to pick up an i7 for so little. I honestly don't need a 4GB GPU. What I'd like to know is what should I be looking for? I don't work with computers for money or anything, but I've got plenty of experience taking apart iMacs (and ipods and macbooks etc) and replacing parts. The thing is, if you look for Apple OEM parts, the markup is insane. So, what I've gathered from this thread is that the replacement part:
needs to be mxm (but what about the ii and iii numerals? are those important?)

needs to be UEFI compatible

needs to be a mobile part (i.e. not desktop)

After that, I'm a bit lost. I believe the part I want to replace is an HD 5750, if anyone has any direct suggestions, that'd be great, but suggestions that would help me sift through ebay and at least isolate a few candidates that might work would be welcome. Ultimately, what I want to work out is the cost of replacing the part. $250~ for it is not an option.

If u want to have an Apple EFI Card, you have two options. First option is to get an original Apple graphics card like this Radeon 5750 on eBay or a 6970m from the 2011 iMac model.

Second option is that you buy a cheaper AMD MXM graphics card and flash the EFI part at your own. I got no experience in flashing EFI firmware to graphic cards. So, this got to be not as easy as it sounds.

Till now I have no bootscreen with my Geforce GTX 780M.

 

[Astelith]

Hi guys, it seems they I have the same problem of DriveSlow, in a iMac 2011 the 780m is not initializing, I can log in only in remote, I have OS X 10.9.5 and the last nvidia drivers but no way to log in, only black screen, any clue ?

 

[yojitani]

If u want to have an Apple EFI Card, you have two options. First option is to get an original Apple graphics card like this Radeon 5750 on eBay or a 6970m from the 2011 iMac model.

Second option is that you buy a cheaper AMD MXM graphics card and flash the EFI part at your own. I got no experience in flashing EFI firmware to graphic cards. So, this got to be not as easy as it sounds.

Till now I have no bootscreen with my Geforce GTX 780M.

Thanks for this. It's really helpful.

With a normal EFI update it's just a matter of running the installer and allowing the system to update. Maybe you need to hold down a key chord too. Can't remember, but the instructions will be on the support page.

Stupid question but have you tried doing an SMC reset? The EFI update may not be the problem. If you can, you might try running the full os installer. I've been looking into this quite a bit and I'm sure someone mentioned the problem you are having and the solution. If I find out, I'll let you know!