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

[xNuGGax]

Hi all i installed k4100m in my imac 27 flashed it using linux. Basically works properly but after i running OS after some time i receiving pink white or green screen but i same time looks like still in working condition just have this issue with GPU. Maybe it is because i don't add any heatsink plates on the ram of GPU or it is because of GPU don't fit to my system at all? Also i noted that when i starting mac at firt time after long time stop it working properly longen then after i trying turne on it again after i receiving firs error... also temprichas looks absolutely ok

 

[Airknight]

It took me while to get the correct order. This is for iMacs with metal cards. In order to save @Ausdauersportler some grief: with Nvidia cards, OCLP can be written to the internal drive. For AMD cards, OCLP must be on an external USB or SD-Card.

The order should be:
1. Start OCLP APP,
2. Select 5 for Patcher Settings,
3. Choose 4 to force iMac metal patch,
4. Pick 1 for AMD OR 2 for Nvidia GPU,
5. Q for quit,
6. Take 1 to Build Opencore,
7. Choose 2 to write to your USB or internal drive according to your situation,
8. Exit from OCLP APP
9. Reboot your computer while holding ALT/Option,
10. At the drive picker choose the OCLP (if you want to have this work invisibly, select OCLP icon while holding the CTRL key. You will see the arrow change from a straight up and down arrow to an arrow that makes almost a complete circle).
11. Thank @Ausdauersportler and everyone else who contributed because, honestly, it won't get easier than this.

Cheers!

Hi All,

Followed this order for my 2011 12,2 K1100m 2,7 Ghz (gonna call this one Max, easier to keep track) and it worked like a charm!! Brightness control and all....great, thank you all! Will do the 3,1 Ghz (Jan) again also in this order, and see what happens...

I was wondering, since the 3,1(Jan) has a K1100m with Samsung memory, and the working 2,7 (Max) has the original Hynix memory, otherwise they are quite identical, is there a way i can copy these parameters over from Max to Jan to get brightness etc working on the 3,1 as well?

Thanks again!

EDIT:

Downloaded OCLP 1.0, re-ran the 12,2 (Jan) in this order and also this one is working like a charm now!
👍 Thanks a lot all!

 

[globetribe]

coming back in the forum for a small help.
my iMac 2011 is running with OC 0.0.22 and two separate partition, first with HS and second with BS. BS was working fine, no issue at all.

however Whenever I boot back into HS and reboot, OC bootloader no longer shows BS partition but BS data partition which is impossible to load for security reasons. I am stuck with only workaround to reinstall BS from there and use the time machine backup, new install will use latest snapshot available. At least i would no how to do in case system is corrupted

Any help or suggestion appreciated

 

[khoe]

first sorry for the bad english i am from germany and i don't speak english well the text is a google translation. I have a problem with an Nvidia Quadro K4100M 4GB MXM Video Card GPU flashed at Nikey22 (is also here in the forum) installed in an Imac in mid-2011 with Mojave geptacht with dosdude. but it seems that the gpu is not recognized by software like Photoshop or Flowscape etc. does anyone know the problem. here is the exact name of the card from the seller. Apple IMAC 27 ”A1312 Nvidia Quadro K4100M 4GB MXM Video Card GPU I have already tried to change and re-patch various options in the Dosdude patch. also different instructions that were described here in the forum like web driver toolkit also different descriptions .. everything leads to nothing either the card is defective or something is completely wrong. Help is very much appreciated

 

[Ausdauersportler]

coming back in the forum for a small help.
my iMac 2011 is running with OC 0.0.22 and two separate partition, first with HS and second with BS. BS was working fine, no issue at all.

however Whenever I boot back into HS and reboot, OC bootloader no longer shows BS partition but BS data partition which is impossible to load for security reasons. I am stuck with only workaround to reinstall BS from there and use the time machine backup, new install will use latest snapshot available. At least i would no how to do in case system is corrupted

Any help or suggestion appreciated

Try disabling SIP and/or SBM (SecureBootModel) to get around the new installation issue. This is more a guess than a guide.

 

[boombari]

Hi everyone, I finally returned the K3000M (it was giving strange problems only to me) and I finally got a K2100M from china, I flashed the bios, did the MojavePatcher and everything works. Installed Catalina Loader and OpenCore 0.5.9 and the brightness works. Unfortunately, if I STOP, the machine restarts. Do you have any idea if it is solvable?

 

[FlorisVN]

Hi everyone, I finally returned the K3000M (it was giving strange problems only to me) and I finally got a K2100M from china, I flashed the bios, did the MojavePatcher and everything works. Installed Catalina Loader and OpenCore 0.5.9 and the brightness works. Unfortunately, if I STOP, the machine restarts. Do you have any idea if it is solvable?

What do you mean with "if I STOP" ??
I dont understand this..

 

[boombari]

What do you mean with "if I STOP" ??
I dont understand this..

If I click "Stop" from Apple menu

 

[Ausdauersportler]

If I click "Stop" from Apple menu

There is no STOP in the Apple menu There is shutdown, restart, and sleep.

 

[Murometc]

In manual mode brightness is adjustable.
If you enable automatic mode - turn the "Change Brightness Automatically When Lighting Changes" option ON, then the screen becomes very dark (0%) and the slider does not change the brightness.
How it should be?
P.S. A light sensor has been detected and enabled in Device Manager.

 

[dksp]

As far as I know, the light sensor is the Camera, if you put a sticker on it for privacy it won't adjust.

 

[jay508]

This is a Geekbench 5 screenshot of someone here recently using a dGPU K1100M:
iMac 11,2, using an i7-860S, notice the spoofed Board-ID. It looks like a iMacPro 1,1.


View attachment 1759306

Hi @nikey22
I have a K3100M with Elpida video memory, the vbios version is 80.04.0C.20.01
It is normal to use on the PC machine, and the screen is not normal when using the K3100M_BR.ROM K3100M_boost.ROM you released, flashing to 80.04.0C.20.01, everything is normal, and there is no problem in testing 3DMRK11.
Ask for help thanks

 

[boombari]

There is no STOP in the Apple menu There is shutdown, restart, and sleep.

Sorry in Italian is Stop

I did it all over again and solved it. This is my procedure:

- Installed Mojave with Mojave Patcher
- Apply post-install patches except video patches
- Updated to Mojave 10.14.6
- Re-apply Mojave Patcher with Patch Updater

The Wifi card did not work (bluetooth yes), then applied the Legacy Atheros Wifi Patch with the Patch Update, and it started working again.

- Installed OC with OpenCore Legacy Patcher on the main HD, selecting iMac Metal Patch-> Nvidia

Now everything works, Wifi, Metal Acceleration (about 2600 points in Geekbench), recovery from sleep, temperature sensors etc.

The only thing that doesn't work is the H264 codec ...

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Sorry in Italian is Stop

I did it all over again and solved it. This is my procedure:

- Installed Mojave with Mojave Patcher
- Apply post-install patches except video patches
- Updated to Mojave 10.14.6
- Re-apply Mojave Patcher with Patch Updater

The Wifi card did not work (bluetooth yes), then applied the Legacy Atheros Wifi Patch with the Patch Update, and it started working again.

- Installed OC with OpenCore Legacy Patcher on the main HD, selecting iMac Metal Patch-> Nvidia

Now everything works, Wifi, Metal Acceleration (about 2600 points in Geekbench), recovery from sleep, temperature sensors etc.

The only thing that doesn't work is the H264 codec ...

Ok, this is the bitter pill to swallow with pure OpenCore setup on the iMac 2011 - there will be unlikely HD3000 support with the the H.264 codec unless you start patching, again (true for all macOS versions form Mojave until Big Sur).

I have not tested it, but it might work by replacing the AppleGVA.framework and sleep patches exacly as before using the guides on post #1 made for @dosdude1 style installation. But it would break the OTA upgrade feature. On the other hand you will only get updates until late summer this year. It might be worth a shot on Mojave (you need SIP disabled on your OpenCore to do so).

The thing is:

You can use OpenCore to go through the complete upgrade (Catalina and Mojave) process (which cannot be done really easily using the @dosdude1 patched installations). At the very end you can patch in the functionality needed - and break further upgrades.

 

[salvatoreleuven]

Hello everybody and congratulations for this incredible forum. I've been reading intensively the wiki and the posts, planning to upgrade the GPU of my 27" mid 2010 iMac (i7, 12 gB RAM, 128 SSD + 1 TB HDD), to be able to run Big Sur. After days of studying, planning, etc. i came across this ad in ebay:

https://www.ebay.es/itm/402308024752?ul_noapp=true

This guy are selling a more-or-less plug&play replacement of the GPU and the 3-pipe heat sink, in this case a gtx 775, wich is not in the list of the nvidia cards in the first page of this forum. I've contacted the seller, he says the card is already flashed and works out of the box, with brightness control, boot screen and so on, without any other particular operation, just plug and install Big Sur with a loader that they also supply whith the card...anyone can confirm this is possible? Is this card a good option, given that i'm just trying to run Big Sur, no 3D gaming neither video edition, etc.

Thank you very much,

 

[boombari]

Ok, this is the bitter pill to swallow with pure OpenCore setup on the iMac 2011 - there will be unlikely HD3000 support with the the H.264 codec unless you start patching, again (true for all macOS versions form Mojave until Big Sur).

I have not tested it, but it might work by replacing the AppleGVA.framework and sleep patches exacly as before using the guides on post #1 made for @dosdude1 style installation. But it would break the OTA upgrade feature. On the other hand you will only get updates until late summer this year. It might be worth a shot on Mojave.

The thing is:

You can use OpenCore to go through the complete upgrade (Catalina and Mojave) process (which cannot be done really easy using the @dosdude1 patched installations). At the very end you can patch in the functionality needed - and break further upgrades.

Ok all clear thanks, I prefer to give up H264 (I mainly use Logic).

Unfortunately the sleep patches I tested disable video acceleration (everything goes slower, maybe Metal goes off), and H264 is actually detected, but I don't think it's usable ...

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Ok all clear thanks, I prefer to give up H264 (I mainly use Logic).

Unfortunately the sleep patches I tested disable video acceleration (everything goes slower, maybe Metal goes off), and H264 is actually detected, but I don't think it's usable ...

Okay, this would possibly need another a change with OpenCore: Currently the iGPU is disabled (to get sleep working without patching).

Since I never have tested it it is not pretty clear what part of the added patches provides the H.264 acceleration (AppleGVA.framework) and what part is needed to use the HD3000 as a 2nd GPU in case you disable the first or have no first one installed at all (HD3000*kext).

You can boot High Sierra without a primary GPU and without using the internal LCD using the 2011 via screen sharing with the HD3000, only.

 

[cliff_ubnt]

Hey guys,

I need some help about the graphic card upgrade on iMac.

I have got a late 2009 27" iMac that i have upgraded with new ssd, more ram and Intel i7 cpu. It was installed the ATI 4850 and few months ago started to compare stripes on the screen.

So I decided to buy from Hong Kong a new Nvidia K3100M 4GB video card, I have installed by modifying the heatsink.

I have a black screen at the splash as I supposed to have but I cannot boot the operating system as I hoped (even in safe graphics mode). I am running Linux Ubuntu as operating system

Sorry I don't understand much about flashing memory etc...




Thanks,
Paolo

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Hey guys,

I need some help about the graphic card upgrade on iMac.

I have got a late 2009 27" iMac that i have upgraded with new ssd, more ram and Intel i7 cpu. It was installed the ATI 4850 and few months ago started to compare stripes on the screen.

So I decided to buy from Hong Kong a new Nvidia K3100M 4GB video card, I have installed by modifying the heatsink.

I have a black screen at the splash as I supposed to have but I cannot boot the operating system as I hoped (even in safe graphics mode). I am running Linux Ubuntu as operating system

Sorry I don't understand much about flashing memory etc...




Thanks,
Paolo

On the first post and first page in the FAQ there is a flash utility mentioned based on GRML Linux - if you cannot use this and follow the instructions made with the initial post I do not know who you installed Ubuntu on your iMac before

You need to flash the K3100M to get EFI boot screen. Just follow the docs. Nobody can remotely flash your card.

 

[macgenius710]

Hello everyone in this thread, thank you very much. I have an iMac 21 "mid 2011 with a K1100M I already did Nick's vBios flashing, all good, well, opencore and everything, but I have another problem, my imac screen so far does not always turn on it is black, until now I am working from a second screen, I tried it if it was flex, and it is not, which could be doing wrong, or is it a card failure that I have to correct help

 

[chssvl1]

So, I've been having a rather odd problem. When I start up my computer it seems to work fine and then after a few minutes it will suddenly reboot itself (not doing anything particularly strenous - web browsing, office etc). Then when it tries to restart it will reboot itself almost immediately (sometimes before the boot screen shows up) and then it will start normally. It will then do this once, maybe twice again and then it will be fine for the rest of the day regardless of what I do, even if I put it under very heavy load. Yesterday it was two reboots in the first 30 minutes or so and then it worked fine for the next 10 hours and today it was three reboots and it's been five hours with no issues.

I'm sort of wondering if it's maybe a PSU issue but then it's weird that it only acts up shortly after turning it on. It's almost as if it needs to "warm up". I had no such problems before the GPU upgrade

Just to recap, I upgraded to a K1100M and the computer (a 21.5 inch 2011 iMac) has an SSD (installed last october) plus the normal hard drive was upgraded to a 2TB WD Black (done back in 2014). All four RAM slots are full with a total of 20 GB. Also just to note that I always boot it using the Catalina Loader. And, when I updated the GPU I also installed Catalina using Dosdude's patch.

Thanks

 

[vep]

hello everybody
I am a bit confused in the software part...
I have iMac 2011 21.5, installed and flushed on it K2100M
Currently it is running HighSierra from internal SSD (it also has second SSD and stock HDD), after GPU switch there is no boot screen and brightness control...
My goal is to have Catalina and Windows 10 each installed on the own SSD.
I stopped on the moment of Catalina installation using dosdude patch...
I assume I need to create Calalina loader on the USB drive from Hight Sierra, then indicate it as bootdrive and reboot Imac.
Then install Catalina on the SSD...
here the moment I don't understand... after Catalina installation is done, how do I switch boodrive?
and another unclear moment... Catalina Loader and OpenCore...at what moment should I use Catalina Loader.dmg and where to put OpenCore files?
Kindly please advise.
Thanks

 

[cliff_ubnt]

On the first post and first page in the FAQ there is a flash utility mentioned based on GRML Linux - if you cannot use this and follow the instructions made with the initial post I do not know who you installed Ubuntu on your iMac before

You need to flash the K3100M to get EFI boot screen. Just follow the docs. Nobody can remotely flash your card.

Thanks!

 

[Vruva]

Some help please cause I'm running out of ideas, I must have installed a dozen of these cards by now and everytime it was a breeze, I always go for the K2100M and never had problems, I bought two this time (one for stock) flashed them both with C341A and installed them on an iMac 21.5 late 2009. I get 4 leds, chime and then the fans go full speed and the screen remains black, both new cards do the same. It doesn't seem to boot at all as when i press the power button it immediately powers off.
Edit: one thing I thought of right now is that the macOS is at mountain lion, I know that when the system is updated to High Sierra it gets an EFI update, is this needed for these cards to work?

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Some help please cause I'm running out of ideas, I must have installed a dozen of these cards by now and everytime it was a breeze, I always go for the K2100M and never had problems, I bought two this time (one for stock) flashed them both with C341A and installed them on an iMac 21.5 late 2009. I get 4 leds, chime and then the fans go full speed and the screen remains black, both new cards do the same. It doesn't seem to boot at all as when i press the power button it immediately powers off.
Edit: one thing I thought of right now is that the macOS is at mountain lion, I know that when the system is updated to High Sierra it gets an EFI update, is this needed for these cards to work?

Check the system support list on post #1 - you would be the second one to get it work in a core2duo system.