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

[bluecrowHH]

Hey guys i managed to get into OS High Sierra with the old HDD. Nonetheless with all other SSDs including a fresh install of High Sierra i get a black screen internal and external. What am i doing wrong. I tried to understand the kext update part but i really dont get those posts....any hint? (Wx4130)
Thanks and best wishes!

I still dont understand what caused my problems but a fresh install on my 2011 Imac solved the problem. For now a big THANK YOU ALL! Next step is getting win10 running. :9

 

[Umarx]

I still dont understand what caused my problems but a fresh install on my 2011 Imac solved the problem. For now a big THANK YOU ALL! Next step is getting win10 running. :9

BRAVO!! that's a tough one!

 

[dksp]

@bluecrowHH: Nice, but in your screenshot it says "mid-2010", not 2011

Could you post some benchmarks with your RX 460 card?
I have the same iMac with the same processor upgrade, but with a Quadro K2100M.

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

Yes I did, with the card not flashed it boots into HS and everything works well! But I can't manage to flash it

As you have managed to get the iMac to boot with High Sierra and the unflashed video card. I would suggest some options below:
1. Try to boot with a Windows volume (Windows 7 PE USB/CD, Hiren boot CD etc.) and do the flash on the iMac itself, no need to remote.
2. Plug in the Linux USB to see if it is recognized from HS as a bootable device. If not, you would have to reformat, remake the USB. The USB must be formatted in GPT + FAT32, not HFS or APFS... if you can't select the USB as the boot device in System Preference, then the USB is not bootable.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

@bluecrowHH: Nice, but in your screenshot it says "mid-2010", not 2011

Could you post some benchmarks with your RX 460 card?
I have the same iMac with the same processor upgrade, but with a Quadro K2100M.

Did you check the first post and the performance section?

 

[dannyp881]

You seem to have to put "./" before "nvflash_linux".

I finally succeeded.. thank you very much for your help.

 

[Johnny Sanzimippi]

Hi guys,

Thanks to precious infos found in post #1 and throughout the whole thread, I successfully managed to flash an NVIDIA Quadro K1100M into my iMac 21.5" Mid 2010, using the very neat Linux USB method. Boot menu now works as intended.
I then formatted my 250GB SSD into 50GB to keep High Sierra on, and 200GB to install Big Sur.

I first tried with MicropatcherAutomator, but ended up with a system with no Ethernet, no Wi-Fi and no sound, even after patches applied.
I then wiped the partition, reformatted the drive and made a new USB installer using iMac Micropatcher, which gave me a fully working Big Sur installation with Wi-Fi, Ethernet, sound and brightness control with OpenCore.

I then tried to do some benchmarks to share with you my results and... oh boy, they're... bad. In fact they're not just bad, they're TERRIBLE, and I have no clue why!

On recommended settings I got 164 with 3.9FPS average on Unigine Valley, and in Geekbench 5 it literally crashed during compute Metal test, didn't even managed to complete it... In OpenGL compute I got the amazing score of 308...

Prior to flash the card, a GeekBench 5 compute test under Metal gave me a promising score of 1695, now it just crashes.

Do you guys have any tip to gave me to solve this problem? Other than that, everything seems to works smoothly, I can play 4K videos in YouTube with no frames lost, I really don't know why my scores on benchmarks are so, so bad.

Also, after first Big Sur installation, I can no longer boot into my USB installer plugged in the computer. If I try, Ialways end up with a sad dark-grey background with mouse, and nothing else. No inputs, no GUI, nothing. And it stays like this until I power it off.

Is it normal? Never read of it here. Can it be related to the fact that I have High Sierra in HFS+ living together with APFS Big Sur on the same drive?

Any help would be really appreciated...

P.S. attached my results and configuration

 

[dksp]

Did you check the first post and the performance section?

Yes. But I didn't see any i7-860S with the WX4130… or am I looking wrong?

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Hi guys,

Also, after first Big Sur installation, I can no longer boot into my USB installer plugged in the computer. If I try, Ialways end up with a sad dark-grey background with mouse, and nothing else. No inputs, no GUI, nothing. And it stays like this until I power it off.

Is it normal? Never read of it here. Can it be related to the fact that I have High Sierra in HFS+ living together with APFS Big Sur on the same drive?

Guess you should simply read the iMac micropatcher docs carefully:

• Instead of install-setvars.sh all users of iMacs Late 2009, Mid 2010, and Mid 2011 using metal GPU have use the install-opencore.sh command in the very same way as described above. It will install a preconfigured opencore using the @khronokernel patch to boot iMac Late 2009, Mid 2010 as well as all MacBookPro 6,x models (2011). This version is needed only during installation and has to be changed later using config-opencore.sh after step 15. Whenever you want to use the USB installer to do a fresh installation repeat this step 7 and do a PRAM reset to delete the old OpenCore settings from the NVRAM.

 

[passatgt]

Since i'm using an RX460 now, i can sell my 4gb 780M. It is already flashed and copper shims are on the back side, ready to be used with a 3 pipe heatsink. I bought it for $150 2 years ago, so its $130 + shipping(which is around 25-30$ in Europe). If anyone wants it, send me a message.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Yes. But I didn't see any i7-860S with the WX4130… or am I looking wrong?

This is a GPU benchmark (which unfortunately depends slightly on the CPU, too, only a few percent). So you can happily assume the card will perform with an i7-860S on the same level as with the i7-860 from in the 27" Mid 2010.

 

[bluecrowHH]

...after flashing my card I had to reset the PRAM to get my display to work. Then I had to install the patches which are linked from page 1 under the section about black screen.

Wich patches exactly did you install and how? For me the first post ist not really easy to transcript on my problem. Currently my machine is just working with the displayport connection to another screen. If i boot without this i get a black screen. Do I need to install opencore, change the kext (how to do that, i dont understand those posts and links) or smth. else? Thank you!

 

[bluecrowHH]

@bluecrowHH: Nice, but in your screenshot it says "mid-2010", not 2011

Could you post some benchmarks with your RX 460 card?
I have the same iMac with the same processor upgrade, but with a Quadro K2100M.

Surely i can run a benchmark. Is it possible under High sierra? Well I installed High Sierra onto the harddrive in my 2011 because I couldnt get it done in any way with my 2010. Sadly the 2011 doesnt recognize the RX460 wich was my original target...

 

[Johnny Sanzimippi]

Guess you should simply read the iMac micropatcher docs carefully:

• Instead of install-setvars.sh all users of iMacs Late 2009, Mid 2010, and Mid 2011 using metal GPU have use the install-opencore.sh command in the very same way as described above. It will install a preconfigured opencore using the @khronokernel patch to boot iMac Late 2009, Mid 2010 as well as all MacBookPro 6,x models (2011). This version is needed only during installation and has to be changed later using config-opencore.sh after step 15. Whenever you want to use the USB installer to do a fresh installation repeat this step 7 and do a PRAM reset to delete the old OpenCore settings from the NVRAM.

Thanks for your quick reply.

Of course I followed very carefully all steps, so used install-opencore.sh command in step 7, and after step 15 I also changed the version using config-opencore.sh.
Maybe something wrong during these two operations, I suppose.

So you suggest to re-launch install-opencore.sh, then do a couple of PRAM resets and try to boot again from USB installer in order to re-install a fresh copy of Big Sur?

 

[dksp]

There are differences, the screen size seems to affect frame rate.
i7-860S and i7-860 are not the same processors, the S is a low power variant and should normally be slower.

I see 27" i7-860 with K2100M at ~22-23 fps. And 21.5" i7-860S with K2100M at ~29 fps.

I was just curious how the ATI works on this platform.

 

[dksp]

Surely i can run a benchmark. Is it possible under High sierra? Well I installed High Sierra onto the harddrive in my 2011 because I couldnt get it done in any way with my 2010. Sadly the 2011 doesnt recognize the RX460 wich was my original target...

Yes, you can run Geekbench 5 (and 4) and the Unigine Valley Benchmark on High Sierra.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Thanks for your quick reply.

Of course I followed very carefully all steps, so used install-opencore.sh command in step 7, and after step 15 I also changed the version using config-opencore.sh.
Maybe something wrong during these two operations, I suppose.

So you suggest to re-launch install-opencore.sh, then do a couple of PRAM resets and try to boot again from USB installer in order to re-install a fresh copy of Big Sur?

No, I did not wrote that. I have just explained why you cannot reboot into the installer UBS unless you change back the OC there (or the config.plist).

You can - of course - create a second USB installer with only install-opencore.sh prepared and use this to reinstall while using the other one to have an usable OpenCore for the already installed Big Sur.

I do not know why your benchmarks are not working properly. Experiencing a crash during a benchmark under high load with High Sierra looks more like a half broken card.

Maybe you found a K1100M with Hynix BFR or Elpida memory (currently unsupported) - this would explain why the original BIOS worked properly. Check the first post for that problem (no solution). We asked all people to take a photo of each card and check the VRAM on it in advance.

Do you have the original VBIOS and photos of your card and can you post it here?

 

[bluecrowHH]

There are differences, the screen size seems to affect frame rate.
i7-860S and i7-860 are not the same processors, the S is a low power variant and should normally be slower.

I see 27" i7-860 with K2100M at ~22-23 fps. And 21.5" i7-860S with K2100Mar ~29 fps.

I was just curious how the ATI works on this platform.

It is probably the resolution, not the size...

27,8 in the first run.... ill had issues with some artefacts and the shown gpu temperature was above and beyond. Probably some bugs....or maybe the oc rom??? Vram?

At least it isnt slow <3

 

[sieuwe01]

I started experimenting a little bit and when I plug in my boot drive using a data to USB adapter into a USB port and my open core usb into another USB port I am able to boot into the desktop. However in there the system freezes again and reboots.

I really think this is an opencore issue instead of a hardware issue.

Should the internal display do anything if open core was fully uninstalled by removing usb and doing a couple pram resets?

Thanks

sieuwe

 

[Johnny Sanzimippi]

No, I did not wrote that. I have just explained why you cannot reboot into the installer UBS unless you change back the OC there (or the config.plist).

You can - of course - create a second USB installer with only install-opencore.sh prepared and use this to reinstall while using the other one to have an usable OpenCore for the already installed Big Sur.

I do not know why your benchmarks are not working properly. Experiencing a crash during a benchmark under high load with High Sierra looks more like a half broken card.

Maybe you found a K1100M with Hynix BFR or Elpida memory (currently unsupported) - this would explain why the original BIOS worked properly. Check the first post for that problem (no solution). We asked all people to take a photo of each card and check the VRAM on it in advance.

Do you have the original VBIOS and photos of your card and can you post it here?

Oh ok, my bad, now I got it, regarding the USB installer.

I've bought the card from China, the seller listed it as "for iMac" and in fact it has Samsung chips, so it should be fine, right? I attached a couple photos, it looked in good conditions to me, but after all it's a 6/7 yo card, could it be that it has some problems? Or maybe the flash didn't worked as intended for some reason?

I've just whiped my Big Sur partition once again, re-partitioned the drive, and I'm starting it all again with iMac Micropatcher from my High Sierra partition (where anyway, benchmarks results are still really bad anyway).
The only error that maybe I did last time was not to run config-opencore.sh from within the USB installer before complete the installation with Setup Assistant, because I couldn't figure out to find the file in terminal inside the USB... so I did it first thing first when I jumped into Big Sur, then rebooted it and OpenCore worked just fine with brightness control and all.

I also attached a photo of my card with K5 Pro applied before putting it in the iMac.

Thanks for your time and your help.

 

[bluecrowHH]

I started experimenting a little bit and when I plug in my boot drive using a data to USB adapter into a USB port and my open core usb into another USB port I am able to boot into the desktop. However in there the system freezes again and reboots.

I really think this is an opencore issue instead of a hardware issue.

Should the internal display do anything if open core was fully uninstalled by removing usb and doing a couple pram resets?

Thanks

sieuwe

my desk is looking like yours. Welcome to the club of hardware maniacs with insomnia...

 

[lee5434]

** NVIDIA Quadro K4100M Mac Edition ROM **
Genuine Native Boot Screen & Brightness Control
​

View attachment 942198


After much testing and research, I've put together a ROM for the NVIDIA Quadro K4100M which will allow:

• Genuine native brightness control
• Genuine ‘gray’ early-boot screen
• Genuine macOS bootloader compliance

Requirements:
BACKUP YOUR ORIGINAL ROM before doing anything!
iMac12,2 (27-inch Mid 2011) Mac-942B59F58194171B (Tested machine)
BootROM: 87.0.0.0. Please use High Sierra to update your BootROM to latest version.

GPU Variant: N15E-Q3-A2
Dell K4100M vbios: 80.04.E8.00.1D
HP K4100M vbios: 80.04.E8.00.22

tested card with the following vram:
View attachment 1729324 View attachment 1743819

This ROM does not require a 3rd party bootloader like OpenCore.
This is an alternative ROM and mainly for the audience that just want a “drop-in” answer to upgrading their video card on the iMac 2011. I appreciate the ongoing ROM testing done by @Ausdauersportler, @highvoltage12v. With their efforts we can expand its utility across multiple macOS versions and peripherals.

Brightness Control Stepping Modifcation:
-Turn computer on, hold down Command(⌘)-R
-Choose Utilities > Terminal
-Enter:csrutil disable
-MacOS Catalina: requires you to make root writeable: sudo mount -uw /
-Reboot
-Download and open 'Kext Utility v2.6.6'

-Navigate to S/L/E (System/Library/Extensions)
-Copy "AppleBacklight.kext" to Desktop
-Edit: AppleBacklight.kext/Contents/Info.plist
-Scroll down to: IOKitPersonalities > AppleIntelPanelA > ApplePanels
-There you find several Apple LCD profiles.
-For the iMac 2011 27" machine locate:

<key>F10Ta007</key>
<data>
ABEABgALABQAHAAnADMAPwBOAFwAZwBzAIEAkQClAL8A2wD/
</data>

-Change the <data> section to:
ABEAAgA3AF8AigCzAOsBJAFnAakB1AIJAlQCogL4A00DlgRpBGk=

-Drag your modded kext into Kext Utility, allow it correct permissions
-Applebacklight.kext.bak folder will be created
-Reboot

The above data pattern will allow for a wider span of steppings for the brightness control and utilizes more of the capacity of the HD3000. If you have a different machine, your panel ID can be found by going to System Preferences > Displays > Color > Open Profile > mmod

This rom does not require the use of an external EDID parser or a separate graphics core-console stack module, but I’ve left them in there for now. It uses a built in EDID_override_Protocol, a UGA_protocol and GOP_protocol. The rom is based on a TianoCore EDK2 build which houses its own generic video driver. During bootup, the efiROM is responsible for video rendering before the control is seamlessly transferred off to a different handle, the macOS video drivers. This is known as pre-boot configuration.

Caveats post-install/Bugs:
-16bit resolution glitch of UGA_DRAW_PROTOCOL - temporary solution: activate a sleep cycle and return, this should now clear the issue.

warning: as stated previously these cards are based on a WSON flash package and therefore are much more difficult to recover from a bad flash. Please take precautions and verify flashing.


In the words of Steve Jobs, “this is insanely great!”

files:
K4100M_BR.rom - stable with mem:2000Mhz, TDP:862Mhz
K4100M_UGA.rom - overclocked with mem: 2200Mhz, TDP: 967Mhz

******
UPDATE
******
09 02 2021: working on Catalina 10.15.7
07 02 2021: tested stability @2200Mhz & 967Mhz, thank you @Ri7 for testing, K4100M_UGA
09 08 2020: working on BigSur!
11 11 2020: working on High Sierra 10.13.6, security update 2020-006
24 09 2020: working on High Sierra 10.13.6, security update 2020-005
21 07 2020: working on Mojave 10.14.6, security update 2020-004 (18G6020)
20 07 2020: working on High Sierra 10.13.6, security update 2020-004
20 07 2020: working on Catalina 10.15.4
20 07 2020: working on Catalina 10.15.6 + kext mods

Hi,

Can anyone help me with the procedures to do the brightness control stepping modification?
I don't understand the procedure after opening the "Kext Utility v2.6.6". How to Navigate to S/L/E? Also, how do I edit the "AppleBacklight.kext/Contents/Info.plist"? What editor should I use to do the editing?
Thanks,

 

[BadBiscuit]

Hi,

Can anyone help me with the procedures to do the brightness control stepping modification?
I don't understand the procedure after opening the "Kext Utility v2.6.6". How to Navigate to S/L/E? Also, how do I edit the "AppleBacklight.kext/Contents/Info.plist"? What editor should I use to do the editing?
Thanks,

You need a plist editor. Apple Xcode contains one and is free.

 

[lee5434]

** NVIDIA Quadro K4100M Mac Edition ROM **
Genuine Native Boot Screen & Brightness Control
​

View attachment 942198


After much testing and research, I've put together a ROM for the NVIDIA Quadro K4100M which will allow:

• Genuine native brightness control
• Genuine ‘gray’ early-boot screen
• Genuine macOS bootloader compliance

Requirements:
BACKUP YOUR ORIGINAL ROM before doing anything!
iMac12,2 (27-inch Mid 2011) Mac-942B59F58194171B (Tested machine)
BootROM: 87.0.0.0. Please use High Sierra to update your BootROM to latest version.

GPU Variant: N15E-Q3-A2
Dell K4100M vbios: 80.04.E8.00.1D
HP K4100M vbios: 80.04.E8.00.22

tested card with the following vram:
View attachment 1729324 View attachment 1743819

This ROM does not require a 3rd party bootloader like OpenCore.
This is an alternative ROM and mainly for the audience that just want a “drop-in” answer to upgrading their video card on the iMac 2011. I appreciate the ongoing ROM testing done by @Ausdauersportler, @highvoltage12v. With their efforts we can expand its utility across multiple macOS versions and peripherals.

Brightness Control Stepping Modifcation:
-Turn computer on, hold down Command(⌘)-R
-Choose Utilities > Terminal
-Enter:csrutil disable
-MacOS Catalina: requires you to make root writeable: sudo mount -uw /
-Reboot
-Download and open 'Kext Utility v2.6.6'

-Navigate to S/L/E (System/Library/Extensions)
-Copy "AppleBacklight.kext" to Desktop
-Edit: AppleBacklight.kext/Contents/Info.plist
-Scroll down to: IOKitPersonalities > AppleIntelPanelA > ApplePanels
-There you find several Apple LCD profiles.
-For the iMac 2011 27" machine locate:

<key>F10Ta007</key>
<data>
ABEABgALABQAHAAnADMAPwBOAFwAZwBzAIEAkQClAL8A2wD/
</data>

-Change the <data> section to:
ABEAAgA3AF8AigCzAOsBJAFnAakB1AIJAlQCogL4A00DlgRpBGk=

-Drag your modded kext into Kext Utility, allow it correct permissions
-Applebacklight.kext.bak folder will be created
-Reboot

The above data pattern will allow for a wider span of steppings for the brightness control and utilizes more of the capacity of the HD3000. If you have a different machine, your panel ID can be found by going to System Preferences > Displays > Color > Open Profile > mmod

This rom does not require the use of an external EDID parser or a separate graphics core-console stack module, but I’ve left them in there for now. It uses a built in EDID_override_Protocol, a UGA_protocol and GOP_protocol. The rom is based on a TianoCore EDK2 build which houses its own generic video driver. During bootup, the efiROM is responsible for video rendering before the control is seamlessly transferred off to a different handle, the macOS video drivers. This is known as pre-boot configuration.

Caveats post-install/Bugs:
-16bit resolution glitch of UGA_DRAW_PROTOCOL - temporary solution: activate a sleep cycle and return, this should now clear the issue.

warning: as stated previously these cards are based on a WSON flash package and therefore are much more difficult to recover from a bad flash. Please take precautions and verify flashing.


In the words of Steve Jobs, “this is insanely great!”

files:
K4100M_BR.rom - stable with mem:2000Mhz, TDP:862Mhz
K4100M_UGA.rom - overclocked with mem: 2200Mhz, TDP: 967Mhz

******
UPDATE
******
09 02 2021: working on Catalina 10.15.7
07 02 2021: tested stability @2200Mhz & 967Mhz, thank you @Ri7 for testing, K4100M_UGA
09 08 2020: working on BigSur!
11 11 2020: working on High Sierra 10.13.6, security update 2020-006
24 09 2020: working on High Sierra 10.13.6, security update 2020-005
21 07 2020: working on Mojave 10.14.6, security update 2020-004 (18G6020)
20 07 2020: working on High Sierra 10.13.6, security update 2020-004
20 07 2020: working on Catalina 10.15.4
20 07 2020: working on Catalina 10.15.6 + kext mods

Hi,

Can anyone help me with the procedures to do the brightness control stepping modification?
I don't understand the procedure of after opening the "Kext Utility v2.6.6". How to Navigate to S/L/E? Also, how do I edit the "AppleBacklight.kext/Contents/Info.plist"? What editor should I use to do the editing?
Thanks,

You need a plist editor. Apple Xcode contains one and is free.

Thank you. I finally figured out how to replace the AppleBacklight.kext file. However, after replacing it, I lost the slide bar of the brightness control. I am running High Sierra.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Hi,

Can anyone help me with the procedures to do the brightness control stepping modification?
I don't understand the procedure after opening the "Kext Utility v2.6.6". How to Navigate to S/L/E? Also, how do I edit the "AppleBacklight.kext/Contents/Info.plist"? What editor should I use to do the editing?
Thanks,

There is a ready to use kernel extensions called AppleBacklightfixup.kext included in a package installer mentioned on post #1 in the „install new macOS versions“. No need to edit it manually, but all you need to do is reading all the sections on post #1 carefully.