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

[highvoltage12v]

That is because the 2011 iMac is not supported for Mojave.
https://www.apple.com/macos/how-to-upgrade/

That's kind of a no sh*t answer on this thread. @wiruzdk reboot to the patched Mojave installer, open Mac OS post install and choose "Software Update Patch" and select your Mojave partition and choose patch.

For everyone with a 2011 27" iMac on 10.14.1 I have patched 'AppleGraphicsControl.kext' and 'AppleGraphicsPowerManagement.kext' by finding the iMac14,2: 'Mac-27ADBB7B4CEE8E61' board id and replacing it with our 2011 board id 'Mac-942B59F58194171B'. This results in faster boot times and less lag in the UI. I chose the 14,2 because it shipped with the 780m. It's a simple process to do, and may be better than installing whatevergreen/lilu.

As for booting 10.9.5 on the 2011 iMac I would have to test this by installing it to a SSD and boot it though USB by using 'Startup Disk' in System Preferences. From my experience by burning the Sierra to a Dual Layer DVD and booting it with the 'C' key, graphics never initializes on anything older than 10.13 but this was on the 27" iMac. After what I have seen with the 770m and Windows (it recognizes the LCD as the first display) it could work. Web drivers could change this but you are relying on the Nvram to never be reset otherwise web drivers won't load=black screen.

 

[liquidtwitch]

https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/brightness-problem-with-gtx-765m-in-imac-11-1.251334/ interesting thread here: someone's got boot screen working on a 780m and an imac. No brightness control but the display is detecting as internal.

 

[highvoltage12v]

https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/brightness-problem-with-gtx-765m-in-imac-11-1.251334/ interesting thread here: someone's got boot screen working on a 780m and an imac. No brightness control but the display is detecting as internal.

That's usually how far we get on the 27" it' still because the DCB paths on the cards rom need to be altered themselves. I would like to see this work on the 21.5"/770m because the DCB tables are correct for the internal display and we have brightness control in Windows. I don't see anywhere that he has boot screens working though.

 

[FlorisVN]

Thanks for the input Render. FlorisVN had indicated that there was no need for drivers for Mojave, and that maybe it was better to leave them out of the changeover. I wonder it that's the case with x.9 also? Since you know more about it than I do, maybe you could tell me if there's an even better option for my setup. The 880 card was mentioned as a better, and I like better, but I was a little worried about the 100w power consumption. Any thoughts? Anything's better than another 6970m re-ball off ebay that will give me the same problems in 6 months, but I would like the best available option.

PS
Anybody have any thoughts on the "unbranded" nvidia cards that are available from china?

Yes i can indeed confirm that my Dell Alienware GTX765m works OOB and does not need extra Nvidia Web Drivers.
It can use the built in MacOS Nvidia Drivers just fine.
As far as I know, this is the same story for the Dell Alienware GTX780m, which others here have also confirmed working just fine...

I can test Mavericks for you in the future when I have some time, and I can let you know if it works with my GTX765m.
But I presume it will just work fine with the built in MacOS Nvidia Drivers..
remeber that iMac 2013 series, also use GTX700m series cards, so I presume the lowest MacOS version for a 2013 iMac with Nvidia GTX7xxm series cards will work..

For example, Late 2013 iMac series started to have GTX7xxm series cards, and lowest MacOS version for these iMac series is Mac OS X 10.8.4 Mountain Lion.
So 10.8.4 and up should work OOB, I presume....
[doublepost=1541962448][/doublepost]

https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/brightness-problem-with-gtx-765m-in-imac-11-1.251334/ interesting thread here: someone's got boot screen working on a 780m and an imac. No brightness control but the display is detecting as internal.

Interessating thread indeed.
But it looks like he is working on a working clover "hackintosh" bootloader bootscreen.
This is indeed progres which is great of course, but still I think the best bootscreen is a fully Apple EFI original bootscreen.

He did get his internal display showing as iMac screen which is also very nice..

 

[Redlight-Records]

Yes, you can use the NVIDIA card with Mavericks. There are several Nvidia web driver versions for Mavericks to download at https://www.tonymacx86.com/nvidia-drivers/

Ask whatever you need

I checked the nvidia site for the Mavericks drivers (GEFORCE MAC OS X DRIVER RELEASE 334.01.03)
but under "supported products" the GeForce GTX 680 was the latest supported under x.9.5. In fact it seemed to be the only card that had a Mavericks driver.

The 700 or 700M series was not listed and the 600M series was not listed either. I read another post of a successful 660M card install on the 2011 imac, but the poster didn't say which OS he was using. Sh*tballs.

Could Render or anybody else tell me for sure any differently or should I assume I've limited myself out of a NVIDIA gpu replacement while on Mavericks?

thanks to all for their shared knowledge.

Apple iMac "Core i7" 3.4 27-Inch (Mid-2011) -
AMD Radeon HD 6970M 1GB

 

[Render]

Thanks for the input Render. FlorisVN had indicated that there was no need for drivers for Mojave, and that maybe it was better to leave them out of the changeover. I wonder it that's the case with x.9 also? Since you know more about it than I do, maybe you could tell me if there's an even better option for my setup. The 880 card was mentioned as a better, and I like better, but I was a little worried about the 100w power consumption. Any thoughts? Anything's better than another 6970m re-ball off ebay that will give me the same problems in 6 months, but I would like the best available option.

PS
Anybody have any thoughts on the "unbranded" nvidia cards that are available from china?

Mavericks was released on 2013 so I guess OSX comes with nvidia drivers (same as Mojave and Sierra/High Sierra), I don't know if previous versions also does, probably yes. But the thing is: you have web drivers so you can be safe trying it even if it doesn't. On the other hand, if you plan to use CUDA, you will probably need web drivers anyway.

I've seen several successful 880M and 980M upgrades. GTX 980M is far better than 880M and it's about the same power consumption (100W), even better.
I've also seen that 2009, 2010 and 2011 iMacs 27" use the same power supply of (up to) 310W. Apple specs of our iMac model is not very detailed, it says that the machine draws 142W (idle) to 200W (CPU MAX), so there's still room for the increase (110W).
One guy states that the GTX980M's power consumption is very low, no overheating nor noisy fan problem in his iMac.
I bought one from Aliexpress last week so maybe next week I could tell you more

 

[Redlight-Records]

So lets say that there are more than a few poor 2011 iMac owners that for whatever reason either can't or won't go through with the bold move of installing an NVIDIA replacement. That leaves only one choice, right? get a re-ball off ebay. Which is not a comforting thought made even less comforting by the fact that for every listing, you're not entirely sure if it's:
1. an original card that's failed already and been baked.
2. an original card that hasn't failed. yet.
3. an Apple replacement card that's failed already and been baked.
4. an Apple replacement card that hasn't failed. yet.
5. an unbranded knockoff

Which leads me to some important questions.

A. Is there a way to tell the difference between the original 6970m's and the ones Apple supplied as part of their much-too-short recall? Or did they just replace a defective card with another identically defective card?

B. Is there a way to spot an unbranded knockoff?

I want to know:
are there certain makes of the 6970m cards that have a lower probability of failure?

Looking through pictures of 6907m listings on ebay you see some with the BLACKCOMB tag on the left or right in big or small text or not at all. Some have an additional HF / e l mark on there as well. As for the chip itself, some have a clear AMD brand silkscreened on them and some don't. Some are made on black, brown or even blue PC board. Some sellers include the tag "Bespoke" as part of the item information. All that I've seen have either 109-C9657-10 or 109-C9647-00 screened on them, but it doesn't differentiate the memory size so I'm not sure what the difference is.

Does anybody out there know what, exactly, a legitimate 6970m should/shouldn't look like? and if those markings and appearance could lead a buyer to get a make that had the best chance of survival.

I've posted some screen shots of some of the variances between card images. These are all listed as: APPLE IMAC 27" A1312 Mid 2011 RADEON HD 6970M 1GB GPU VIDEO CARD
except the last one listed as a 2GB

 

[Redlight-Records]

I appreciate the input from highvoltage12v FlorisVN and Render as I'm still trying to work out options to keep the iMac going.

In addition to yall's info, there's this:

I got this from an Apple Discussions page:

Mac OS X 10.9.5 includes a built-in driver for the GTX-680 as written by Apple. There is no separate Apple installer for the driver as it is built-in.

Nvidia do provide their own driver for Mac OS X 10.9.5. The exact link to click on depends on the exact build number of your version of OS X 10.9.5.

I have System Version: OS X 10.9.5 (13F34) so...

I followed the 10.9.5 334.01.03f01 (13F34) link on the MVC site and it seemed to me that while I could use the GTX-680 card, the GTX-680M card was unsupported (which doesn’t seem to stop you Hackintosh guys!)

The way I understood it, the card/s that have been working as a replacement for the 6970m were the “M” version of the NVIDIA cards. I have that right, yeah? I’m just trying to be super certain that I’m getting this right. I understand that with this kind of swap, there are going to be some hardware/software uncertainties, but you guys are illuminating the way.

I got this from another macrumors thread regarding NVIDIA cards and MacOS:

Here's a rough list of when new cards started working.

• GK110B (GTX 780, GTX 780 Ti etc) needs 10.9.2 and 331.01.01f01
• GM107 (GTX 750) and GM204 (GTX 970, GTX 980 etc) need 10.10 and 343.01.XX.XX

Note that these Maxwell GPUs will not work with the stock Apple drivers, so you must install the NVIDIA web driver first.

Above from:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/frequently-asked-questions-about-nvidia-pc-n on-efi-graphics-cards.1440150/

But you guys have sussed out that the "M" versions of the cards could/might/definitely? work.
So the NVIDIA card is still an option for a fool like me who wants to stay with Mavericks?

Are there concerns about voltage/heat issues with the cards?
If so the 660M(50watt) or the 765m(75w) would be my choices.
If that's not a concern, I could possibly go with the 680M(100watt) or the 775M(100 W), 780M(122 W)

Thanks a ton for your input. I do a lot of work on this machine, and paid a pretty penny for it, so you guys are helping in a big way.

 

[FlorisVN]

I appreciate the input from highvoltage12v FlorisVN and Render as I'm still trying to work out options to keep the iMac going.

In addition to yall's info, there's this:

I got this from an Apple Discussions page:

Mac OS X 10.9.5 includes a built-in driver for the GTX-680 as written by Apple. There is no separate Apple installer for the driver as it is built-in.

Nvidia do provide their own driver for Mac OS X 10.9.5. The exact link to click on depends on the exact build number of your version of OS X 10.9.5.

I have System Version: OS X 10.9.5 (13F34) so...

I followed the 10.9.5 334.01.03f01 (13F34) link on the MVC site and it seemed to me that while I could use the GTX-680 card, the GTX-680M card was unsupported (which doesn’t seem to stop you Hackintosh guys!)

The way I understood it, the card/s that have been working as a replacement for the 6970m were the “M” version of the NVIDIA cards. I have that right, yeah? I’m just trying to be super certain that I’m getting this right. I understand that with this kind of swap, there are going to be some hardware/software uncertainties, but you guys are illuminating the way.

I got this from another macrumors thread regarding NVIDIA cards and MacOS:

Here's a rough list of when new cards started working.

• GK110B (GTX 780, GTX 780 Ti etc) needs 10.9.2 and 331.01.01f01
• GM107 (GTX 750) and GM204 (GTX 970, GTX 980 etc) need 10.10 and 343.01.XX.XX

Note that these Maxwell GPUs will not work with the stock Apple drivers, so you must install the NVIDIA web driver first.

Above from:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/frequently-asked-questions-about-nvidia-pc-n on-efi-graphics-cards.1440150/

But you guys have sussed out that the "M" versions of the cards could/might/definitely? work.
So the NVIDIA card is still an option for a fool like me who wants to stay with Mavericks?

Are there concerns about voltage/heat issues with the cards?
If so the 660M(50watt) or the 765m(75w) would be my choices.
If that's not a concern, I could possibly go with the 680M(100watt) or the 775M(100 W), 780M(122 W)

Thanks a ton for your input. I do a lot of work on this machine, and paid a pretty penny for it, so you guys are helping in a big way.

Please read my post again above..
I presume GTX765m and GTX780m should work OOB with MacOS X 10.8.4 and above.
Since iMac's 2013 series had GTX7xxm cards in them, they also use built in MacOS nvidia Drivers..

 

[zackkmac]

I’ve been reading several pages into this thread so forgive me if I’ve missed official confirmation on this - would the GTX980m work on a 2010 iMac albeit with a modified heatsink and loss of boot screen/brightness controls? I know I saw that a 780m would, but if I’m taking this project on I definitely want the best card I can get.

 

[FlorisVN]

I’ve been reading several pages into this thread so forgive me if I’ve missed official confirmation on this - would the GTX980m work on a 2010 iMac albeit with a modified heatsink and loss of boot screen/brightness controls? I know I saw that a 780m would, but if I’m taking this project on I definitely want the best card I can get.

As far as I know, GTX980m or 970m have been reported NOT working.
For as far I know, Only EXTERNAL display works, but not the internal iMac display.
This is I think due to DCB table misss match in the video card bios..

Also GTX880m have been reported here before, not working and only gives a black screen.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/2011-imac-graphics-card-upgrade.1596614/page-30#post-24954617

Altough this iFixit post gives different result.
I suppose these are different cards used here, for example a Dell Alienware version on iFixit, and a non Dell Alienware version from a user here on MR.


Personaly I would strongly advice upgrade to a GTX765m or a GTX780m, since these are known working cards.
Also go for the Dell Alienware version, since these bios versions have the highest succes rate..
I presume iMac 2009/2010 should also work fine with these cards, but some modding on the heatsink and x-clamp will be necessary I think..
[doublepost=1542036229][/doublepost]I'm about to create a custom air duct this week.
Special made for the HDD fan, to cover the backside of the vram chips of our Nvidia MXM cards.

example from another user below, to make the picture more clear of what I am talking about.
this topic here got me inspired of creating such a hardware piece for the air cooling :
https://forum.lowyat.net/topic/3590782/all

I was wondering if anybody here is interessted in such a piece of modded hardware ?
if so I'm planning it for sale...

 

[zackkmac]

Personaly I would strongly advice upgrade to a GTX765m or a GTX780m, since these are known working cards.
Also go for the Dell Alienware version, since these bios versions have the highest succes rate..
I presume iMac 2009/2010 should also work fine with these cards, but some modding on the heatsink and x-clamp will be necessary I think..

Gotcha, I think I will play it safe with a 780m unless I find a killer deal on an Alienware 880m, I did find that iFixit post you were referencing where someone got it to work on their 2011 and I assume a 2010 would be no different. But it would have to be the right price for me, I'm not sure how much better it is over a 780m anyway.

I was wondering if anybody here is interessted in such a piece of modded hardware ?
if so I'm planning it for sale...

I would be interested for sure.

 

[Redlight-Records]

So after much consideration I’m going to go for it and do the NVIDIA card for my iMac. The users on this forum have strengthened my resolve. I don’t really know sh*t about modding these machines (I actually got a Mac so I wouldn’t have to tinker with it) But getting the 6970m out to bake it wasn’t too bad and since there’s really only re-balled AMD’s as my other option I’ll figure out a way to mod the heat sink, deal with no boot screen and bask in the fiery glow of full on screen brightness . The only other question remains is:

What exact GTX card will be best? I settled on the GTX 765m as the replacement of choice, since it has the same power draw as the 6970, and I’m not much of a gamer (my 6970m was a 1gb and that was fine for the occasional game of Black Ops) But the 765m comes with a few different identifiers and I’m really hoping ya’ll could help me weed out models that might not work with my rig.
Here are some of the brand/mpn/comaptibility identifiers from ebay seller:

They’re all Dell Alienware GTX765m 2gb GDDR5
and most are tagged as 17 18 M17x M18X with a mpn 9R3F5

Some have the extra tag of M17X R5 - M18X R3
and a couple say M17x R5 Ranger with mpn 5YPW3
There are a couple that say they’re 17R1 or 18R1
and some with a Clevo compatibility designation.

One listing had this note: NOTICE: the card can be used with an iMAC, but we don`t provide any support for it and don`t accept any return or refund if you use it with an iMAC.
Buyer should clearly know that before purchase, thanks.

If one of you kind mac experts could give some advice on narrowing down my choice to the “life preserver” model, I really would be grateful.
Here’s all my specs for the machine I hope to save:

Model Name: iMac 27-inch, Mid 2011
Model Identifier: iMac12,2
Processor Name: Intel Core i7
Processor Speed: 3.4 GHz
Number of Processors: 1
Total Number of Cores: 4
L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB
L3 Cache: 8 MB
Memory: 16 GB
Boot ROM Version: IM121.004D.B00
SMC Version (system): 1.72f1

Chipset Model: AMD Radeon HD 6970M
Type: GPU
Bus: PCIe
PCIe Lane Width: x16
VRAM (Total): 1024 MB
Vendor: ATI (0x1002)
Device ID: 0x6720
Revision ID: 0x0000
ROM Revision: 113-C2960H-203
EFI Driver Version: 01.00.560
I’m running Mavericks x.9.5 build 334.01.03f01 (13F34)

 

[Mr-Mur]

I modded my 780M like this

 

[MarshallH]

So back in September I installed K3000M's in two different 2011 27" iMacs, currently they are working great, running on El Capitan. My cards do not however have metal support. My question, is there any chance that I will ever be able to install Mojave?
@wiruzdk said he has metal support on a K3000M, but he has not yet told anyone what VBios his card is running.

Thanks

 

[highvoltage12v]

I tried to boot 10.9.5 Mavericks through Target Disk Mode off a 2009 Mac mini and it never booted, Kept on restarting after a few minutes. I'll try web drivers, but for that to work you have to write the older command to the iMacs NVRAM

Edit: web drivers didn't work, here is the screen shot of the panic.

 

[Render]

I've been away for a few days and I see that this has been animated!

I didn't know that the successful upgrades of 980M were only with external display, it's not what I understood from HERE or from HERE. In any case I have asked for the cancellation of the Aliexpress order and luckily I got it, no 980M for now. Maybe I went a bit fast without having studied the thing enough.

@Redlight-Records, I didn't see your previous post when I wrote my last one, nor the one from @FlorisVN something weird happened. In any case, to clarify some things you have asked:
Reball a GPU is simply to re-solder the microprocessor to the PCB, the name comes from the small tin balls that are placed between the micro and PCB, to later heat it and leave it welded. By the way, it's a scam. The problem is not found in these joints but inside the GPU, the only reason why it apparently works, is because the same heat required for reballing, causes a reflow, like the one you do with the oven or with a heat-gun.
The only ATI purchase that I would consider is the one that Rominator commented on one occasion, he mentioned that there were Chinese who were cloning the original ATI ROMs from Apple's ATI on PC cards, I think that by changing the EEPROM for a bigger one. But I've never seen them advertised on Aliexpress, in theory they sell them as new and original from Apple.

Interessating thread indeed.
But it looks like he is working on a working clover "hackintosh" bootloader bootscreen.
This is indeed progres which is great of course, but still I think the best bootscreen is a fully Apple EFI original bootscreen.

It seems like, what I was trying with rEFInd, can be done with Clover after all. Even if it's far from a native bootscreen it's better than nothing and it's worth trying! I will!

@FlorisVN Since I saw that same fan duct post, I decided to design one to print it, It's waiting in my todo list

I modded my 780M like this
View attachment 803747

Be careful that the bottom of the heatsink doesn't touch the screw of the logic board. I have them done individually for each RAM module and I had to remove it from the first RAM module since it was quite pressure.

 

[Redlight-Records]

I tried to boot 10.9.5 Mavericks through Target Disk Mode off a 2009 Mac mini and it never booted, Kept on restarting after a few minutes. I'll try web drivers, but for that to work you have to write the older command to the iMacs NVRAM

Edit: web drivers didn't work, here is the screen shot of the panic.

Is that with the 770m?
Where do you get the Mavericks web drivers? The only x.9 drivers I saw listed on geforce site were for the 600 series. I couldn't find anything for any of the "M" series cards.
I did follow the link on the tonymac86 site and downloaded the linked file
334.01.03f01 OS X 10.9.5 Mavericks (13F34) 40958160

but since I don't know **** about shinola about all this I assumed it was some CUDA related stuff which got me all mixed up. (me=noob) The file I downloaded is WebDriver-334.01.03f01.pkg
Is that the file for regular Joe's like me, or some Hackintosh trickery?
[doublepost=1542161311][/doublepost]

The only ATI purchase that I would consider is the one that Rominator commented on one occasion, he mentioned that there were Chinese who were cloning the original ATI ROMs from Apple's ATI on PC cards, I think that by changing the EEPROM for a bigger one. But I've never seen them advertised on Aliexpress, in theory they sell them as new and original from Apple.

Any way to I.D. them from markings or appearance? The ATI's are interchangeable with the ADM's? Again, the very little I now know about graphics cards is what I've picked up from this thread, so forgive any blatant ignorance...

 

[coolbits]

It seems like, what I was trying with rEFInd, can be done with Clover after all. Even if it's far from a native bootscreen it's better than nothing and it's worth trying! I will!

I never said i have any kind of bootscreen working - no bootscreen! sorry

 

[FlorisVN]

Is that with the 770m?
Where do you get the Mavericks web drivers? The only x.9 drivers I saw listed on geforce site were for the 600 series. I couldn't find anything for any of the "M" series cards.
I did follow the link on the tonymac86 site and downloaded the linked file
334.01.03f01 OS X 10.9.5 Mavericks (13F34) 40958160

but since I don't know **** about shinola about all this I assumed it was some CUDA related stuff which got me all mixed up. (me=noob) The file I downloaded is WebDriver-334.01.03f01.pkg
Is that the file for regular Joe's like me, or some Hackintosh trickery?
[doublepost=1542161311][/doublepost]
Any way to I.D. them from markings or appearance? The ATI's are interchangeable with the ADM's? Again, the very little I now know about graphics cards is what I've picked up from this thread, so forgive any blatant ignorance...

as far as I know.
The Nvidia webdrivers work on more nvidia cards than Nvidia officialy shows on their web page..
So mobile series and pascal cards for example use the same nvidia webdriver, but are not listed on the nvidia website.
This might be confusing for a beginner...

But as highvoltage12v stated, his GTX780m did not work with MacOS X Mavericks 10.9.5
I can test my GTX765m with Mavericks for you, when I have some spare time...
[doublepost=1542192159][/doublepost]

I've been away for a few days and I see that this has been animated!

I didn't know that the successful upgrades of 980M were only with external display, it's not what I understood from HERE or from HERE. In any case I have asked for the cancellation of the Aliexpress order and luckily I got it, no 980M for now. Maybe I went a bit fast without having studied the thing enough.

@Redlight-Records, I didn't see your previous post when I wrote my last one, nor the one from @FlorisVN something weird happened. In any case, to clarify some things you have asked:
Reball a GPU is simply to re-solder the microprocessor to the PCB, the name comes from the small tin balls that are placed between the micro and PCB, to later heat it and leave it welded. By the way, it's a scam. The problem is not found in these joints but inside the GPU, the only reason why it apparently works, is because the same heat required for reballing, causes a reflow, like the one you do with the oven or with a heat-gun.
The only ATI purchase that I would consider is the one that Rominator commented on one occasion, he mentioned that there were Chinese who were cloning the original ATI ROMs from Apple's ATI on PC cards, I think that by changing the EEPROM for a bigger one. But I've never seen them advertised on Aliexpress, in theory they sell them as new and original from Apple.



It seems like, what I was trying with rEFInd, can be done with Clover after all. Even if it's far from a native bootscreen it's better than nothing and it's worth trying! I will!

@FlorisVN Since I saw that same fan duct post, I decided to design one to print it, It's waiting in my todo list


Be careful that the bottom of the heatsink doesn't touch the screw of the logic board. I have them done individually for each RAM module and I had to remove it from the first RAM module since it was quite pressure.

My conclusion is that his GTX980m does not work with internal display, since the screenshots only show an external Dell monitor in system profiler..
This made me think that he uses an external Dell monitor.
He first used an Dell U2713HM Monitor, and later he upgrade to an Dell UP3216Q 4K Monitor.
There is no iMac display visible in his pictures he posted, this made me think only external monitor output is working on his GTX980m.
[doublepost=1542192343][/doublepost]

I've been away for a few days and I see that this has been animated!

I didn't know that the successful upgrades of 980M were only with external display, it's not what I understood from HERE or from HERE. In any case I have asked for the cancellation of the Aliexpress order and luckily I got it, no 980M for now. Maybe I went a bit fast without having studied the thing enough.

@Redlight-Records, I didn't see your previous post when I wrote my last one, nor the one from @FlorisVN something weird happened. In any case, to clarify some things you have asked:
Reball a GPU is simply to re-solder the microprocessor to the PCB, the name comes from the small tin balls that are placed between the micro and PCB, to later heat it and leave it welded. By the way, it's a scam. The problem is not found in these joints but inside the GPU, the only reason why it apparently works, is because the same heat required for reballing, causes a reflow, like the one you do with the oven or with a heat-gun.
The only ATI purchase that I would consider is the one that Rominator commented on one occasion, he mentioned that there were Chinese who were cloning the original ATI ROMs from Apple's ATI on PC cards, I think that by changing the EEPROM for a bigger one. But I've never seen them advertised on Aliexpress, in theory they sell them as new and original from Apple.



It seems like, what I was trying with rEFInd, can be done with Clover after all. Even if it's far from a native bootscreen it's better than nothing and it's worth trying! I will!

@FlorisVN Since I saw that same fan duct post, I decided to design one to print it, It's waiting in my todo list


Be careful that the bottom of the heatsink doesn't touch the screw of the logic board. I have them done individually for each RAM module and I had to remove it from the first RAM module since it was quite pressure.

I was also planning to do this, and create seperate 1mm copper plates, for each ram module individual.
Then put a custom air duct over them, using the HDD fan to cool them..
As far as I can remember 1mm copper is advised to use, not thicker.. ?

 

[Render]

Any way to I.D. them from markings or appearance? The ATI's are interchangeable with the ADM's? Again, the very little I now know about graphics cards is what I've picked up from this thread, so forgive any blatant ignorance...

Sorry, I meant AMD, not ATI. Anyway they are both the same company so...

I never said i have any kind of bootscreen working - no bootscreen! sorry

No, I didn't say you did, I was refering to that guy on tonymacx86. I've understood that he managed to boot with bootscreen modifying the DSDT ("No more black screen and dither is enabled which is nice, all options are visible in ioreg and so valid.").
Dudes, I'm sorry for my horrible english and my constant misunderstandings with translations

As far as I can remember 1mm copper is advised to use, not thicker.. ?

Mine is 0.8mm (copper) + thermal tape = 0.95mm. So yes, 1mm is the max thickness and it's fine for the rest of the pieces but the lower one rubs with the screw. I didn't realize this until one of the thousand times that I removed the card and the piece of copper was completely detached and scratched.

I don't think it's problematic either. It could be covered with Kapton tape (or any thermal tape) to isolate it electrically, although receiving some pressure will do its function without problems.

On the other hand I think what most affects heat dissipation is the thermal paste that is used. I use Arctic Silver Ceramique 2 for the GPU and K5-PRO for the RAM and other components that make contact with the heatsink.

 

[coolbits]

No, I didn't say you did, I was refering to that guy on tonymacx86. I've understood that he managed to boot with bootscreen modifying the DSDT ("No more black screen and dither is enabled which is nice, all options are visible in ioreg and so valid.").

That guy is me, black screen was in OSX after already booted and before i switched board-id.
That is the only fixed black screen

 

[Render]

So, nice to me you, guy from the outer space!
Ok, I misunderstood it, no bootscreen with Clover neither

 

[liquidtwitch]

Probably a very dumb thought, but I wonder if anyone with the know how has looked at the dcb tables on the GT130 that was in the Apple iMac 24" A1225 (https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/66067/66067).

I'm guessing that as they're not kepler based the architecture is completely different but I figured it would be worth raising.

 

[FlorisVN]

Sorry, I meant AMD, not ATI. Anyway they are both the same company so...



No, I didn't say you did, I was refering to that guy on tonymacx86. I've understood that he managed to boot with bootscreen modifying the DSDT ("No more black screen and dither is enabled which is nice, all options are visible in ioreg and so valid.").
Dudes, I'm sorry for my horrible english and my constant misunderstandings with translations



Mine is 0.8mm (copper) + thermal tape = 0.95mm. So yes, 1mm is the max thickness and it's fine for the rest of the pieces but the lower one rubs with the screw. I didn't realize this until one of the thousand times that I removed the card and the piece of copper was completely detached and scratched.

I don't think it's problematic either. It could be covered with Kapton tape (or any thermal tape) to isolate it electrically, although receiving some pressure will do its function without problems.

On the other hand I think what most affects heat dissipation is the thermal paste that is used. I use Arctic Silver Ceramique 2 for the GPU and K5-PRO for the RAM and other components that make contact with the heatsink.

Thanks for your info about the copper size and everything !
I still recommend K4/K5 pro, I think its better than Artic Silver Ceramique, K4/K5 is also specialy tested and also made for iMac MXM cards.

Info can be found here for example :
http://www.computer-systems.gr/en/content/product/k5-pro-k4-pro-set