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

[osch]

Guys, is there anybody who got displayport working with K2100M on a imac 21.5 running Catalina?
Thanks in advance.

I have a K2100M installed in a 27" 2009 and I only got the DisplayPort working if I use a DP => DVI adapter. If I try to use my DisplayPort cable directly it doesn't work. It tries to initialise the screen during boot but it doesn't result into any picture. System preferences don't list the display either.

Does it work for you under High Sierra?

 

[Tom.Tom]

This fix is already part of the various @dosdude1 patchers! Just run the patch-updater after primary installation and install the legacy wifi patch.

I have usually the inverse problem since I have upgraded all my iMacs with new BCM94360x cards and do not need the Atheros fix - aka legacy wifi patch and changed my versions to ignore the patch.

Github is designed to create forks - this way you can enhance the work others have published there.

Well, it's been already three times after running dosdude's patcher with Legacy Wifi patch without success on working WiFi. Had to run the Atheros patcher from other source to get the problem fixed... strange...

 

[davidg5678]

When I initially installed the GPU, it was short-circuiting to the metal heat sink somewhere. This caused the PSU to go into a sort of protection mode when I tried to draw power for SATA drives. The computer would not POST when drives were connected and POSTed as soon as I disconnected them. To solve this problem, I covered every surface of the GPU (except for the MXM pins, GPU die, and VRAM chips) in Kapton tape. In the future, I'd like to go back and make sure that I am not smothering any overheating components with Kapton tape.

Davidg5678:
I have a question about your 2010 imac 27 SATA drives: are you using the original HDD (rotational) also in addition to your SSD? I am having a problem with my 2010 imac 27 WX4150 GPU Upgrade after following your excellent write ups. I am mostly successful and able to boot my SSD from OC 0.6.5pre SD like you into High Sierra. But I did not use any insulation on the card either side, just installed bare into the MXM-B heatsink. My problem is I cannot run my 1TB rotational HDD at all because the PSU refuses to POST when it is connected. My 512MB SSD runs fine with the WX4150 as long as the HDD is not connected to PSU. I have ordered some Kapton tape to insulate like you did, but I am puzzled why the system cannot run both of the SATA drives at the same time? It seems to me if it was a shorting situation with the WX4150 in the MXM neither of the drives would be working. I am hoping the Kapton tape will correct the problem and I will be able to keep using the 1TB HDD for time machine and other backup purposes. Thanks for the very detailed write ups in your recent posts of your imac 2010 WX4150 GPU Upgrade. Note: I did use the 1mm copper shim, MX-4, and K5 pro just like you advised. Also am using the same Dell 4GB bios.

Hello @iPhone_se

I use both the stock HDD and an SSD. If I remember correctly, when I was having problems with short-circuiting, it was when any drive was plugged into SATA power. The kind of drive that was plugged in did not matter. Both the SSD and HDD caused the same issues. Kapton tape covering the GPU was the solution for me, so hopefully, it will work to resolve your problem as well.

 

[Cybertox]

Question. Why would you even upgrade the GPU on your 2011 iMac and go through that demanding process? I see absolutely no reason for that, the CPU, RAM, Storage and many other components are still outdated and will drag you down in terms of performance either way. Just get yourself a new machine.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Question. Why would you even upgrade the GPU on your 2011 iMac and go through that demanding process? I see absolutely no reason for that, the CPU, RAM, Storage and many other components are still outdated and will drag you down in terms of performance either way. Just get yourself a new machine.

• which performance problems are you referring to?
• we have endless landfills where we can dump industry goods mainly produced in a single century
• we have endless resources to make such new products
• some people have time but not the money to get a Big Sur capable Mac
• some people just like tinkering with hard- and software
• for 98% of the needs and tasks to be done in the daily (computing) work this nearly 10 year old hardware is perfectly capable - add an SSD (this was a disruptive technology) and a new (AMD) metal GPU

Just get yourself a broader perspective...why do people love 50+ years old cars or motor bikes?

 

[G3llings]

Why not buy an old iMac and upgrade it to gaming laptop performance for a total of $350? An equivalent laptop would cost double and have a much smaller, lower resolution screen.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Why not buy an old iMac and upgrade it to gaming laptop performance for a total of $350? An equivalent laptop would cost double and have a much smaller, lower resolution screen.

BTW:
You should document your project and efforts, post the modified BIOS etc... while this not currently on the list I would add it just to get a broader perspective for these machines.

 

[Cybertox]

Why not buy an old iMac and upgrade it to gaming laptop performance for a total of $350? An equivalent laptop would cost double and have a much smaller, lower resolution screen.

How is that even gaming laptop performance? Do you even realize what kind of specifications a gaming laptop has nowadays? And for what price? A 2011 iMac is an absurdly outdated computer.

 

[panwato]

Upgrading right now to 11.2 with micropatcher fork from @Ausdauersportler (dev-0.5.4).
I will post any updates

 

[herrdude]

Question. Why would you even upgrade the GPU on your 2011 iMac and go through that demanding process? I see absolutely no reason for that, the CPU, RAM, Storage and many other components are still outdated and will drag you down in terms of performance either way. Just get yourself a new machine.

Hmmmmm 1 post versus 12560 posts. You might be alone on this one.

Upgrading right now to 11.2 with micropatcher fork from @Ausdauersportler (dev-0.5.4).
I will post any updates

I did it yesterday. It works great!

 

[passatgt]

How is that even gaming laptop performance? Do you even realize what kind of specifications a gaming laptop has nowadays? And for what price? A 2011 iMac is an absurdly outdated computer.

I'm designing and developing mobile and web apps with this absurdly outdated computer i bought for 100EUR and spent an extra 200EUR to fix it up. Just to compare, the cheapest brand new 27" 1440p monitor costs 240EUR and its dog **** compared to the iMac display.

 

[panwato]

All working flawlessly!!

11.2 with @Ausdauersportler Micropatcher dev-0.5.4 and OC 0.6.5

 

[lfom]

Hi All

Since upgrading to a k610m I get strange artifacts on certain images - its always these green squares diagonal...

is this just the way it is or is something wrong?

View attachment 1724119

Test with an external monitor (if you have it working). if you see the same problem in the external display, the graphics card has bad memory unfortunately. If not, try to boot to a fresh macOS install and see what happens.

2011 iMac Graphics Card Upgrade

Morning! During the last year I had similar - mostly black and white squares - artefacts with otherwise perfect working cards mostly on Safari with all versions of Catalina since 10.15.2 with K2100M and 780M (different BIOS versions from @Nick [D]vB and @nikey22). So this might be an Apple...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[herrdude]

Upgrading right now to 11.2 with micropatcher fork from @Ausdauersportler (dev-0.5.4).
I will post any updates

View attachment 1724466
All working flawlessly!!

11.2 with @Ausdauersportler Micropatcher dev-0.5.4 and OC 0.6.5

Maybe erase your serial number.

 

[panwato]

Maybe erase your serial number.

Done. Thanks!

 

[york026]

First of all I wanna say Hi and a big thank you to all of you who made this possible!
It's super inspiring seeing all these ppl adding extra life to their legendary iMac's.

I finally did the GPU upgrade in my iMac since this was the last upgrade I needed to do to make this an great machine even 10 years later. AND I can confirm a successful upgrade to a GTX 880M 8GB!
I've been running this card for about two weeks now on High Sierra and it performs very good. I changed thermal paste on both GPU and CPU and temperatures have been great, around 45 degrees on average usage, beneath 40 degrees in idle.

So I am very happy with this upgrade. This really makes my iMac into a beast for photo-, video-, 3d- editing, exactly what I need!
Now I'm ready to do a OS X update since I now have Metal support. I have a 1TB SSD I wanna prepare with a running version of the latest OSX before installing it in my iMac.

What is the most solid and stable OS to upgrade to? Catalina or is Big Sur stable too?

 

[kuoshen]

Hi All

Since upgrading to a k610m I get strange artifacts on certain images - its always these green squares diagonal...

is this just the way it is or is something wrong?

View attachment 1724119

Hi @Danwilderspin,

I get the diagonal green squares all the time in Safari 14.0.2 on Big Sur 11.1, especially on websites that have "low resolution" images like this example on BBC News website. No such problem when viewing it with Chrome. I never got down to figuring out why ...

I am running K2100M on iMac 2011 and have checked that there are no issues with the card and the iMac. Also, this problem is not limited to Safari, I've seen it on the macOS native PDF Preview as well.

Cheers

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Hi @Danwilderspin,

I get the diagonal green squares all the time in Safari 14.0.2 on Big Sur 11.1, especially on websites that have "low resolution" images like this example on BBC News website. No such problem when viewing it with Chrome. I never got down to figuring out why ...

I am running K2100M on iMac 2011 and have checked that there are no issues with the card and the iMac. Also, this problem is not limited to Safari, I've seen it on the macOS native PDF Preview as well.

Cheers

View attachment 1724711

Morning!

During the last year I had similar - mostly black and white squares - artefacts with otherwise perfect working cards mostly on Safari with all versions of Catalina since 10.15.2 with K2100M and 780M (different BIOS versions from @Nick [D]vB and @nikey22). So this might be an Apple related NVIDIA bug - some others are found on the Big Sur thread.

Since I moved on to AMD cards I have not seen this again on my daily (computer) work. Another indication for an NVIDIA related issue.

Unfortunately I never made any screen shots just tried to get around this by forcing redraws or sometimes restarts of Safari.

Have a good day!

 

[Ausdauersportler]

First of all I wanna say Hi and a big thank you to all of you who made this possible!
It's super inspiring seeing all these ppl adding extra life to their legendary iMac's.

I finally did the GPU upgrade in my iMac since this was the last upgrade I needed to do to make this an great machine even 10 years later. AND I can confirm a successful upgrade to a GTX 880M 8GB!
I've been running this card for about two weeks now on High Sierra and it performs very good. I changed thermal paste on both GPU and CPU and temperatures have been great, around 45 degrees on average usage, beneath 40 degrees in idle.

So I am very happy with this upgrade. This really makes my iMac into a beast for photo-, video-, 3d- editing, exactly what I need!
Now I'm ready to do a OS X update since I now have Metal support. I have a 1TB SSD I wanna prepare with a running version of the latest OSX before installing it in my iMac.

What is the most solid and stable OS to upgrade to? Catalina or is Big Sur stable too?

On the first post there is a Catalina/Big Sur section. You will loose HD3000 - H.264 support on Big Sur with NVIDIA cards and AMD cards. AMD cards offer hardware 4K H.264 as a replacement, NVIDIA hardware features are not supported by macOS - this is the one thing you will miss moving to Big Sur.

Installation is by far more easy with Big Sur.

 

[herrdude]

Some people have no shame: https://www.ebay.ca/itm/vBios-firmw...761834?hash=item2ae80c882a:g:FmcAAOSwwjVestwa

 

[The_Croupier]

What a Wanker, hopefully people look at his rating and don't get scammed!

 

[G3llings]

BTW:
You should document your project and efforts, post the modified BIOS etc... while this not currently on the list I would add it just to get a broader perspective for these machines.

I plan to do so, but I got this crazy idea last night. I'm wondering if my p5 State issue has to do with running in legacy mode. Also, it takes about a minute and a half to boot to the windows login screen and have video display even with my SSD. In order to fix this I think I'm going to reinstall the 6770m and install High Sierra which should support the Maxwell ii based M4000M when I swap it back in. I can use that to install rEFInd, and then shrink High Sierra to about 60gb and reinstall windows in UEFI mode. I will install TeamViewer in both OS's and then reinstall the M4000M and update drivers through TeamViewer. Then hopefully i can still see the rEFInd boot loader and shorten the boot time significantly.

Edit: maybe I need opencore instead of rEFInd? I read somewhere that rEFInd worked for video with unsupported GPUs.

 

[Danwilderspin]

Hi @Danwilderspin,

I get the diagonal green squares all the time in Safari 14.0.2 on Big Sur 11.1, especially on websites that have "low resolution" images like this example on BBC News website. No such problem when viewing it with Chrome. I never got down to figuring out why ...

I am running K2100M on iMac 2011 and have checked that there are no issues with the card and the iMac. Also, this problem is not limited to Safari, I've seen it on the macOS native PDF Preview as well.

Cheers

View attachment 1724711

Thanks thats a little relief... as you have a very similar setup do you have night shift working?

 

[BadBiscuit]

@kuoshen @Danwilderspin
Funny I had not noticed the green squares until you mentioned it. For me it is only when running Big Sur and using Safari and not on most websites. I guess my preference for Chrome is the reason I'd not experienced it. I've attached a screenshot of what I saw for that same website used by @kuoshen from both Big Sur and Mojave. Chrome is on the left and Safari on the right. Probably doesn't matter but in this case it is SCRAPPY-DOO with the K2100M sporting Elpida memory and rom.

@Danwilderspin
Yes, night shift is working within Big Sur for me.

 

[lfom]

@Danwilderspin Did you try setting the display to 8bits colors instead of 10bits?