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

[Surf2bikes]

View attachment 1775541


The following is a rom for brightness control for the people who own a K2000M card.
You will still need to use Opencore to do the necessary ACPI injections.
Appreciate @BadBiscuit for doing the initial testing and confirmation. His hardware and OS support is below.

Vram support:
Hynix H5TQ2G63DFR (tested)

Bootloader/OS support:
OCLP v.0.1.2, BigSur 11.3.1 (tested)

Machine support:
iMac 12,1 ( 21.5-inch Mid 2011) Mac-942B5BF58194151B (tested)
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

Again, now that @Ausdauersportler and the others are working to refine OCLP to our generation iMacs, these cards should be more easily compatible. Much appreciation for that. A reminder, they are not for power users because of their DDR3 ram and clock limitations. Enjoy!

Insanely Great!
-Steve Jobs

Hi @nikey22 !
I am Running an iMac 12,1 with Nvidia k2000m. I flashed it with K2000M0C.ROM but I am not getting brightness control with OCLP 0.33. I am running Big Sur latest release 11.6.2. Further when iMac gets in sleep mode it does not come back (this might be a different issue) - I need to reboot. Any ideas what the issue is? Many thanks!

 

[Surf2bikes]

Hi @nikey22 !
I am Running an iMac 12,1 with Nvidia k2000m. I flashed it with K2000M0C.ROM but I am not getting brightness control with OCLP 0.33. I am running Big Sur latest release 11.6.2. Further when iMac gets in sleep mode it does not come back (this might be a different issue) - I need to reboot. Any ideas what the issue is? Many thanks!

I solved the problem! I had a conflicting EFI with an older OCLP!!

 

[Ausdauersportler]

I solved the problem! I had a conflicting EFI with an older OCLP!!

It would be nice to avoid cross posting - it is not really fair to force people working on your personal problems in parallel. Same applies to this ping thing...

 

[Surf2bikes]

It would be nice to avoid cross posting - it is not really fair to force people working on your personal problems in parallel. Same applies to this ping thing...

I agree …that’s why I wanted to delete this initial post …but it was not possible. Sorry!

 

[austinsec]

I installed the catelina works great except when it shuts down , I cannot get screen to light up.
on reboot also black screen, Only when I clear nvram I can get the screen to light and everything works fine. Until it goes to sleep. What am I doing wrong?
Also I get an error using post install patcher. says error >>> patch 1
Please advise
Thank you

 

[abbotsford1980]

Hi All, I've updated my 11,1 iMac to a M5100

Red DELL PCB

109-C42241-01_02

M5100-DELL

6821

- Have flashed the card with the provided bios from page 1 of this forum. Having an interesting issue - the VRAM on the card shows as 890,000.00000 GB - Has anyone seen this? this causes the iMac to crash unless I boot in safe mode - OC 0.3.3 applied with device patches as below (I've tested using the LCD and DP connection)

<key>PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x3,0x0)/Pci(0x0,0x0)</key>
<dict>
<key>CAIL,CAIL_DisableDrmdmaPowerGating</key>
<integer>1</integer>
<key>CAIL,CAIL_DisableGfxCGPowerGating</key>
<integer>1</integer>
<key>CAIL,CAIL_DisableUVDPowerGating</key>
<integer>1</integer>
<key>CAIL,CAIL_DisableVCEPowerGating</key>
<integer>1</integer>
<key>agdpmod</key>
<string>pikera</string>
<key>rebuild-device-tree</key>
<integer>1</integer>
<key>shikigva</key>
<integer>128</integer>
<key>unfairgva</key>
<integer>1</integer>
</dict>

 

[nekton1]

iMac 27p Mid 2011 Internal Black Screen after GPU upgrade to WX4150

Good afternoon to the entire community.

As you can see, I am new in the forum. I promise, I read and read and read again the first page post (and all the subsequent links).

And I am still banging my head on the walls :-(

I recently purchased a brand new HP WX 4150 which had been flashed by an eminent member of this community and tested on his machine before sending. So I fully rely on this the card is good and should work in my iMac 27 p Mid-2011.

So, when I received the card, I installed it in my iMac and used the OCPL (0.31) formatted USB. A brand new SSD (unformatted) was installed in place of the old HDD but we left another SSD with High Sierra with it. Despite many many hours testing and checking, the internal screen remained black. Whatever ever I do, (Option key) No OC Boot picker at all. Slightly opening the screen, only two led were lightinng up. Never thrid and fourth.
Then, we tried to connect an external screen. We finally got a boot picker on the external screen but only when we are not pushing the option (alt) key.
When choosing the high sierra disk to boot from, we only got a blurry screen of the background wallpaper. We assume this is the secondary display, the login screen must bee on the Black internal lcd (but not visible). After 30 seconds, the fans were blowing full speed.
So, we decided to remove the internal screen and boot on High Sierra. And bang, we got the login screen on the external display and we were able to get in. We installed MacFans in order to lower the speed of the fans, and it worked well. The Graphic card was recognized as a Radeon Polaris with its 4Gb of memory. In Photoshop, the graphic acceleration was on. Unigine Valley was giving us around 52 fps.
Only the first two led were on on the iMac mother board. But at least the card was recognized.

Confident we were on the right track we plugged back the internal screen, we did continue to test multiple configurations (removing all the SSD, just with a USB key (We tested Install USB of High Sierra, Big Sur and Monterey). None of them worked.

At no moment we got the Boot picker on the internal LCD.

At some time, we feared we may have broken something so we dismantle it again and put back the old HD 6770 card in and fired it up. Luckily, everything was still working.

From there, I downloaded the latest OCLP (0.32) and Monterey and reformatted a brand new USB key using the High Sierra. We rebooted and installed Monterey from the USB (still with old graphic card). Everything went smoothly and after two and a half hours Monterey was installed. We booted on it, installed OCLP 0.32 and generated the EFI on the SSD drive, selecting the developer only option for the AMD Polaris GPU.

We then reinstalled the new graphic card (WX4150) with a big hope it will work this time. But no luck so far: What ever we do, we haven't been able so far to get the internal screen lighting up with the new card.

We still do get the boot picker display on the external but only when we do NOT hit the option key. We did several times the PRAM reset (3 times).
We added the agdpmod=pikera in the boot args without any success.

To be honest, at the time i write this message, I feel a bit lost and don't know where to look next.

So, if any member of the community has a bright idea, we are desperate to test anything.

Thanks for you time ;-)

Laurence and Philippe

PS: I am going to be away of the imac for the next two days, not able to test any of the ideas. Be sure I'll test them and report when I'm back.

I have done several of these GPU upgrades on this model and when there have been problems it has always been due to a short between the SMD components on the GPU and the heat sink. The solution has been either to modify the heat sink by grinding it back, or if the parts levels are not too high, coat the components on the GPU with clear nail varnish to isolate them electrically from the surface of the heat sink. Obviously, do not paint the memory chips or GPU chip and be sure the nail varnish coating has dried completely to hard before re-assembly. A less permanent fix is to mask the surface of the heat sink with insulating tape except in the areas where the RAM chips and GPU touch it. Good luck.

 

[FixUserContentKarmaU]

Hello Community,

I own a 21.5 inch iMac from 2011 with 2.7 GHz quad core processor i5 from Intel and last month I removed the old AMD Radeon HD 6770M graphics card and replaced it with the Quadro K610M. I chose the K610M because I'm not very handy and would have to mill something up for another graphics card.

My OS at the time was High Sierra and it ran really smooth for the age of this iMac. Now I have Big Sur on it and the Mac has become quite sluggish. Whether it's the slow boot process or launching programs and even virtualization has become noticeably slower.

Now, before I start looking for another card I wanted to ask you guys if maybe it's Big Sur that the Mac has become so slow or is it actually the K610M or both? When I compare the two graphics cards, the AMD was much better than the two years younger K610M (!).

If it is indeed the graphics card, which one would you recommend? Thanks and stay healthy everyone.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Hi All, I've updated my 11,1 iMac to a M5100

Red DELL PCB

109-C42241-01_02

M5100-DELL

6821

- Have flashed the card with the provided bios from page 1 of this forum. Having an interesting issue - the VRAM on the card shows as 890,000.00000 GB - Has anyone seen this? this causes the iMac to crash unless I boot in safe mode - OC 0.3.3 applied with device patches as below (I've tested using the LCD and DP connection)

Hi!

I can only assume you got a similar card but with different VRAM on board. A picture of the VRAM chips/card and the original vBIOS from the card could be of great help.

 

[motorm3]

After big sur 11.6.2 and OCLP 3.3 update my WiFi keeps dropping out. What do I do to fix this

 

[Aesthetica]

Another thanks to this thread – been self isolating w/ Covid and playing Tomb Raider (2013) to pass the time. I know its an old game but I'm impressed with the K4100m hitting 40-60fps at 2560x1600 mostly highest settings and that's running in macOS. Looking forward to testing other games out esp in Windows!

 

[abbotsford1980]

Hi!

I can only assume you got a similar card but with different VRAM on board. A picture of the VRAM chips/card and the original vBIOS from the card could be of great help.

**Updated**
Hopefully this is clear enough - Hynix - H5GQ2H24AFR-T2C
Bios attached
With the attached original Bios is can boot into windows (External monitor only) - all artefacts are now gone and the card is rock solid.
OSX also boot but no internal or external monitor currently
Going to take a look at the bios and see if I can work out what needs to change ....

Thank you for responding. I've been having fun troubleshooting this issue but didn't think about the memory type
I loaded the bios by CH341a the first time and the bios was blank from what I remember when I loaded its contents (This was the same on my k2100m a year ago)
I did however find a bios on techpowerup https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/214127/214127 and here https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/230265/230265 - that looks like they might be helpful. 1 has the timings for 2 Hynix memory types and the other has 1 single on.

 

[west125]

Hello everyone, I have imac2009 gtx880 bigsur I want to update to Monterey, I wanted to know half of the OCLP installation, I need to install monters from a USB flash drive or I can update from bigsur, now it cannot be updated from bigsur

 

[motorm3]

OK so I got WiFi and big sur going smoothly again. Basically if anyone will upgrade to OCLP 3.3 and 11.6.2 you need to do a fresh install of big sur over the top of original. If you just do the update it will run crap.

 

[Balsie]

Hello again.

The seller accepted my return of the previous gpu, and now I really need your help

I have attached pictures of my system info.

I need to upgrade my 2010 iMac 27" to run at least Catalina, because I need to run Fusion360 again.
primary use is Adobe fusion 360.
wich gpu would be the "Best Buy" for this ?
it need to be as simply and most plug n play as possibly. I both have the 2 and 3 pibe radiator.

Thanks.

Hello rcmn,

I have the same machine and I've used the GTX780M, which I bought for 100 euro (that's cheap).
Works like a charm in Mojave and later on I'm going to Big Sur.
The GTX780M I bought, was a Clevo and I flashed it with succes in bootcamp.
You better use the 3 pipe (I've changed mine).

 

[abbotsford1980]

**Updated**
Hopefully this is clear enough - Hynix - H5GQ2H24AFR-T2C
Bios attached
With the attached original Bios is can boot into windows (External monitor only) - all artefacts are now gone and the card is rock solid.
OSX also boot but no internal or external monitor currently
Going to take a look at the bios and see if I can work out what needs to change ....

I've just made some progress - I was able to lift and shift some code from a bios (attached) that allowed windows to boot only on an external monitor on my 11,1 iMac to the M5100-DELL-RED-GOP-BLUE_OBJI.rom ROM file from the link on page 1. The memory timing issue is now fixed meaning no artefacts and I can boot OSX 12.2beta without safe mode enabled . Yay!!! the memory still shows the wrong amount in the system info as per my original post - that issue is for another day

Also had to also update the CRC value before flashing the new ROM from windows

Before, after and windows only ROM attached for compare Ausdauersportler

 

[internetzel]

I've just made some progress - I was able to lift and shift some code from a bios (attached) that allowed windows to boot only on an external monitor on my 11,1 iMac to the M5100-DELL-RED-GOP-BLUE_OBJI.rom ROM file from the link on page 1. The memory timing issue is now fixed meaning no artefacts and I can boot OSX 12.2beta without safe mode enabled . Yay!!! the memory still shows the wrong amount in the system info as per my original post - that issue is for another day

Also had to also update the CRC value before flashing the new ROM from windows

Before, after and windows only ROM attached for compare Ausdauersportler

We generally use ATOMTableResize to exchange the VRAM_Info table, which contains the memory configuration and timings. That tool can also fix the checksum.
Is it that what you tried here?

 

[abbotsford1980]

We generally use ATOMTableResize to exchange the VRAM_Info table, which contains the memory configuration and timings. That tool can also fix the checksum.
Is it that what you tried here?

I did it manually sadly - couldn't find a tool... but I will take a look at that link now

 

[Ausdauersportler]

I've just made some progress - I was able to lift and shift some code from a bios (attached) that allowed windows to boot only on an external monitor on my 11,1 iMac to the M5100-DELL-RED-GOP-BLUE_OBJI.rom ROM file from the link on page 1. The memory timing issue is now fixed meaning no artefacts and I can boot OSX 12.2beta without safe mode enabled . Yay!!! the memory still shows the wrong amount in the system info as per my original post - that issue is for another day

Also had to also update the CRC value before flashing the new ROM from windows

Before, after and windows only ROM attached for compare Ausdauersportler

The vBIOS versions should be able to boot Linux Ubuntu and Windows without any problems (as long as you have the correct VRAM).

The safe-mode thing is an macOS only problem when using PC vBIOS versions with these HD7xxx family AMD cards (known for years from the Hackintosh and MacPro world).

If you have installed OpenCore with the CAIL settings enabled (or using the -radpg=15 within the boot-args) you should be able to boot any macOS version.

Attached you will find a vBIOS using the Hynix VRAM_INFO from the other vBIOS you put into the archive.


Reports:
Works with Hynix BFR memory.

 

[abbotsford1980]

The vBIOS versions should be able to boot Linux Ubuntu and Windows without any problems (as long as you have the correct VRAM).

The safe-mode thing is an macOS only problem when using PC vBIOS versions with these HD7xxx family AMD cards (known for years from the Hackintosh and MacPro world).

If you have installed OpenCore with the CAIL settings enabled (or using the -radpg=15 within the boot-args) you should be able to boot any macOS version.

Attached you will find a vBIOS using the Hynix VRAM_INFO from the other vBIOS you put into the archive.

Amazing - I literally just made the same rom with the tool from the earlier post - they match byte for byte I've spent days working this and in a mater of minutes its solved. Thanks you both for your assistance.

Just applied and booted into OSX 12.2 - VRam still shows as 890,000.00000 GB but I can live with that since everything else is working a treat

I have 2 more bios files with different configs that also boot the card (Hynix only config and Hynix/Samsung) I will use ATOMTableResize tomorrow to test if either of these resolve the incorrect VRAM number. Time for bed here in Australia

 

[Jack Dansku]

Hello everyone!

I would like to ask forums opinion on what kind of upgrades i should go for my iMac 12,1 mid 2011 21,5”.
The conclusion what i came up researching these forums is nvidia gtx 770M, because anything higher than that might run problems with the power consumption.

Main tasks what i would like to do is regular internet, youtube, maybe some python coding and much of light gaming (dota 2, diablo 3, csgo, valorant etc.)

However, is gtx 770m too slow for that kind of usage? Is it possible to upgrade power unit to 27” models PU? are they compatible? that way there would open a lot more of options. What do you guys think? I would love to read some of your opinions.

And i would prefer to stay with this 21,5” rather than upgrade it, cause i got it dead cheap and would like to spend even more money to it than buy a new one and upgrade that.

 

[cyxoe]

The vBIOS versions should be able to boot Linux Ubuntu and Windows without any problems (as long as you have the correct VRAM).

The safe-mode thing is an macOS only problem when using PC vBIOS versions with these HD7xxx family AMD cards (known for years from the Hackintosh and MacPro world).

If you have installed OpenCore with the CAIL settings enabled (or using the -radpg=15 within the boot-args) you should be able to boot any macOS version.

Attached you will find a vBIOS using the Hynix VRAM_INFO from the other vBIOS you put into the archive.

EDIT: Please report back!

Ausdauersportler,
for what kind of vRAM modules have you created your original vBIOS M5100-DELL-RED-GOP-BLUE_OBJI.rom in the post 16552?
I have instructed the seller to send me M5100 already pre-flashed with the vBIOS from the aforementioned post.
I have just received my GPU couple of hours ago and I can observe the following vRAM: Hynix - H5GC2H24BFR-T2C.
It's almost the same as abbotsford1980 has: Hynix - H5G(Q)2H24(A)FR-T2C, the difference is in two letters between the brackets (have no idea if it matters in this case).
I guess the seller has honored my request and pre-flashed the card with M5100-DELL-RED-GOP-BLUE_OBJI.rom, therefore I can not extract and provide the original one, sorry for that.
What is the best way to proceed?
Either leave the GPU as it is pre-flashed with M5100-DELL-RED-GOP-BLUE_OBJI.rom, install it and check if it works;
Or flash the new vBIOS M5100-DELL-RED-GOP-BLUE_OBJI-HYNIX.rom right away?

I mean, if M5100-DELL-RED-GOP-BLUE_OBJI.rom does not work for sure with the Hynix vRAM, then I do not need even to "try" to make it work without flashing a new vBIOS for Hynx modules, right?

 

[cyxoe]

Amazing - I literally just made the same rom with the tool from the earlier post - they match byte for byte I've spent days working this and in a mater of minutes its solved. Thanks you both for your assistance.

Just applied and booted into OSX 12.2 - VRam still shows as 890,000.00000 GB but I can live with that since everything else is working a treat

I have 2 more bios files with different configs that also boot the card (Hynix only config and Hynix/Samsung) I will use ATOMTableResize tomorrow to test if either of these resolve the incorrect VRAM number. Time for bed here in Australia

I would kindly ask you to share your new findings and vBIOS with the less fortunate and technically inclined (me) spices
It seems I'm in the same boat with the M5100 with Hynix vRAM, so I'm eager to see your progress before I proceed.
Thank you.

 

[khindemit]

Hello folks,

thanks a lot for you effort! This forum contain tons of useful information.
I have upgraded my iMac 2011 27 (12,2) with AMD WX4170 video card and Samsung 1TB SSD.

I want to share my experience. I started the upgrade process long time ago, almost 2 years are gone:

2011 iMac Graphics Card Upgrade

Hey folks! I have hard time to flash the AMD WX4170 HP card. I try to flash it on Win 10 using CH341. I have no idea what are the right settings for the: Type, Manu and Name. On the BIOS are three lines, I tried to google it, but no luck. Here are the lines: HH1702 25Q4OCT APOT218 You can find...

forums.macrumors.com

The reason for such a long process was problems with new Video card and heatsink.

Here my very long path:
1. I flashed the AMD video card with the rom version that was available back in the days.
2. Installed the video card
3. Mac was successfully working with old native High Sierra installation (without OCLP)
4. I tested the performance in benchmarks and reported the results to Ausdauersportler
5. Based on the results it was discovered that the Video Card does not worked with the full power
6. Few days with High Sierra installation iMac was working successful.
7. Then one evening there was new updates from Apple (it was June 2020) which I installed
8. After installing the updates iMac stopped to work: When the power was turned on, even the fans doesn't start. After removing the LCD display and reviewing the diagnostic leds on system board I discovered following behavior:
8.1 When the 220V power was enabled, one of the leds was on for 1-2 seconds and afterwards was disabled
8.2 The power button doesnt gave any results. The iMac was not reacting to the power button.
9. I disassembled the Mac again and put the old video card. It worked again, no problems with the led diagnostig lights:
9.1 After putting the 220V power, one of the leds was constantly green.
9.2 After enabling the Mac with power button, second led green light was enabled.
10. So, it was obvious that the problem is related to the new Video Card. It already had the heatsink modifications, but it was not enough.
11. I reviewed carefully all places on the video card that can touch the heatsink and put on that places insulating tape small pieces (see photo 1)
12. After installing the video card the Mac started to work. There was two green leds after powering on.
13. With the Linux USB stick I flashed the video card to the latest available roms from page one. I tried both, regular and _ALT_VRAM versions for WX4170.
14. I went to OCLP and installed macOS Monterey 12.1 on the new Samsung SSD. The old HDD is currently installed, but disabled from system board.
15. The installation was successful. I didn't apply the "Post-Install Volume Patch". I tried it, but after applying and restarting the graphics hardware acceleration stopped to work. The UI was very laggy. So, I unapplied that patch.
16. I don't have yet the modification of moving the temperature sensor from CD-Rom to the Video Card heatsink.
17. Only the Macs Fan Control is installed. It shows the GPU temperature around 60 degrees.
18. I don't have a metal plate between the heatsink and the video card installed as it was suggested by Ausdauersportler. I'll install it in the next days.

Current problems:
1. The wifi does not work. This is I guess because I broke the antenna connector N3 on the wifi card. I uninstalled and installed the system board ~15 times. So, the connector died during this process. Right now I connect through Ethernet cable. I'll try to upgrade to BT4.2 Wifi card later. Need to read the Wifi thread carefully and order the right card...

2. When I try to benchmark the 3d performance in MetalBench, the benchmark runs for 1-2 seconds and freezes the Mac. Only hard rebooting helps (long press on power button). The freezes happen also in Unity 3d engine. In editor mode it works until there is something 3d to render. It freezes the editor for 1-2 minutes and then works again until next freeze. I have no idea why it happens and how to fix it.

Maybe I need to apply post installation patches?

 

[dfranetic]

2. When I try to benchmark the 3d performance in MetalBench, the benchmark runs for 1-2 seconds and freezes the Mac. Only hard rebooting helps (long press on power button). The freezes happen also in Unity 3d engine. In editor mode it works until there is something 3d to render. It freezes the editor for 1-2 minutes and then works again until next freeze. I have no idea why it happens and how to fix it.

You probably have that 'lower grade' Polaris chip @internetzel taught me about a while ago. Try flashing one of his WX4150 ROMs to see if the problem persists. (If it does, it's probably related to the lacking metal plate.)