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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.
Hi guys,

my first post in this forum and I'm humbly sitting in front of these pages with all these awesome work.
Great job....thank you, thank you, thank you

On the other side I#m sitting in front of my iMac 27", 2011, i5 3,1 with 2 dead grafic cards.
After reading a lot of pages I started again at post#1 to revive my "Big Mama" with a new

K4100, wson Bios MX25L2006EZNI-12G Datasheet(page 45), SKhynis SDRAM H5GQ2H24AFR Part Number Decoder

Now my question. Has someone used a PCI to MXM Adapter like this for flashing the bios?
I thought, I've seen it here but I cant't find it again.

In the moment I enjoy the gaming PC from my son with a lot of PCI slots.

Hopefully, somebody has a hint for me to find the right way... ;)

Greetings from Hamburg/Germany

IMG_2663.JPG
IMG_2664.JPG
K4100.JPG
 
As I tried to run OCLP Patcher 0.1.0 in Terminal, I encountered this error when building the Opencore EFI from option 1:

Screenshot 2021-04-23 at 6.26.51 PM.png


My iMac 2010 is running Catalina 11.5.7 unpatched.
 
Last edited:
Ausdauersportler said:
About OCLP and Black Screen on boot​

After a lot of people here recently changed from @dosdude1 to OCLP installations I would like to ask who of the NVIDIA GPU users gets (or got) a black screen after a PRAM reset or directly after the installation.

The root cause of the problem is still there and could now be solved by an simple new DeviceProperties entry or boot-args add on (agdpmod=vit9696).

Can you please test this and report back. OCLP will add the above mentioned setting in an upcoming version, but it would be nice to have some confirmation of the (still existing) problem and the working cure.
Click to expand...
I tested and I dont have a Black screen
 
Ausdauersportler said:
About OCLP and Black Screen on boot​

After a lot of people here recently changed from @dosdude1 to OCLP installations I would like to ask who of the NVIDIA GPU users gets (or got) a black screen after a PRAM reset or directly after the installation.

The root cause of the problem is still there and could now be solved by an simple new DeviceProperties entry or boot-args add on (agdpmod=vit9696).

Can you please test this and report back. OCLP will add the above mentioned setting in an upcoming version, but it would be nice to have some confirmation of the (still existing) problem and the working cure.
Click to expand...
Upgrade from 10.15.7 to Big Sur, don't have the black screen on boot but I have to disable sleep cause black screen on wake with this error on reboot :

panic(cpu 0 caller 0xffffff80111fe407): "NVDA::setPowerState(0xffffff935d0ba920 : 0xffffff7fb127c2bc, 0 -com.apple.driver. 2) timed out after 45332 ms"com.apple./AppleInternal/BuildRoot/Library/Caches/com.apple.xbs/Sources/xnu/xnu-7195.81.3/iokit/Kernel/IOServicePM.cpp:5382
 
KennyW said:
As I tried to run OCLP Patcher 0.1.0 in Terminal, I encountered this error when building the Opencore EFI from option 1:

View attachment 1762605

My iMac 2010 is running Catalina 11.5.7 unpatched.
Click to expand...
Could you verify whether 0.1.1 crashes as well? I see the issue is that you have no wifi card installed, which I fixed the crash bug in 0.1.1.

To get a 0.1.1 build grab the one below (note you must be signed into Github):
 
ShinyDad said:
Hi guys,

my first post in this forum and I'm humbly sitting in front of these pages with all these awesome work.
Great job....thank you, thank you, thank you

On the other side I#m sitting in front of my iMac 27", 2011, i5 3,1 with 2 dead grafic cards.
After reading a lot of pages I started again at post#1 to revive my "Big Mama" with a new

K4100, wson Bios MX25L2006EZNI-12G Datasheet(page 45), SKhynis SDRAM H5GQ2H24AFR Part Number Decoder

Now my question. Has someone used a PCI to MXM Adapter like this for flashing the bios?
I thought, I've seen it here but I cant't find it again.

In the moment I enjoy the gaming PC from my son with a lot of PCI slots.

Hopefully, somebody has a hint for me to find the right way... ;)

Greetings from Hamburg/Germany

View attachment 1762580View attachment 1762581View attachment 1762586
Click to expand...
Hi
Use the @xanderon usb stick method, the simplest and best way to succeed
 
vmbl said:
Upgrade from 10.15.7 to Big Sur, don't have the black screen on boot but I have to disable sleep cause black screen on wake with this error on reboot :

panic(cpu 0 caller 0xffffff80111fe407): "NVDA::setPowerState(0xffffff935d0ba920 : 0xffffff7fb127c2bc, 0 -com.apple.driver. 2) timed out after 45332 ms"com.apple./AppleInternal/BuildRoot/Library/Caches/com.apple.xbs/Sources/xnu/xnu-7195.81.3/iokit/Kernel/IOServicePM.cpp:5382
Click to expand...
Did you upgrade from Catalina @dosdude1 patched to OCLP Big Sur unpatched? Or did you do a clean installation with time machine restore of user data?
 
I wanted to change my Nividia GTX780 card to an AMD RX480, so I went back to high sierra and flash under Linux (WX7100_4G_GOP.ROM).
1. Works on my tv via display port.
2. Start with the internal screen, but without the TV connected via display port: black screen
3. Start with the internal screen, and with the TV via display port: the 2 screens are working.
4. I unplug the display port, the screen is still working.
5. Boot with the internal screen and Catalina loader, the CL and SSD icon is displayed, the progress bar stops at 3/4 and the screen turns black.
I also have this problem: atl key does not work !! And the RX480 card is recognized as RX470 on the iMac.
I am very disappointed 😂

I am now with my old ATI Radeon HD 4850 card under high sierra and everything is working.
 
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traser said:
I wanted to change my Nividia GTX780 card to an AMD RX480, so I went back to high sierra and flash under Linux (WX7100_4G_GOP.ROM).
1. Works on my tv via display port.
2. Start with the internal screen, but without the TV connected via display port: black screen
3. Start with the internal screen, and with the TV via display port: the 2 screens are working.
4. I unplug the display port, the screen is still working.
5. Boot with the internal screen and Catalina loader, the CL and SSD icon is displayed, the progress bar stops at 3/4 and the screen turns black.
I also have this problem: atl key does not work !! And the RX480 card is recognized as RX470 on the iMac.
I am very disappointed 😂

I am now with my old ATI Radeon HD 4850 card under high sierra and everything is working.
Click to expand...
Please do a fresh installation of High Sierra /Catalina/Mojave when changing the GPU. The patches (AppleGraphicsControl) are not valid for both GPU types.

The alt/option does not work because you have no EFI boot screen on an AMD GPU and that is one reason why you need to use OpenCore.

You can use OCLP to generate a valid EFI or you stick with the original version (not recommended).
 
Last edited:
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ShinyDad said:
Hi guys,

my first post in this forum and I'm humbly sitting in front of these pages with all these awesome work.
Great job....thank you, thank you, thank you

On the other side I#m sitting in front of my iMac 27", 2011, i5 3,1 with 2 dead grafic cards.
After reading a lot of pages I started again at post#1 to revive my "Big Mama" with a new

K4100, wson Bios MX25L2006EZNI-12G Datasheet(page 45), SKhynis SDRAM H5GQ2H24AFR Part Number Decoder

Now my question. Has someone used a PCI to MXM Adapter like this for flashing the bios?
I thought, I've seen it here but I cant't find it again.

In the moment I enjoy the gaming PC from my son with a lot of PCI slots.

Hopefully, somebody has a hint for me to find the right way... ;)

Greetings from Hamburg/Germany
Click to expand...

If you could boot to Windows and see the K4100m in "Device Manager", there would be no trouble flashing it.
However, you have to select the correct device (graphic card) to flash, using nvflash command.
 
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khronokernel said:
Could you verify whether 0.1.1 crashes as well? I see the issue is that you have no wifi card installed, which I fixed the crash bug in 0.1.1.

To get a 0.1.1 build grab the one below (note you must be signed into Github):
Click to expand...
That works beautifully. Thanks.

Screenshot 2021-04-24 at 2.58.53 PM.png


I was using the OC 0.6.8 posted by Ausdauersportler in post #13290 on an SD card without alteration.

I was not aware that it was setup for iMac 2011 as default, and I could see that the Macs Fan Control and iStat Menus report a reduced different sensors as before.

I compared this newly generated EFI folder from OCLP 0.1.1 with that on my SD card and noticed the difference.
Thus I replaced the config.plist on my SD card and now everything work.

That is an amazing work of our developers here. Congratulations !
 
Last edited:
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ShinyDad said:
Hi guys,

my first post in this forum and I'm humbly sitting in front of these pages with all these awesome work.
Great job....thank you, thank you, thank you

On the other side I#m sitting in front of my iMac 27", 2011, i5 3,1 with 2 dead grafic cards.
After reading a lot of pages I started again at post#1 to revive my "Big Mama" with a new

K4100, wson Bios MX25L2006EZNI-12G Datasheet(page 45), SKhynis SDRAM H5GQ2H24AFR Part Number Decoder

Now my question. Has someone used a PCI to MXM Adapter like this for flashing the bios?
I thought, I've seen it here but I cant't find it again.

In the moment I enjoy the gaming PC from my son with a lot of PCI slots.

Hopefully, somebody has a hint for me to find the right way... ;)

Greetings from Hamburg/Germany

View attachment 1762580View attachment 1762581View attachment 1762586
Click to expand...
Many of these mxm to PCIe adapter can be found in AliExpress:

mxm pci express adapter - Buy mxm pci express adapter with free shipping on AliExpress

Quality mxm pci express adapter with free worldwide shipping on AliExpress
www.aliexpress.com www.aliexpress.com

However, I haven't any experience with them.
 
traser said:
I wanted to change my Nividia GTX780 card to an AMD RX480, so I went back to high sierra and flash under Linux (WX7100_4G_GOP.ROM).
1. Works on my tv via display port.
2. Start with the internal screen, but without the TV connected via display port: black screen
3. Start with the internal screen, and with the TV via display port: the 2 screens are working.
4. I unplug the display port, the screen is still working.
5. Boot with the internal screen and Catalina loader, the CL and SSD icon is displayed, the progress bar stops at 3/4 and the screen turns black.
I also have this problem: atl key does not work !! And the RX480 card is recognized as RX470 on the iMac.
I am very disappointed 😂

I am now with my old ATI Radeon HD 4850 card under high sierra and everything is working.
Click to expand...
The RX480 in my mind is the best cost-effective metal upgrade for 2009 & 2010. It is more difficult to find and at a higher price than that I got few months ago. Probably being snatched up by resellers and those who see its potential. So, make the best use of yours. It is never easy to do the upgrade but it is doable and you will get a responsive iMac running the latest apps of Big Sur. Your successful flashing has completed most of the hard work. Yes, you need to connect an external monitor for it to show the boot screen. That can easily be solved as I did by plugging in an active mini-display adapter/dongle of a few dollars to the mini-displayport. Use OCLP 0.1.1 patcher to generate your EFI folder and create a SD card to boot your iMac. You will admire the effort of our developers in making your 10 years old iMac anew.
 
Last edited:
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KennyW said:
The RX480 in my mind is the best cost-effective metal upgrade for 2009 & 2010. It is more difficult to find and at a higher price than that I got few months ago. Probably being snatched up by resellers and those who see its potential. So, make the best use of yours. It is never easy to do the upgrade but it is doable and you will get a responsive iMac running the latest apps of Big Sur. Your successful flashing has completed most of the hard work. Yes, you need to connect an external monitor for it to show the boot screen. That can easily be solved as I did by plugging in an active mini-display adapter/dongle of a few dollars to the mini-displayport. Use OCLP .1.1 patcher to generate your EFI folder and create a SD card to boot your iMac. You will admire the effort of our developers in making your 10 years old iMac anew
Click to expand...
Would be great if it were possible to buy a RX 480 but sadly they are rarer than hens teeth.
 
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Ausdauersportler said:
Did you upgrade from Catalina @dosdude1 patched to OCLP Big Sur unpatched? Or did you do a clean installation with time machine restore of user data?
Click to expand...
From dosdude and problem resolved with a clean install, thanks !
On the other hand, to make tests I tried to install Mojave from a bootable USB + OCLP and I have this error message, same thing with Catalina (with SIP and SecureBootModel disabled)

IMG_2927.JPG
 
vmbl said:
From dosdude and problem resolved with a clean install, thanks !
On the other hand, to make tests I tried to install Mojave from a bootable USB + OCLP and I have this error message, same thing with Catalina (with SIP and SecureBootModel disabled)

View attachment 1763151
Click to expand...

This is expected and is a known issue with the SMBIOS spoof. You won't be able to use the USB installer. Instead, boot into an older OS, like High Sierra, and create a new APFS volume for Mojave. Then, just use the app and point it to your new volume. No USB necessary.
 
NOTNlCE said:
This is expected and is a known issue with the SMBIOS spoof. You won't be able to use the USB installer. Instead, boot into an older OS, like High Sierra, and create a new APFS volume for Mojave. Then, just use the app and point it to your new volume. No USB necessary.
Click to expand...
That's what I did but same result: (I boot through OCLP)

IMG_2929.JPG


I also tested on internal disk in APFS
 
Ausdauersportler said:
Please do a fresh installation of High Sierra /Catalina/Mojave when changing the GPU. The patches (AppleGraphicsControl) are no valid for both GPU types.

The alt/option does not work because you have no EFI boot screen on an AMD GPU and that is one reason why you need to use OpenCore.

You can use OCLP to generate a valid EFI or you stick with the original version (not recommended).
Click to expand...
Many Thanks


As it is not possible to boot the iMac from OCLP with an AMD GPU card under high Sierra.

I created the OLCP on a USB drive and Catalina Loader on an SD card to copy the folders from the USB drive to the Catalina loader SD card.

In the usb key which contains the OLCP there are 2 folders :System and EFI , I tried to copy these 2 folders
=> for the EFI it's OK
=> for System I got this message: The "System" element cannot be replaced because it is invisible.

Should we only copy the EFI folder in Catalina loader?

I am thinking of redoing a test with the RX480 card. And here are the steps I think I'm going to follow:

- Insertion of a USB key containing the High Sierra installer
- Insertion of the Catalina Loader SD card
- Select "Catalina Loader" as startup disk
- Replacement of my old GPU card, by the RX480 (already flashed)
- Connection of the iMac to the TV via the display port
- Start the iMac and select the High Sierra installer
- Do a clean installation of High Sierra
- Reconnect the internal screen...
 
traser said:
Many Thanks


As it is not possible to boot the iMac from OCLP with an AMD GPU card under high Sierra.

I created the OLCP on a USB drive and Catalina Loader on an SD card to copy the folders from the USB drive to the Catalina loader SD card.

In the usb key which contains the OLCP there are 2 folders :System and EFI , I tried to copy these 2 folders
=> for the EFI it's OK
=> for System I got this message: The "System" element cannot be replaced because it is invisible.

Should we only copy the EFI folder in Catalina loader?

I am thinking of redoing a test with the RX480 card. And here are the steps I think I'm going to follow:

- Insertion of a USB key containing the High Sierra installer
- Insertion of the Catalina Loader SD card
- Select "Catalina Loader" as startup disk
- Replacement of my old GPU card, by the RX480 (already flashed)
- Connection of the iMac to the TV via the display port
- Start the iMac and select the High Sierra installer
- Do a clean installation of High Sierra
- Reconnect the internal screen...
Click to expand...
Disable SIP and SecureBootModel to use older macOS versions than Catalina with OCLP. Do not play around with it unless you fully understand the consequences.
 
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