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

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Bit of an update on upgrading my 2011 21.5" iMac with a K3000m, had to load the Mac Fan app to get the temp control to work right, sleep does not work (probably due to the Xeon upgrade) but did notice the color depth problem. Someone wrote an app that could be run at startup to fix that on this thread but when I tried that it gimped the graphic performance (heaven bench went from 24 to 8 so about 1/3 the performance) so have resigned myself to just changing the screen resolution as the fix for that.

Did the dosdude1 Catalina patch to upgrade the OS and worked great, did not need to use an open core loader at all and as far as I can tell everything is working (except sleep). I did have one instance where the Mac suddenly shutdown though but have not been able to repeat that so not sure what is going on with that. I also looked at the ROM with the Nvidia Kelper tool and tried changing the clocks and voltages back to stock setting just to see what would happen and performance dropped a little over 1/2 so went back to the ROM settings, I might dial back the settings if heat gets to be a problem but right now running the benchmarks the GPU does not get over 70 (but max fan speed is a bit noisy). Thanks to all the experts on here would not have been able to do this without that.
 
Anyone seen this cable before? Its from a 2011 27" iMac, 2 pipe heatsink. It connects directly into this unlabelled connector on the logic board. I've taken apart a few iMacs before, but i never seen this cable, it always coming from the display and connects to the LED backlight board.

tempImageVmWjlr.png

tempImageJcSgm6.png
 
passatgt said:
Anyone seen this cable before? Its from a 2011 27" iMac, 2 pipe heatsink. It connects directly into this unlabelled connector on the logic board. I've taken apart a few iMacs before, but i never seen this cable, it always coming from the display and connects to the LED backlight board.

View attachment 1748205

View attachment 1748206
Click to expand...
The top left is connected to the VSYNC, which should be connected to the back side of the screen...
 
Hello everyone,

I've been reworking the K3100M ROM and the related blackscreen issue/boot loop issue that some of you have been dealing with. As @Ausdauersportler mentioned, it could be related to an interaction between the bootrom and the efi driver. Apple added a security update, 2020-005 and then 2020-006 which could be breaking some compatibility at least in the IM12,2 (2011) generation, although they kept the same bootrom version after the 2020-006 update:
Bootrom: 87.0.0.0.0
SMC version: 1.72f2

I'm currently running my modded rom in a test machine (iMac 27", 2011, High Sierra 10.13.6)
It is working well, no black screen upon driver initialization now and login screen should be present upon reboots.
It survives a PRAM reset as well
I added this line to the AppleGraphicsDevicePolicy.kext under the ConfigMap key:
Code: 
<key>Mac-942B59F58194171B</key>
<string>none</string>
but I'm not sure it is necessary for High Sierra.

Anyhow, the results are very encouraging:
K3100M_V3_Screen Shot 2021-03-23 at 5.52.37 PM.png
If a few others who own a K3100M could test the ROM out on a 2011 machine (or other machines), I'd appreciate the feedback. As far as I can tell, it should work well with the -BFR and/or -AFR variants, but I could be wrong. I'll update the main K3100M rom page with the new ROM to keep our iMacs working "insanely great!"
Enjoy!

**update**
4-22-2021 - [K3100M_V4.rom] Updated rom to allow for Elpida memory to be used.
 

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Hey hey so I've just finished flashing and ran heaven benchmark with good results on 780m...however the temperature in heaven registers as 129 degrees c... I know there's temp sensor issues but I'm surprised by this so just wondered if it is normal?

20210323_225042.jpg
 
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nikey22 said:
Hello everyone,

I've been reworking the K3100M ROM and the related blackscreen issue/boot loop issue that some of you have been dealing with. As @Ausdauersportler mentioned, it could be related to an interaction between the bootrom and the efi driver. Apple added a security update, 2020-005 and then 2020-006 which could be breaking some compatibility at least in the IM12,2 (2011) generation, although they kept the same bootrom version after the 2020-006 update:
Bootrom: 87.0.0.0.0
SMC version: 1.72f2

I'm currently running my modded rom in a test machine (iMac 27", 2011, High Sierra 10.13.6)
It is working well, no black screen upon driver initialization now and login screen should be present upon reboots.
It survives a PRAM reset as well
I added this line to the AppleGraphicsDevicePolicy.kext under the ConfigMap key:
Code: 
<key>Mac-942B59F58194171B</key>
<string>none</string>
but I'm not sure it is necessary for High Sierra.

Anyhow, the results are very encouraging:
View attachment 1748221
If a few others who own a K3100M could test the ROM out on a 2011 machine (or other machines), I'd appreciate the feedback. As far as I can tell, it should work well with the -BFR and/or -AFR variants, but I could be wrong. I'll update the main K3100M rom page with the new ROM to keep our iMacs working "insanely great!"
Enjoy!
Click to expand...
Hello. I have gathered two k3100m, one AFR from Dell m6800 and a BFR from HP Zbook g2. Flashed with the proper bioses did not work on my 2009 27" i5 machine. I have no 2011 to test ATM though. Also tried to fix the base / 3d / boost entries (wich are always reversed for some reason on your bioses?) no luck. They do display OS on the DP out.
I can test these rom whenever i have time in the future if you need feedback on the 2009 machine, even thought i do not think it's useful for you. I can also have you connect to my machine, it's running HS with the latest updates installed (so should run a proper bootrom). Thanks for the update.
 
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passatgt said:
Yes, i know, thats what i mean. In this iMac, it is connected to the logic board. Theres no vsync cable on the display :)
Click to expand...
Indeed odd, and not like either of my 2011 27" iMacs. That inverter board does not have the "standard" four pin connector I'm use to seeing. Here is a picture from inside of "SCOOBERT", which is the last iMac I had apart. It shows the inverter and PS, and the inverter board is clearly different than yours. Wouldn't think 2-pipe vs. 3-pipe would make a difference but perhaps it does.
 

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nikey22 said:
Hello everyone,

I've been reworking the K3100M ROM and the related blackscreen issue/boot loop issue that some of you have been dealing with. As @Ausdauersportler mentioned, it could be related to an interaction between the bootrom and the efi driver. Apple added a security update, 2020-005 and then 2020-006 which could be breaking some compatibility at least in the IM12,2 (2011) generation, although they kept the same bootrom version after the 2020-006 update:
Bootrom: 87.0.0.0.0
SMC version: 1.72f2

I'm currently running my modded rom in a test machine (iMac 27", 2011, High Sierra 10.13.6)
It is working well, no black screen upon driver initialization now and login screen should be present upon reboots.
It survives a PRAM reset as well
I added this line to the AppleGraphicsDevicePolicy.kext under the ConfigMap key:
Code: 
<key>Mac-942B59F58194171B</key>
<string>none</string>
but I'm not sure it is necessary for High Sierra.

Anyhow, the results are very encouraging:
View attachment 1748221
If a few others who own a K3100M could test the ROM out on a 2011 machine (or other machines), I'd appreciate the feedback. As far as I can tell, it should work well with the -BFR and/or -AFR variants, but I could be wrong. I'll update the main K3100M rom page with the new ROM to keep our iMacs working "insanely great!"
Enjoy!
Click to expand...
Hey @nikey2I Will test it tomorrow. I have one imac 27 late 2011 facing issues and will try if this new rom worked for me.
I will let you know..thanks mate for all your effort and support
Best regards,
 
nikey22 said:
Hello everyone,

I've been reworking the K3100M ROM and the related blackscreen issue/boot loop issue that some of you have been dealing with. As @Ausdauersportler mentioned, it could be related to an interaction between the bootrom and the efi driver. Apple added a security update, 2020-005 and then 2020-006 which could be breaking some compatibility at least in the IM12,2 (2011) generation, although they kept the same bootrom version after the 2020-006 update:
Bootrom: 87.0.0.0.0
SMC version: 1.72f2

I'm currently running my modded rom in a test machine (iMac 27", 2011, High Sierra 10.13.6)
It is working well, no black screen upon driver initialization now and login screen should be present upon reboots.
It survives a PRAM reset as well
I added this line to the AppleGraphicsDevicePolicy.kext under the ConfigMap key:
Code: 
<key>Mac-942B59F58194171B</key>
<string>none</string>
but I'm not sure it is necessary for High Sierra.

Anyhow, the results are very encouraging:
View attachment 1748221
If a few others who own a K3100M could test the ROM out on a 2011 machine (or other machines), I'd appreciate the feedback. As far as I can tell, it should work well with the -BFR and/or -AFR variants, but I could be wrong. I'll update the main K3100M rom page with the new ROM to keep our iMacs working "insanely great!"
Enjoy!
Click to expand...
Hey, I will also test this tomorrow, I'll try and flash the card again without the display attached as this is the only time it doesn't get into the bootloop, I'll post everything here, thanks a lot!
 
BadBiscuit said:
Indeed odd, and not like either of my 2011 27" iMacs. That inverter board does not have the "standard" four pin connector I'm use to seeing. Here is a picture from inside of "SCOOBERT", which is the last iMac I had apart. It shows the inverter and PS, and the inverter board is clearly different than yours. Wouldn't think 2-pipe vs. 3-pipe would make a difference but perhaps it does.
Click to expand...
This is mine. Its not even 4 pin.

image.jpg
 
globetribe said:
Are you able to boot on High Sierra without Catalina loader and second screen ?
Click to expand...
with CL I am able to boot with one of my internal HDD which has 10.11 (attached) but I can not boot with HS in ssd as the display breaks. Can I option + boot to avoid CL and see or will I loose the CL boot too that way.

Edit: I removed the CL USB and booted to a black screen. With and without option pressed.

In CL I selected Pre-Boot (HS in SSD)and it also went to black screen towards end of startup progress bar.

I plugged the USB back and booted and got CL boot screen.

Stuck in the loop....
 

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The_Croupier said:
[
Do you know the history of the iMac?
Perhaps the board was pulled from a different model?
Maybe you got some sort of prototype model that a apple employee sold?
Click to expand...
As far as i know it was a company machine and it was never serviced before. It's the base model, so not a CTO. But i just googled the part number and looks like some of these imacs had an 8pin vsync cable that connects to the logic board instead of the display. Anyway, its interesting :) At least i know what this unlabelled connector does on the logic board, i always wondered about the use of that.
 
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Ausdauersportler said:
I have seen this with K3000M and once with a K3100M and one K41000M card not willing to work in a series of iMac 2011 27 systems but after doing testing and changing I found at last a single working combination!

Unfortunately it was no my system and I forgot to mark the firmware dump - so I do not know where so search now for a difference.

Normally I try hard to upgrade all iMacs I touch to the latest firmware/SMC release.
Click to expand...
I've asked my friend for a rom dump, and compared it to my own iMac 27 rom dump (hexdump and diff).

Both systems are 87.0.0.0.0, mine smc 1.72f2, my friend smc 1.72f5

To my surprise there are large differences in the rom dumps (I expected just a few bytes of serial numbers and so).

Is it possible same boot rom versions are not really the same? If so, maybe that's related to the problem some 2011 iMacs seem to have with some cards, while they seem to work in others.
 
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Hi everyone

Just received my amd wx4130! I will be installing it into my 27” iMac mid 2011 today. Wish me luck:)

greetings

sieuwe
 

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Hello there. What about installation of MXM 3B R9 M290X in iMac Late 2009 with Core i5-750? I saw nothing about vintage AMD cards on first GCN (in particular, tremont) in this thread and i want to know is it possible and what problems will i probably face. So, what do you think?
 
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