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

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The first post of this thread is a WikiPost and can be edited by anyone with the appropiate permissions. Your edits will be public.
Vruva said:
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?
Click to expand...
The only late 2009 iMac that is supported by the VBIOSes here is the 27" Core-i model, the iMac11,1 ; all other late 2009 models are iMac10,x .
The internal screen almost certainly won't work.
Anything but the latest EFI bootrom versions is unknown territory so the latest version is a must.

EDIT: As always you find all that information in the first post on this thread - so please excuse me for repeating that information here.
 
salvatoreleuven said:
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,
Click to expand...

interessting, or I have missed something here.
But it sounds like a 100% OOB experience.. ?
 
jay508 said:
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
Click to expand...
There is also an experimental K3100M_V3.rom in this post
Should work with AFR and BFR Hynix, maybe it's worth trying with Elpida memory...
 
salvatoreleuven said:
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,
Click to expand...
Usually we do not comment on sellers and offers. Yes, there are some commercial and non commercial offers of people making their own BIOS versions which are not listed here. We do not own the copyright to make such BIOS versions.

The GTX775 should exist (search techpowerup.com for it) and because the 775 GPU was used in the 2013 iMacs the macOS might be optimized at some point. It can be a different GK104 based 2GB board.

You can buy this or every other card on the list. It is funny that somebody provides a Big Sur installer for iMac systems which I do not know off - or it is a particular one I have created myself. Who knows...
 
Ausdauersportler said:
Usually we do not comment on sellers and offers. Yes, there are some commercial and non commercial offers of people making their own BIOS versions which are not listed here. We do not own the copyright to make such BIOS versions.

The GTX775 should exist (search techpowerup.com for it) and because the 775 GPU was used in the 2013 iMacs the macOS might be optimized at some point. It can be a different GK104 based 2GB board.

You can buy this or every other card on the list. It is funny that somebody provides a Big Sur installer for iMac systems which I do not know off - or it is a particular one I have created myself. Who knows...
Click to expand...

I've came on this offer at the very beginning of my browsing looking to update my iMac. The co's is a legit one, specialized in mac refurb, based in France.

At first the solution looked appealing. After second consideration you still have to get everything out of the computer by yourself and replace the gpu with an overpriced one. On top you are loosing all the excitement of doing it by yourself, following the steps of pioneers, who unlocked unchartered territories.

I discovered this thread and the idea was gone. Tks to all developers

Edit: read post 1 :cool:
 
went on with my 3th experiment today. The k3000 videocard came in. Had to modify the 2-pipe cooler a bit to make place for the spools right on top. Tricky is the piece you have to cut out just besides the pipes......

Save the install for tomorrow. Good night all.
 

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Hi, I installed Big Sur 11.2.3 using the latest OCLP (0.1.0) on my iMac12.2. It worked very well but the only problem is that it does not recognize the thunderbolt display (was working in HS and Catalina). I did a quick search but did not find anything useful. Might anyone know the reason? The GPU is K4100M using nikey22's vbios. For the OCLP GPU option, I used NVIDIA. Thank you for your help!
 
could anybody briefly guide me of the Catalina installation steps?
can't get the difference between Open Core vs Open Core Legacy Patcher vs dosdude1 patcher for 2011
from the first post...looks like all 3 might work in some kind... what to prefer for imac 2011 21.5 with k2100m?
 
vep said:
could anybody briefly guide me of the Catalina installation steps?
can't get the difference between Open Core vs Open Core Legacy Patcher vs dosdude1 patcher for 2011
from the first post...looks like all 3 might work in some kind... what to prefer for imac 2011 21.5 with k2100m?
Click to expand...
Over the last several months, a lot of progress has been made with different methods to install unsupported operating systems. At this point, OpenCore Legacy Patcher is the newest, best, and easiest option for most people, so I'd recommend using it. Essentially all you need to do is run the OpenCore Legacy Patcher program. It modifies the computer's EFI to run OpenCore and thus will allow you to install Catalina/Big Sur. The documentation in the first post should go into more detail about this, and if you look back over the last few pages on this thread, there is a bunch more information about the OCLP program as well.
 
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Hi guys, I finally took the plunge and upgraded my fully functioning Catalina to Big Sur on my iMac 2011 METAL k4100m GPU

Everything works smoothly but the brightness of the screen is once again (it was the same after Catalina patch) only about 70%.

For the life of me I cannot remember what I did to get the full brightness back.

Please help as I have now lost all my hair!!!!

Thanks again guys
 
358 said:
Hi guys, I finally took the plunge and upgraded my fully functioning Catalina to Big Sur on my iMac 2011 METAL k4100m GPU

Everything works smoothly but the brightness of the screen is once again (it was the same after Catalina patch) only about 70%.

For the life of me I cannot remember what I did to get the full brightness back.

Please help as I have now lost all my hair!!!!

Thanks again guys
Click to expand...
Did you use OCLP? If you didn't, you should.
 
vep said:
could anybody briefly guide me of the Catalina installation steps?
can't get the difference between Open Core vs Open Core Legacy Patcher vs dosdude1 patcher for 2011
from the first post...looks like all 3 might work in some kind... what to prefer for imac 2011 21.5 with k2100m?
Click to expand...
could you please briefly explain where these lines copied from the first post are unclear about the advantages of the legacy installation method?

"This is a legacy patching instruction. We strongly recommend to use OCLP to install any macOS Mojave and later. This section is only important for users of Mid 2011 systems with an NVIDIA card needing Intel QuickSync (H.264 encoding) to work.

AMD users will use the AMD GPU superior H.264 encoding and do not need Intel QuickSync. So an AMD user will never need to install using this method and have to use OCLP!

The recommended method is to have High Sierra as your primary OS and install Mojave ...."
 
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Ausdauersportler said:
could you please briefly explain where these lines copied from the first post are unclear about the advantages of the legacy installation method?
Click to expand...
exactly you highlighted is unclear. is support of H.264 the only difference between legacy and OCLP? would it be possible to enable H.264 later on OCLP using may be another way? will OCLP allow me to install Win 10 on the separate drive? thanks
 
vep said:
exactly you highlighted is unclear. is support of H.264 the only difference between legacy and OCLP? would it be possible to enable H.264 later on OCLP using may be another way? will OCLP allow me to install Win 10 on the separate drive? thanks
Click to expand...
Again, what is unclear?

If it would be possible to enable H.264 with OCLP the remark would simply not be there. (Do you believe we create docs to confuse readers deliberately?) If you have a better expression please let me know.

Please read the OLCP documentation and the advantages listed with OpenCore/OCLP if you plan to use OCLP, the @dosdude1 documention if you plan to go this way (to get H.264 working).

P.S.:
IF WE COULD GET H.264 WORKING WITH OCLP I WOULD HAVE DELETED THE COMPLETE LEGACY INSTALLATION SECTION BY NOW - WHY SHOULD WE MENTION THERE TWO ENTIRELY DIFFERENT METHODS?
 
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Ausdauersportler said:
IF WE COULD GET H.264 WORKING WITH OCLP I WOULD HAVE DELETED THE COMPLETE LEGACY INSTALLATION SECTION BY NOW - WHY SHOULD WE MENTION THERE TWO ENTIRELY DIFFERENT METHODS?
Click to expand...
got it, thanks. few pages earlier you suggested to migrate to OCLP for everybody, so I am going to follow this way. thanks again for your comments
 
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358 said:
can I use the OCLP over the current patcher or do I need to go back to stock first?
Click to expand...
You can create an unpatched USB installer using the very same version (or a more recent one), install OCLP, boot into the new USB installer and use it to update the existing installation.

But please read the OCLP docs (linked in on post #1) and go ahead.
 
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