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First, let me thank all involved and contributing to this project. Awesome work, guys!

I did replace the GPU in my old iMac 2010, 27 inch with a K2100M (from HP, according to the flashing process). First, I only checked with an external monitor, and it booted up fine in High Sierra (and Catalina), though in Safari there seemed to be some glitches in the tabs.
Anyway, today I put back the internal display, and the picture is garbage. However, when connecting an external monitor I get a clean picture.

Can those in the know give me a hint what I might have wrecked?

I’d appreciate it
Just a guess from the known issues on the famously unknown first post (Where is the picture of your card to get th memory type? And no, you cannot read it via software!):
  1. Memory type: NVIDIA cards can have different memory types (Hynix AFR, Hynix BFR, Elpida, Samsung). Take a look at the links within the tables to find your fitting BIOS. For some cards - although listed below - we may not have the correct memory versions prepared.
 
Danke, Ausdauersportler!
Well, even though I tried to be careful, I obviously did miss some things. Newbie through and through.
I didn’t take a picture of the card, but since I will have to take the iMac apart again anyway, I will.

Just one question: is the picture on the external monitor independent of the RAM on the card?

Just a guess from the known issues on the famously unknown first post (Where is the picture of your card to get th memory type? And no, you cannot read it via software!):
  1. Memory type: NVIDIA cards can have different memory types (Hynix AFR, Hynix BFR, Elpida, Samsung). Take a look at the links within the tables to find your fitting BIOS. For some cards - although listed below - we may not have the correct memory versions prepared.
 
Danke, Ausdauersportler!
Well, even though I tried to be careful, I obviously did miss some things. Newbie through and through.
I didn’t take a picture of the card, but since I will have to take the iMac apart again anyway, I will.

Just one question: is the picture on the external monitor independent of the RAM on the card?
Just flash the card using the Linux USB utility, no need to take the system apart, again. The worst thing that can happen is you loose even the external screen output (remotly access to the linux flash utility using ssh will work anyway).

From my experiences the replacment card can only be called a working one after you used the internal screen running some load tests. So just just using an external screen can be misleading. Even if you already got Valley running on the external screen and the results were in the same range as the ones published (first post, too) I would still assume it is a BIOS problem. We had this with AMD cards, too.
 
Just flash the card using the Linux USB utility, no need to take the system apart, again. The worst thing that can happen is you loose even the external screen output (remotly access to the linux flash utility using ssh will work anyway).

From my experiences the replacment card can only be called a working one after you used the internal screen running some load tests. So just just using an external screen can be misleading. Even if you already got Valley running on the external screen and the results were in the same range as the ones published (first post, too) I would still assume it is a BIOS problem. We had this with AMD cards, too.

I just flashed the card with the Elpida Rom without taking it apart. Alas, the picture remains the same.
Flashing went through fine because on the external display under ”about my mac” it gives me the correct name.
I then opened up the iMac and removed the internal display.
Even though it’s hard to discern, there is SAMSUNG written on the ram.

So, doesn’t look good, unfortunately.
 

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I just flashed the card with the Elpida Rom without taking it apart. Alas, the picture remains the same.
Flashing went through fine because on the external display under ”about my mac” it gives me the correct name.
I then opened up the iMac and removed the internal display.
Even though it’s hard to discern, there is SAMSUNG written on the ram.

So, doesn’t look good, unfortunately.
Flash the other vBIOS and retry. Weird…
 
Last chance would be to check the display cable on both ends - cannot believe I am writing this.
Did that. Again. Both ends are fast in the socket. Was the first thing I had checked.
Really frustrating. Probably need another card, but they are not that easy to come by.

But thanks again for your continuous help! I really appreciate it!
 
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Did that. Again. Both ends are fast in the socket. Was the first thing I had checked.
Really frustrating. Probably need another card, but they are not that easy to come by.

But thanks again for your continuous help! I really appreciate it!
Also swap card for a known working one, to discard any display and/or cables damage.
 
so i've been reading this thread for nearly a month.
i have a 2011 27inch imac with 32gb ram, i7 2600, 2x 480gb ssd raid0 and a faulty HD6970.

For the same price, between the GTX 880M 8gb and the WX4170 4gb what would you choose?
i understand that the AMD is newer and blasts the Nvidia in Metal but what about non Metal apps like the Adobe Suite?
WX4170 would be a better choice, but finding a working card with eeprom is almost impossible. Even if you buy the eeprom-less version, modding it to add eeprom is quite difficult and not guaranteed to success.
 
i think i've found a WX4170 with RP1 already soldered.
the other jumpers and the U10 are easier to solder right?
i'll ask someone with experience to solder them.
 
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i think i've found a WX4170 with RP1 already soldered.
the other jumpers and the U10 are easier to solder right?
i'll ask someone with experience to solder them.
Do ask someone experienced if you decide to go with WX4170. You will be rewarded with excellent performance and perhaps more ‘long term support’.
 
WX4170 would be a better choice, but finding a working card with eeprom is almost impossible. Even if you buy the eeprom-less version, modding it to add eeprom is quite difficult and not guaranteed to success.
Why there's no guaranteed success? I thought that the missing chip and jumpers were the only issue with this cards :/

Do ask someone experienced if you decide to go with WX4170. You will be rewarded with excellent performance and perhaps more ‘long term support’.
I will do. I would like to know more about this card but i cant find that much information on the web. I mean benchmarks and so
 
Why there's no guaranteed success? I thought that the missing chip and jumpers were the only issue with this cards :/
These cards are mostly removed from used laptops, they may suffer all kind of undetected problems. Also we found different types of memory chips and vbios was not supporting all of them (that seems sorted out with latest vbios from @internetzel). Recently @JohnPascololo bought one with RP1 soldered and it did not recognize eeprom after soldering. I have one WX4170 that looks fine but enters a boot chime loop for unknown reasons.
Ask seller to send actual pictures of card (don't trust ad pictures) and ask if card has been fully tested to work on pc, that will usually put you on the right track.
 
View attachment 1775550

Hello everyone,

I noticed there are still a few members that have K1000M cards around.

I've put together this K1000M rom to enable Brightness control. You will still need to use Opencore to do the ACPI injections, but at least we have a way to control brightness on these older cards now. Just another option.

Vram support:
- ? (will check)

Bootloader/OS support:
Catalina Loader, High Sierra 10.13.6 (tested)

Machine support:
iMac 12,1 ( 21.5-inch Mid 2011) Mac-942B5BF58194151B
iMac 11,2 ( 21.5-inch Mid 2010) Mac-F2238AC8
iMac 11,1 (27-inch Late 2009) Mac-F2268DAE
iMac 11,3 (27-inch Mid 2010) Mac- F2238BAE
iMac12,2 (27-inch Mid 2011) Mac-942B59F58194171B (tested)

Enjoy!
Test with Catalina
 

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Last edited:
Not sure if this is the right place to ask. I'm having trouble getting Big Sur Installer to load with OCLP 0.2.4.

I have installed the Big Sur Installer and OpenCore to an external drive. I choose EFI Boot on boot and then choose Big Sur Installer. The installation starts, I get a black screen with white apple logo and progress bar. The progress bar gets almost halfway and then I get a circle with line through it and text with this URL: "support.apple.com/mac/startup".

I thought maybe it's because I still have my Catalina Loader SD card plugged in, so I tried booting without it and still same issue. I think OpenCore is installed correctly on my external drive, because if I boot into High Sierra with my external drive plugged in I get a black boot screen and a notification in High Sierra that says "Welcome to your new iMac Pro" or something like that, so it obviously thinks it's an iMac Pro. If I boot High Sierra without external drive plugged in, then I get the familiar gray boot screen.

It's a 2011 iMac with flashed K2100M.

Maybe it detected my hardware incorrectly? Is there something I need to change because I have a K2100M? Here is what it says when I build OpenCore:

Code:
Building Configuration on model: iMac12,1
Created build folder

- Adding OpenCore v0.7.1 RELEASE
- Adding config.plist for OpenCore
- Adding Lilu.kext 1.5.4
- Adding WhateverGreen.kext 1.5.1
- Adding SMC-Spoof.kext 1.0.0
- Adding CPUFriend.kext 1.2.4
- Adding CatalinaBCM5701Ethernet.kext 1.0.1
- Adding AppleALC.kext 1.6.2
- Adding FeatureUnlock.kext 1.0.3
- No 3rd Party NVMe drives found
- Found Wireless Device 168C:30
- Adding IO80211HighSierra.kext 1.0.0
- Enabling Windows 10 UEFI Audio support
- Adding USB-Map.kext
- Adding AppleGraphicsPowerManagement Override
- Adding dual GPU patch
- Found GFX0 Device Path: PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1,0x0)/Pci(0x0,0x0)
- Adding audio properties
- Detected dGPU: 10DE:11FC
- Found GFX0 Device Path: PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1,0x0)/Pci(0x0,0x0)
- Adding Nvidia Brightness Control and DRM patches
- Disabling unsupported iGPU
- Adding OpenCanopy GUI
- Adding SATA Hibernation Patch
- Enabling ShowPicker
- Disabling SecureBootModel
- Adding bootmgfw.efi BlessOverride
- Setting macOS Monterey Supported SMBIOS
- Spoofing to iMacPro1,1
- Using Board ID: Mac-7BA5B2D9E42DDD94
- Using Minimal SMBIOS patching
- Cleaning up files

Edit: using OCLP 0.2.4
 
Also swap card for a known working one, to discard any display and/or cables damage.
I did that today, and with the old card the internal display is absolutely fine.
So it has to be the card.
I’m still puzzled that the external display works, while the internal does not.
 
I did that today, and with the old card the internal display is absolutely fine.
So it has to be the card.
I’m still puzzled that the external display works, while the internal does not.
I had a very similar graphical glitch with a K3100m, I cannot recall the vram type but one of the 3 roms solved it. I’m guessing your card is fine but is not compatible with the available custom roms. Did you backup the original rom?

The only issue I had with the K3100m with working rom was boot loop chime but only with the display disconnected which is very strange as it’s the complete opposite symptom for this behavior.
 
I had a very similar graphical glitch with a K3100m, I cannot recall the vram type but one of the 3 roms solved it. I’m guessing your card is fine but is not compatible with the available custom roms. Did you backup the original rom?

The only issue I had with the K3100m with working rom was boot loop chime but only with the display disconnected which is very strange as it’s the complete opposite symptom for this behavior.
Could well be. first, I did backup the original rom, but somehow lost it…
for the 2100m there are only 2 roms available, and the result is the same with both.
 
Not sure if this is the right place to ask. I'm having trouble getting Big Sur Installer to load with OCLP 0.2.4.

I have installed the Big Sur Installer and OpenCore to an external drive. I choose EFI Boot on boot and then choose Big Sur Installer. The installation starts, I get a black screen with white apple logo and progress bar. The progress bar gets almost halfway and then I get a circle with line through it and text with this URL: "support.apple.com/mac/startup".

I thought maybe it's because I still have my Catalina Loader SD card plugged in, so I tried booting without it and still same issue. I think OpenCore is installed correctly on my external drive, because if I boot into High Sierra with my external drive plugged in I get a black boot screen and a notification in High Sierra that says "Welcome to your new iMac Pro" or something like that, so it obviously thinks it's an iMac Pro. If I boot High Sierra without external drive plugged in, then I get the familiar gray boot screen.

It's a 2011 iMac with flashed K2100M.

Maybe it detected my hardware incorrectly? Is there something I need to change because I have a K2100M? Here is what it says when I build OpenCore:

Code:
Building Configuration on model: iMac12,1
Created build folder

- Adding OpenCore v0.7.1 RELEASE
- Adding config.plist for OpenCore
- Adding Lilu.kext 1.5.4
- Adding WhateverGreen.kext 1.5.1
- Adding SMC-Spoof.kext 1.0.0
- Adding CPUFriend.kext 1.2.4
- Adding CatalinaBCM5701Ethernet.kext 1.0.1
- Adding AppleALC.kext 1.6.2
- Adding FeatureUnlock.kext 1.0.3
- No 3rd Party NVMe drives found
- Found Wireless Device 168C:30
- Adding IO80211HighSierra.kext 1.0.0
- Enabling Windows 10 UEFI Audio support
- Adding USB-Map.kext
- Adding AppleGraphicsPowerManagement Override
- Adding dual GPU patch
- Found GFX0 Device Path: PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1,0x0)/Pci(0x0,0x0)
- Adding audio properties
- Detected dGPU: 10DE:11FC
- Found GFX0 Device Path: PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1,0x0)/Pci(0x0,0x0)
- Adding Nvidia Brightness Control and DRM patches
- Disabling unsupported iGPU
- Adding OpenCanopy GUI
- Adding SATA Hibernation Patch
- Enabling ShowPicker
- Disabling SecureBootModel
- Adding bootmgfw.efi BlessOverride
- Setting macOS Monterey Supported SMBIOS
- Spoofing to iMacPro1,1
- Using Board ID: Mac-7BA5B2D9E42DDD94
- Using Minimal SMBIOS patching
- Cleaning up files

Edit: using OCLP 0.2.4
Try a PRAM reset whenever you plan to boot into a different (new or old) OC version.
 
I did that today, and with the old card the internal display is absolutely fine.
So it has to be the card.
I’m still puzzled that the external display works, while the internal does not.
I had a similar issue with a vbios on my m4000m. The internal display worked fine, but once I plugged in an external display the internal display became scrambled and the iMac actually froze at one point. I also had a vbios on 780m that the external monitor would be scrambled. It does sound like a vbios issue to me.
 
I had a similar issue with a vbios on my m4000m. The internal display worked fine, but once I plugged in an external display the internal display became scrambled and the iMac actually froze at one point. I also had a vbios on 780m that the external monitor would be scrambled. It does sound like a vbios issue to me.
Is there a way around this possible issue?
 
Is there a way around this possible issue?
Not easy, either you card has some "new" (not supported by current vbios) memory type (take detailed pictures of vram chips where exact part number is shown, and post them here to see if some vbios wizard can take a look), or card is faulty...
 
Slight differences in same model GPUs manufactured by different vendors makes the whole process a lottery, on a recent GTX880m install I did, on a 2011, the card works beautifully except it has broken the sleep/wake function of the iMac. Nothing I have tried fixes it, it’s happened to only a few other users on this forum with 880 installs.
So yeah the model of iMac also changes the variables the wake problem might be non existent in a 2010 or the card might not even post in a 2009.

Not a great deal you can do about it except learn how to mod roms and potentially fix it yourself or hope a dev can help.

Really good idea to save the original rom.
 
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