Definitely weird. I always thought led #1 was just connected to power from PSU, but apparently not.
BTW, according to Wikipedia:
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iM 4,1-14,4 2011 iMac Graphics Card Upgrade
- Thread starter MichaelDT
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BTW, according to Wikipedia:
Can do both, but seems better to use UEFI.
My idea is using a M4000M (GM204) card, as user @G3llings has already managed to make the card pass POST and work on the 2011 iMac. I know no EFI is available for native boot screen, but thought maybe it can be made to work on emulated boot screen using OpenCore.
Will take a look at available vbios images for that card, and try to see which EFI images they contain.
Another idea is look for a GTX 980 (same GM204 architecture) EFI driver available (I heard some were made for the MacPros), and look if it would be possible to adapt it to the M4000M...
Out of curiosity, why do you want a M4000M in your iMac, I feel like the WX7100 is a better choice given that it is supported in macOS. Do webdrivers in High Sierra support the M4000M?
At the moment, it's because of the price, I guess.
$100~150$ price range vs $300~$350 is a no joking comparision.
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I mean that's a good incentive to pick the quadro, I just don't see the point of doing it on a mac unless it's a secondary card for bootcamp. I was able to get my WX7100 for $240, but sadly they do not seem to go for that little any more.
The card sellers are watching this thread closely. Any cards with completed vBIOS will be quickly sold out or their prices will rise. MXM-A cards tend to have high prices because of their wider compatibility.
That's why we always advise readers to this thread to look in local market/shops first before heading toward global market/shops.
Yep, as @Nguyen Duc Hieu says, it's mostly because of price. While being a slightly better card, at the moment the WX7100 is roughly four times the price of a M4000M.
The M4000M should work on HS with Nvidia webdrivers, but my idea is to build a windows only gaming iMac for my kid at the most budget price possible.
The symptom of failure of Embedded Controller on Mac it’s smc?
Did someone tried to cover mxm smbus with tape to disable with tape strip?
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not sure but doubt it. until the 6970M failed in the system it worked fine and never had an issue with startup. With the K3100M in it I have this problem and it won't come back from sleep either. Until I have some time to play with it I've just disabled sleep and never turn the system off
Thanks, Herrdude, Ausdauersportler, and Nikey22! My 2011 27" iMac is now running perfectly with a flashed K1100m. I installed Catalina via Dosdude1 and then used the GUI to install OC to a USB. I have it all boot screen, brightness control, sleep works, no kernel panics, etc.. Wifi/BT is good. I may be missing some features but I haven't noticed.
General question, is it better to leave OC on the USB stick or move it onto my boot drive? Since the USB is not listed when I check "Start up disk" I wonder how it is loaded. I know it loads because it is working and I can see the USB mounted on my screen.
General question, is it better to leave OC on the USB stick or move it onto my boot drive? Since the USB is not listed when I check "Start up disk" I wonder how it is loaded. I know it loads because it is working and I can see the USB mounted on my screen.
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I copied the whole EFI folder from the USB to the EFI partition on my SSD.
It's worked fined since then.
To get the USB stick recognized as "Startup disk", I guess you would have to bless it to tell Mac OS that it's a bootable device.
Google for how to make an USB bootable in Mac OS.
For upgraded nVidia metal compatible GPU, either will do. the OC can be put on an USB finger drive, SD card or even on the HD/SSD macOS volume. Since the nVidia vBIOS supports Apple BootPicker by pressing Option key during restart, you can always see and select your boot volume even if the OC or macOS system is corrupted and you can boot from a good USB backup drive.
For AMD cards, it is much preferable to put the OC external (USB finger or SD) instead of the HD/SSD volume. The AMD vBIOS doesn't support Apple BootPicker and if the OC / system disk is corrupted, you get a black screen and won't be able to use the Apple BootPicker for trouble-shooting or choosing any external USB drive for salvage.
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@nikey22, @hugodlc, @galkinvv
Vbios data for research of unknown data in the header:
i think that this data is for PCI host, that contain Pci dev id, ssid, vendorid, addresses, pci expansion revision, etc. Maybe that is something related to execution of firmware.
The another unknown fragment is located between ATOM CONFIG AND PCIR
included files:
That`s possibly SSID coded (3Bytes)
Vbios data for research of unknown data in the header:
The 6770 the last GPU vbios with that short data which located starting from offset to BIOS boot up message to BIOS boot up message itself, the next 7770 gpu has extended data. Maybe because the most systems became the uEFI, so efi driver was need more information to work with gpu.
i think that this data is for PCI host, that contain Pci dev id, ssid, vendorid, addresses, pci expansion revision, etc. Maybe that is something related to execution of firmware.
The another unknown fragment is located between ATOM CONFIG AND PCIR
included files:
That`s possibly SSID coded (3Bytes)
040B (0B04) vs D580 (80D5)
I think that its almost enough data to rebuild header of vbios for new, hope the most stable and final build
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I finally got target display mode working on Big Sur, but it's very unstable. It's a bit painful to enter TDM, and exiting TDM will cause the iMac to lock up on a black screen with no backlight requiring a hard reboot. I know High Sierra is the last supported version with TDM, but with my WX7100 I can only boot High Sierra with an external display attached so I cannot really use that. Anyone else get Target Display Mode working or know how to make it more stable?
Did you patch vbios with Connectors patch and TvOut patch? Does vbios support backlight PWM?
I'm just using the normal patched WX7100 vbios from post 1, it has working backlight but no boot screen, no idea if the vbios does anything with connectors or tvout
Possibly it could be fix with reverse engineering of SMC firmware or with ACPI work-through. But its for AMD solution as ATIF buffer exchange.
AMD Releases ACPI Header For Open-Source GPU Driver - Phoronix
www.phoronix.com
So i think, that its possible to grab temperature, then create ACPI method for SMC PWM, Tachometr access for controlling fan speed.
If you are using OpenCore, then its easy to do. The main plus of this method - it will work on any OS.
That is not only NTC problem, but complex as device address is not supported by SMC smbus.
You can try the video capture card (HDMI to USB 3.0) + Quick Camera apps. From within Big Sur, the iMac will see the display on the Quick Camera app, kind of Picture In Picture mode. Don't know if USB 2.0 has enough bandwith, but I guess 1080p is working OK. Extend the App window to full screen, and you have TDM. This method work with any iMac with USB 3.0 port. Newer OS is not an issue.
This looks janky, might try it but not very hopeful. Has anyone else but the author had success?
This is something I've been debating, USB 2.0 is defiantly not enough and most USB capture cards are 1080p 30 vs the 1440p 60 I'm looking for. Might do something like a pcie capture card if the input lag is alright. If I'm going to essentially make my own TDM I'd rather do it with an lcd driver board, but I still have too many un answered questions about how that setup might look and work. But a big incentive for using a driver board is that I can use a secondary eGPU on the internal screen a few years from now when my WX7100 no longer runs all the latest games.
I have a 2010 (mid) 21.5 iMac with the upgraded Nvidia K1000m GPU which is stuck in the boot chime loop. I flashed this GPU chip (Winbond) with the "rom" file from Nickey22. I used the ch341a programmer and a Raspberry Pi with flashrom installed to flash the chip.
I tried a PRAM reset and a CMOS reset with no luck.
My question is-
Are there any differences between the two files listed in the chart found in this forum? The "rom" and "old rom" files?
**EDIT**
After I removed my SSD with Hi Sierra installed on it, my iMac is no longer stuck in boot chime loop.
It doesn't make sense.
I get the one chime and two greed LEDs but not the third. Should I get a third LED without any software installed?
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hi. it's newbie again.
i tried to install win10 on my imac.(880M , OCLP + Big Sur 11.5.1)
serching many times, still can't install win10.
win10 installer said "there is mbr partition. efi file system only use gpt partition."
how do i can install win10 using usb stick?
(i tired rufus, format usb on mac and copy win10 iso. i spended a day with this problem )
i hate apple
It's not Apple fault alone. There are several restrictions in Windows 10 installation procedures as well. Move your questions to the Windows threads/topics.
The error that the installer is reporting is pretty clear yeah, it is specifically telling you the problem.i tried to install win10 on my imac.(880M , OCLP + Big Sur 11.5.1)
serching many times, still can't install win10.
win10 installer said "there is mbr partition. efi file system only use gpt partition."
how do i can install win10 using usb stick?
(i tired rufus, format usb on mac and copy win10 iso. i spended a day with this problem )
i hate apple
How to Bootcamp / Dual Boot Windows 10 on a mid-2011 iMac using USB
How to Bootcamp / Dual Boot Windows 10 on a mid-2011 iMac using USB - README.md
gist.github.com
I've been following this thread for nearly 2 years, and I think I understand Ausdauersportler's feelings. The experts have been working very hard to come up to solutions. They have explained every details, picking up from each and every useful informations scattered all over the posts of this 6-hundred-ish-page thread. There maybe some language barriers to some, but by reading and understanding post #1 and every link from post #1 with the help of Google translate, even a novice Mac user (like me) can do the upgrade. When hitting an issue, you just need to come to this thread, using the search function with several key words, and you will see similar cases have been described with solutions already.
A simple price search of the cards listed on post#1 will give you a glimps of what to buy, how powerful it would be, etc.
But instead of reading, more than half of the new comers to this thread often start with: "What is the most powerful card to go with my 2009~2011 iMac, which I've just got for free, blah blah blah etc.". And those attitudes are really disgusting. We are only try to make old iMacs (more often than not, with dead GPUs because of Apple's design flaw) work again and upgradable to newer Mac OS, keeping them from going to metal scrap yard, while pulling some usage from them.
If money doesn't matter, discuss your concern with the GPU sellers from the Far East, they have the responsibility to help you with your issue to sell their merchandise and benefit from that. They read this thread, too.