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

[doscore]

So after my supply of Dell based K3100M's I used to flash by replacing the BIOS chip via Using W25X20CLNIG SOP8 WINBOND chips ive had to look for alternatives so I came across some M3000 HP cards that are the N16E-Q1A1 Series
AJR memory Hynix chips with BIOS version 84.04.A4.00.02 (these bios chips are the 2mb version also)

inside my 2010 iMac it boots and I can get into GRML but upon trying to rip. the bios or even flash the bios it says no Nvidia cards detected and lspci also reveals this to be true..

has anyone else had much luck with these cards? I did have a quick look through the fours but perhaps @Ausdauersportler you might have?

EDIT:
ok so I tried it in another iMac and I got it to work 10de,13FA card but k3000m_STE and the V4 roms didn't work even with -6 etc

firmware image 10de,0950 vs 10de,11c9 (my cards subsystem)

EDIT #2

BOOOOOOO maxwelll based chips... there gots $150!!

EDIT #3The Ad on Bay says this card is a Nvidia Quadro 3000M

BUT its actually a M3000M which was quite a grunty card for 2015...so BUYERS BEWARE!!! make sure you check if you buy a 3000M that it is a GK104 GPU and not a GM204!!

EDIT #4
wishful thinking...even if I could just flash these to work in some Macs that would be cool.. (pre MOJAVE)

 

[vinaypundith]

So after my supply of Dell based K3100M's I used to flash by replacing the BIOS chip via Using W25X20CLNIG SOP8 WINBOND chips ive had to look for alternatives so I came across some M3000 HP cards that are the N16E-Q1A1 Series
AJR memory Hynix chips with BIOS version 84.04.A4.00.02 (these bios chips are the 2mb version also)

inside my 2010 iMac it boots and I can get into GRML but upon trying to rip. the bios or even flash the bios it says no Nvidia cards detected and lspci also reveals this to be true..

has anyone else had much luck with these cards? I did have a quick look through the fours but perhaps @Ausdauersportler you might have?

EDIT:
ok so I tried it in another iMac and I got it to work 10de,13FA card but k3000m_STE and the V4 roms didn't work even with -6 etc

firmware image 10de,0950 vs 10de,11c9 (my cards subsystem)

EDIT #2

BOOOOOOO maxwelll based chips... there gots $150!!

EDIT #3The Ad on Bay says this card is a Nvidia Quadro 3000M

BUT its actually a M3000M which was quite a grunty card for 2015...so BUYERS BEWARE!!! make sure you check if you buy a 3000M that it is a GK104 GPU and not a GM204!!

EDIT #4
wishful thinking...even if I could just flash these to work in some Macs that would be cool.. (pre MOJAVE)

I have an M4000M (not in a Mac though) and never had trouble with flashing it with nvflash. And yeah, M4000M is not at all gonna work with the k3000m ROMs. Totally different architecture card, as you noticed.
if the eBay ad says Quadro 3000M then you might be able to get a return, since it was listed as the wrong model. Quadro 3000M would be a Fermi series chip, yet different from the Kepler K3000M or Maxwell M3000M

 

[dorninko]

IDK, just noticed the M5100 within the iMac12,2 does not drive a third display (for unknown reason) while the W6170M did it.
I assume all Polaris cards will do, some or all Nvidia cards might do. What I did not test I cannot confirm.

Hi Ausdauersportler, thanks for the reply.
I am not sure if I understand correctly: only some cards do support 2 external monitors through a thunderbolt dock? or do some cards support both miniDV ports?
And do you know what the K3000M supports?
Thanks

 

[m0bil]

So after my supply of Dell based K3100M's I used to flash by replacing the BIOS chip via Using W25X20CLNIG SOP8 WINBOND chips ive had to look for alternatives so I came across some M3000 HP cards that are the N16E-Q1A1 Series
AJR memory Hynix chips with BIOS version 84.04.A4.00.02 (these bios chips are the 2mb version also)

inside my 2010 iMac it boots and I can get into GRML but upon trying to rip. the bios or even flash the bios it says no Nvidia cards detected and lspci also reveals this to be true..

has anyone else had much luck with these cards? I did have a quick look through the fours but perhaps @Ausdauersportler you might have?

EDIT:
ok so I tried it in another iMac and I got it to work 10de,13FA card but k3000m_STE and the V4 roms didn't work even with -6 etc

firmware image 10de,0950 vs 10de,11c9 (my cards subsystem)

EDIT #2

BOOOOOOO maxwelll based chips... there gots $150!!

EDIT #3The Ad on Bay says this card is a Nvidia Quadro 3000M

BUT its actually a M3000M which was quite a grunty card for 2015...so BUYERS BEWARE!!! make sure you check if you buy a 3000M that it is a GK104 GPU and not a GM204!!

EDIT #4
wishful thinking...even if I could just flash these to work in some Macs that would be cool.. (pre MOJAVE)

We have an iMac Maxwell/Pascal support thread here. In short, what you can expect:

- Needs Opencore to enable screen on boot and emulated boot picker (this works the same as with AMD cards)
- Works ok up to High Sierra with Nvidia Web Drivers (it also enables screen on later MacOS, but without acceleration)
- Fully supported on Linux / Windows 10.

Card will also probably need a patched vbios, drop me a PM if you are willing to give it a try.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Hi Ausdauersportler, thanks for the reply.
I am not sure if I understand correctly: only some cards do support 2 external monitors through a thunderbolt dock? or do some cards support both miniDV ports?
And do you know what the K3000M supports?
Thanks

About the iMac12,2:

No, you will get only one display port working in general after changing the GPU and possibly not every replacement card will be able to drive a third display running a thunderbolt dock.

As I wrote before I did not test each card I owned just because I did not have a thunderbolt dock and not two external displays to test all the time. Since December last year I own all hardware and the only two combinations I tested myself were so far:

Model	GPU	3rd Thunderbolt Display working
iMac12,2	M5100	no
iMac12,2	W6170M	yes

This can be an vBIOS issue…

 

[crosyn]

OpenCore does not enable brightness control in Windows, only within macOS. You have to manually edit the Windows drivers as described in this post, but it does not work in any case.

Check the first post about OpenCore and OCLP and use it to create an SD card in case you run macOS.

BRIGTHNESS CONTROL ON WINDOWS

Finally I can tell that works !
Imac 12,2 - GTX770 with this vbios from Nick and Santa's
and editing registy with Regedit, ading this two entries:
DWORD ==> EnableBrightnessControl 0x00000001 (1)
DWORD ==> RmBrightnessControlFlags 0x00000400 (1024)

Tanks Nick, Santa's, Ausdauesrsportler and m0bil for the asistance 👍
👍

 

[dorninko]

About the iMac12,2:

No, you will get only one display port working in general after changing the GPU and possibly not every replacement card will be able to drive a third display running a thunderbolt dock.

As I wrote before I did not test each card I owned just because I did not have a thunderbolt dock and not two external displays to test all the time. Since December last year I own all hardware and the only two combinations I tested myself were so far:

Model	GPU	3rd Thunderbolt Display working
iMac12,2	M5100	no
iMac12,2	W6170M	yes

This can be an vBIOS issue…

Thanks for the info. I will try with a splitter but I am not very optimistic. Anyway, I don't really need 3 monitors but one of my friends was asking...

Again: you are absolutely great geniuses! thanks for that thread, now I can still use my nice old hardware.

 

[dorninko]

Hi all, I have another problem after installation of a K3000M and upgrading to Big Sur on my 2011 iMac and I am not sure if this is related to the upgrade:
The iMac starts really strange, I have to hit the start button at least twice then after about 3-4 seconds the fans start and the chime comes. Usually the fans start immediately after hitting the button and the chime comes much quicker. And the iMac sometimes does not recognize the keyboard and mouse, so I have to force-shutdown the machine. After the second start usually all is well. It is slightly annoying.
Any suggestions?

thanks

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Hi all, I have another problem after installation of a K3000M and upgrading to Big Sur on my 2011 iMac and I am not sure if this is related to the upgrade:
The iMac starts really strange, I have to hit the start button at least twice then after about 3-4 seconds the fans start and the chime comes. Usually the fans start immediately after hitting the button and the chime comes much quicker. And the iMac sometimes does not recognize the keyboard and mouse, so I have to force-shutdown the machine. After the second start usually all is well. It is slightly annoying.
Any suggestions?

thanks

Search back the thread, we had this only with the iMac12,2 with a bunch or NVIDIA cards starting with the K3000M and ending with the GTX880M. Reason unknown, possibly to many variants of these cards are out and some may cause SMBUS conflicts or other problems leading to this behavior.

In nearly all cases the very same cards works fine within the 2009/2010 models. My advice: Stay away from this cards when using the iMac12,2.

You may check temp data and observe if some weird values are reported by HW Monitor or other tools. Sometimes an SMC reset resolves the issue temporarily….

 

[duvelhedz]

Update:
Experimental AMD M5100 2GB support (AMD Radeon R9 M370X 2GB)

This card has been produced in many variants, currently I know of at least three different types and ident strings:

Type	ident	BIOS version	device-id	working
Green AMD PCB	109-C93157-00A_03	W5170M	6820	yes
Blue AMD PCB	109-C42271-01_02	W5170M	6820	most likely
Red DELL PCB	109-C42241-01_02	M5100-DELL	6821	yes

This GPU will be identified by the macOS as AMD FirePro M5100 and by MetalBench and GeekBench5 as AMD Radeon R9 M370X. The current vBIOS supports Elpida video memory.

Warning:
This card is easy to install but complex to manage during the initial software installation.
You need to install OpenCore in advance and add the changes posted before booting into macOS.

The card will not boot into macOS without the adjusted CAIL values in the config.plist.

Test:
iMac11,x, and iMac 12,2 sleep and wake fully functional with OCLP 0.3.2
iMac12,1, no tested, assume it will work with OCLP 0.3.2
iMac10,1: tested

Use the M5100-DELL vBIOS for the red Dell card, only!

After installing the card it will not simply boot directly into any macOS version (WindowServer crash) unless you install and use OpenCore and apply the settings described below (I will try to get the changes added to OCLP, later).

So you need to install OpenCore onto your boot disk before booting in your current installation in normal multi user mode.

Run OLCP to create an AMD (metal) config and add the lines starting with the <key>rebuild-device-tree</key> into the DeviceProperties section (this is an iMac12,2 example):

                        <key>PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1,0x0)/Pci(0x0,0x0)</key>
                        <dict>
                                <key>shikigva</key>
                                <integer>80</integer>
                                <key>unfairgva</key>
                                <integer>1</integer>
                                <key>rebuild-device-tree</key>
                                <integer>1</integer>
                                <key>agdpmod</key>
                                <string>pikera</string>
                                <key>CAIL,CAIL_DisableDrmdmaPowerGating</key>
                                <data>AQAAAA==</data>
                                <key>CAIL,CAIL_DisableGfxCGPowerGating</key>
                                <data>AQAAAA==</data>
                                <key>CAIL,CAIL_DisableUVDPowerGating</key>
                                <data>AQAAAA==</data>
                                <key>CAIL,CAIL_DisableVCEPowerGating</key>
                                <data>AQAAAA==</data>
                        </dict>

These settings are equivalent with adding radpg=15 -wegtree apdpmod=pikera shikigva=80 to the boot-args in the config.plist of OpenCore.

This GPU type has been used in 2015 15" MacBookPro models.

Tested systems:
- iMac12,2: no problems
- iMac12,1: not tested
- iMac11,1: no problems
- iMac11,2: green AMD card has SMBUS problem, some temp sensor readings are weird, card needs a mod, red Dell card works fine!
- iMac11,3: no problems

Memory support:
The vBIOS attached here supports Elpida memory.
There is another vBIOS with Hynix BFR memory support.
And there is a third vBIOS with Hynix AFR memory support.

Known issues:
- external display sync is difficult on all systems and needs the main LCD or the system to go to display sleep once after connecting the external display

Known features:
- Airplay is working until Catalina as with any other AMD metal card on iMac11,x and iMac12,2 (without using QuickSync)
- high metal scores
- boot screen with OpenCore
- brightness control working
- GPU power management working
- needs macOS 10.8.3 or better (HD7000 support)
- still full Monterey support (no root patching needed unlike Kepler)

Performance:
- GeekBench Metal and OpenCL: > 10.000
- Valley DELL: 23.46 FPS, 981 Score
- MetalBench: 31 MRays/s
- CoreClock: 300 MHz idle - 850 MHz max
- MemoryClock: 150 MHz idle - 1125 MHz max
- PowerDraw: 5W idle - 35W max

Warnings:
- do not use this vBIOS on the Red DELL card, it will cause a bad flash and will make the card unusable
- do not flash the vBIOS from the DELL card onto the other two cards, it will cause a bad flash and will make the card unusable
- a bad flash prevents the iMac from booting and running the Linux flash utility, again!
- bad flashes can only be cured by using a clip or some other nasty tricks

News:
- OCLP 0.3.2 and later support this card. So you can update OC using OCLP in future. Nevertheless the boot strap process is complex since you cannot boot the normal macOS unless OC has been installed in advance!

Discovered a variant of this card with Samsung memory. Here is the original ROM for it if anyone wants it.
Out of 18 of these cards, 1xSamsung, 2x Elpida, 1x Hynix BFR and the rest were Hynix AFR.

 

[Murometc]

Finally I can tell that works !

This first did not work.
And now it works.
Congratulations!
What was the problem ? Why did not the backlight work in Windows? How did you decide this question?

 

[mitesh33]

The mods should not be required for your card, at least not for the 27' 2011 iMac. (Some rare examples of the Dell WX4130 come with U1301 IC on card, and those require removal of two small jumpers for the card to be usable in iMac11,x and - possibly - iMac12,1.) Also, the problem you're describing seems unrelated to (known) issues with some WX4130s.
Have you tried flashing latest @internetzel 's VBIOS? It seems you are using an 'older' version. (My WX4130 is reported as 'AMD Radeon Polaris' in 'About This Mac'.)

Thanks for this, yes you are correct I am using the older Bios which I flashed around 9/10 months ago.

I will give the later BIOS you mentioned a go as it narrow down if it is the Graphics card. Coming back to I thought it was just safari. It's pretty much doing it on every app, however I don't notice as much on other apps. Where as Sarafi loading it really lags.

Will keep you posted

 

[mitesh33]

Th

More interesting than the temperature would be the clock frequencies of the GPU core and its VRAM. You can use the attached script to monitor those clock frequencies. The clocks should boost to >1000 MHz while running a benchmark like Unigine Valley and after that throttle to low values of approximately 300 MHz.
Probably at least one of those clocks is stuck at a low level after wake-up. As @dfranetic already mentioned, you need to use the latest VBIOSes I published for your card, because the most important issue they're supposed to fix is actually the stuck clock problem after wake-up.

Thanks, I will today try the newer VBIOS ROM you advised. I've attached the Terminal script GOP you provided, See the attached, anything unusual? current this is from my iMac being used from sleep and it is laggy, especially Safari.

 

[dan_bai]

is the imac 27 inch mid 2011 mother board intel z68 chip?

 

[dfranetic]

Th

Thanks, I will today try the newer VBIOS ROM you advised. I've attached the Terminal script GOP you provided, See the attached, anything unusual? current this is from my iMac being used from sleep and it is laggy, especially Safari. View attachment 1952486

That terminal utility monitors GPU utilization. If the 'Core Clock' is stuck (ie. does not boost properly) after sleep when GPU is tasked, that's a problem (and the most likely reason for the lagginess you're experiencing). Just flash the latest VBIOS - it is well tested and reliable (and I guess this is not just my experience).

 

[mitesh33]

That terminal utility monitors GPU utilization. If the 'Core Clock' is stuck (ie. does not boost properly) after sleep when GPU is tasked, that's a problem (and the most likely reason for the lagginess you're experiencing). Just flash the latest VBIOS - it is well tested and reliable (and I guess this is not just my experience).

I've just updated to the latest BIOS and and same thing. I've ran the GPU Monitor in terminal and the Core Clock does move up and down when apps are being used. the Memory clock doesn't move from 300mhz.

Really not sure what the issue is, I guess that rules out the graphics card issue then? Any suggestions.

System spec now shows "AMD Radeon Polaris 2GB"

 

[Ausdauersportler]

I've just updated to the latest BIOS and and same thing. I've ran the GPU Monitor in terminal and the Core Clock does move up and down when apps are being used. the Memory clock doesn't move from 300mhz.

Really not sure what the issue is, I guess that rules out the graphics card issue then? Any suggestions.

Run GPU demanding apps or connect an external display, both will drive the memory clock up.

 

[internetzel]

I've just updated to the latest BIOS and and same thing. I've ran the GPU Monitor in terminal and the Core Clock does move up and down when apps are being used. the Memory clock doesn't move from 300mhz.

Really not sure what the issue is, I guess that rules out the graphics card issue then? Any suggestions.

System spec now shows "AMD Radeon Polaris 2GB"

View attachment 1952530

Run GPU demanding apps or connect an external display, both will drive the memory clock up.

In case an external display or the GPU demanding app like Unigine Valley don't drive the memory clock up, GPU on demand boosting is not working properly.

I think you should definitely also check whether the CPU clock does behave the same (boosting and throttling while using Safari) before and after sleep. For monitoring the CPU clock you can use HWMonitor for example.

 

[Antonio Gerson B. da Cruz]

Experimental AMD FirePro M6100 2GB (AMD R9 M380)

View attachment 1876272

This thread will chronicle my efforts to get the AMD FirePro M6100 MXM 3.0 card working on a 2009/2010 iMac. I've been working on it for several months. I will concentrate on the older iMacs as the 2011 iMacs have an issue with the "wake" cycle not recognizing the GPU and make this card nearly unusable.

This card is used internally in a iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2015), model Identifier: iMac17,1

SSH Access:

Adapter  0    SEG=0000, BN=01, DN=00, PCIID=66401002, SSID=00000000)
    Asic Family        :  Bonaire
    Flash Type         :  M25P10/c    (128 KB)
    Product Name       :  Dell / Compal Brooks Saturn XT C60001 A1 GDDR5 2GB 300e/150m   <-- card recognized!
    Bios Config File   :  BR44933.001
    Bios P/N           :  P/N Not Available
    Bios Version       :  015.040.000.001.044933
    Bios Date          :  10/02/13,10:35:3
    ROM Image Type     :  Hybrid Images
    ROM Image Details  :
        Image[0]: Size(65024 Bytes), Type(Legacy Image)           <-- legacy vbios recognized!
        Image[1]: Size(61440 Bytes), Type(EFI Image)              <-- PCI option ROM/UEFI recognized!

MacOS integration:
This card uses the AMD8000Controller.kext and the AMDBonaireGraphicsAcccelerator - RadeonX4000.kext which also natively runs in MacOS. The AMDMTLBronzeDriver is used to initialize its Metal capability. The default framebuffer is in use: RadeonFrameBuffer.

You will like need to apply the same Device Properties as previously stated in other posts <@Ausdauersportler> here recently.

Mods:
- I modified the OBJ table to work with our current iMac models: eDP:14, EncoderID:21, I2CID:92, SenseID:03.
- I used the IM17,1 Header to trick AppleGraphicsPolicy into accepting it as native
- I used an IM17,1 VGA bootloader firmware instead of the stock Dell one and adjusted the pointer to the parser-fall-call in the TVdispout table to point to the correct area in the patched bootloader.
- I used a PC UEFI GOP to communicate with OC and/or OCLP, so you will not get a native MacOS boot picker screen, but instead the OC one.
- GPIO_Pin_LUT has 6 pin assignments for Dell ROM, there are 8 defined in the Apple ROM. This was patched.
- In EFI 1.x systems, the INT 10H and the VESA BIOS Extensions (VBE) are replaced by the EFI UGA protocol. In the more widely used UEFI 2.x systems, the INT10H and the VBE are replaced by the UEFI GOP which is what we are using here to communicate with OpenCore or OCLP using device properties.

The card is recognized as an 'HD8xxx', but that doesn't matter. With the proper OperCore config file, it should be recognized appropriately. I have only tested with High Sierra and Catalina:



View attachment 1876252


View attachment 1876257


Thermal IC chip:
The SMC "0" SMBus Connections on the iMac uses a write address of: 0x98 for the 8-bit SMC slave address. This is equivalent to a 0x4C 7-bit slave address:

0x98 = 1001 1000
0x4C = 0100 1100  (you can see that the 7-bit address is just bit-shifted to the right by 1)

So a GPU card with a ADM1032 thermal IC with a part marking "T1J" seems to work because it communicates on the 0x4C SMC address and will not cause an address collision with other thermal ICs on the logic board. In contrast, an ADM1032 chip with a part marking "T1C" is internally connected to 0x4D and therefore will not communicate with the imac SMC. An EMC1402-1 chip has a slave address of 1001_100 (corresponding to 7-bit 0x4C) and theoretically should also work, but there could be other interactions that are interfering with this. More investigation is necessary.

10/25/2021 addendum:
@dfranetic has pointed out correctly that the SMC information is not being read correctly by this chip, ADM1032. It appears that Mac Fan Control queries the thermal IC directly and not the SMC lane. So back to the drawing board! Sometimes sounds theories don't turn out as we expect in reality

Here is Macs Fan Control:
View attachment 1876141

Let's take a closer look at this IC:
View attachment 1876140
You can see here, that it uses 2 Jumper resistors (lime green) to connect the SCL and SDA lines to the GPU. The pull up resistors are right next to them, both are 100KOhm I believe. I will as an experiment remove these 0 Ohm resistors and see what happens to the GPU temp read out, stay tuned. More research here is necessary.


Benchmark:
View attachment 1876142

Other members have been working on variants of this card, but be warned, these are experimental in nature and still have a lot of troubleshooting to get them working appropriately. They are painful to recover from a bad flash. It's been a long frustrating road with these class of cards, but nevertheless, it has always been insanely great!

Enjoy.​

Hi Nikey, you've been done an amazing job.
Do you know if is it possible to flash this board using a CH341A flash programmer?
Thanks for all your efforts.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Hi Nikey, you've been done an amazing job.
Do you know if is it possible to flash this board using a CH341A flash programmer?
Thanks for all your efforts.

Yes, but is more easy to use the GRML Linux flash utility.

All AMD cards I have seen use SOIC chips which can be flashed using a clip. Some are so small that a clip barely holds. You will need an expensive Pomona clip doing this.

 

[Antonio Gerson B. da Cruz]

Yes, but is more easy to use the GRML Linux flash utility.

All AMD cards I have seen use SOIC chips which can be flashed using a clip. Some are so small that a clip barely holds. You will need an expensive Pomona clip doing this.

Man, I tried with the clip and it was recognized as a Weltrend Wt61p8 but actually, it's a pm25Ld010. I tried to read the rom but it came full of zeroes. I'll try using GRML Linux flash.

 

[MrZupp]

Hi, I seem to have a bit of an issue with my WX4130, when monitoring my temps under MacOS while running Unigine Valley it reports that the "AMD Radeon Polaris" temp is significantly higher that the "GPU PECI" temperature, ( after stopping Unigine Valley the PECI temperature stays slightly higher compared to AMD Radeon Polaris for aorund 15-20 mins ) my question is which one should I follow? ( I should mention that idle temps are kind of the same, around 30-40 degrees celsius )

 

[dfranetic]

Hi, I seem to have a bit of an issue with my WX4130, when monitoring my temps under MacOS while running Unigine Valley it reports that the "AMD Radeon Polaris" temp is significantly higher that the "GPU PECI" temperature, ( after stopping Unigine Valley the PECI temperature stays slightly higher compared to AMD Radeon Polaris for aorund 15-20 mins ) my question is which one should I follow? ( I should mention that idle temps are kind of the same, around 30-40 degrees celsius )

That 'GPU AMD Radeon Polaris' temperature seems excessively high. I suggest you check your GPU to heatsink mount again. I have never had a temperature difference of 40 degrees wrt. 'GPU heatsink'. (I have a difference of more like 5-6 degrees under load.)

 

[mitesh33]

Run GPU demanding apps or connect an external display, both will drive the memory clock up.

Many thanks for the advice I will give that a go next and let you know the outcome.

 

[MrZupp]

That 'GPU AMD Radeon Polaris' temperature seems excessively high. I suggest you check your GPU to heatsink mount again. I have never had a temperature difference of 40 degrees wrt. 'GPU heatsink'. (I have a difference of more like 5-6 degrees under load.)

just checked it, it has a 1mm copper plate with thermal paste on both sides, I don't understand why idle temps are normal but when under load it get so excesively hot and the 2 sensors are reporting such contrasting values