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

[Hosephe]

Hi everyone.

I tried to upgrade my 2011 27" Imac, with a GTX 780m (buy here) and a I7-2600.
I have installed High Sierra.
The new CPU and GPU installation gone ok.
First boot, the Imac wakes up (start up sound), screen stays black, OK.
But after 30 seconds, the IMac reboots over and over.
I double checked the installation, all is ok.

Diagnostic's LED 1 and 2 are green, but 3 and 4 don't light on.

Is anyone have an idea?

Thank you in advance for your help.

 

[FlorisVN]

Hi everyone.

I tried to upgrade my 2011 27" Imac, with a GTX 780m (buy here) and a I7-2600.
I have installed High Sierra.
The new CPU and GPU installation gone ok.
First boot, the Imac wakes up (start up sound), screen stays black, OK.
But after 30 seconds, the IMac reboots over and over.
I double checked the installation, all is ok.

Diagnostic's LED 1 and 2 are green, but 3 and 4 don't light on.

Is anyone have an idea?

Thank you in advance for your help.

Ad far as I know, led3 or 4 wont light on, when using a graphics card withouth apple efi on it like the gtx780m.
Unles you got a moddified efi rom on it.. ?

What version of gtx780m are you running ?
Dell alienware are known to work.

 

[Hosephe]

Ad far as I know, led3 or 4 wont light on, when using a graphics card withouth apple efi on it like the gtx780m.
Unles you got a moddified efi rom on it.. ?

What version of gtx780m are you running ?
Dell alienware are known to work.

I don't know the version, but I asked the seller about it.
The card is sell for Dell/Alienware laptops.

 

[FlorisVN]

I don't know the version, but I asked the seller about it.
The card is sell for Dell/Alienware laptops.

Ok,
I think you need to try and reseat the GPU in the mxm slot.

Try that and come here back again..

 

[Hosephe]

Ok,
I think you need to try and reseat the GPU in the mxm slot.

Try that and come here back again..

I double check, triple check the GPU seating in the MXM slot, all is ok, but the IMac still stay in boot loop.

This WE, I will install an Apple Radeon HD 6750M (from my 21,5" Imac), to check the all parts (logic board, CPU, etc).

 

[passatgt]

Don't forget to check the rams too. In one of my iMacs i damaged the logic board at the bottom and 2 of the 4 memory slots died and when i installed the modules in the dead slots i experienced the same issue you are describing.

 

[Alex227831]

Hi everyone,
I have a 2011 iMac (i7 2600s and 12gb ram quad channel). I have attemp3 to upgrade the gpu to the 765 but I am greeted with blank screens on both my external montitor and internal display. The third light on the motherboard is also not Turing in which I believe is for the gpu... I have tryed reconnecting the gpu and ram but still won’t boot, any idea what the issue could be?

Thanks

 

[FlorisVN]

Hi everyone,
I have a 2011 iMac (i7 2600s and 12gb ram quad channel). I have attemp3 to upgrade the gpu to the 765 but I am greeted with blank screens on both my external montitor and internal display. The third light on the motherboard is also not Turing in which I believe is for the gpu... I have tryed reconnecting the gpu and ram but still won’t boot, any idea what the issue could be?

Thanks

what GTX765m version are you using ?
note that only Dell/Alienware GTX765m versions are known to work.
of course without EFI bootscreen etc.

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

My 2GB Radeon 6970M in my 2011 iMac has died again. It lasted 23 months on a simple bake in the oven, so definitely worth trying for everyone who would prefer not to buy a new GPU.

Will repeat the procedure this evening, so hopefully it will work again. If it can last until Apple is shipping their new modular Mac Pro, I will be very happy! (Unless it ends up costing a billion $ of course...)

 

[FlorisVN]

My 2GB Radeon 6970M in my 2011 iMac has died again. It lasted 23 months on a simple bake in the oven, so definitely worth trying for everyone who would prefer not to buy a new GPU.

Will repeat the procedure this evening, so hopefully it will work again. If it can last until Apple is shipping their new modular Mac Pro, I will be very happy! (Unless it ends up costing a billion $ of course...)

Why not replace it with an Nvidia GTX765m or 780m for example ?
you then have metal support, and mojave support with dosdude1 patcher..

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

Why not replace it with an Nvidia GTX765m or 780m for example ?
you then have metal support, and mojave support with dosdude1 patcher..

Baking my current card costs me nothing. Sure, Mojave would be nice to have, but not at that price.

 

[liquidtwitch]

Just found this http://store.sourninja.com/sourninja-dual-wield.html - pity it didn't take off. Would have been an easy way to use something like a full sized Apple flashed GTX 680.

 

[pamppa]

Hi everyone.

I tried to upgrade my 2011 27" Imac, with a GTX 780m (buy here) and a I7-2600.
I have installed High Sierra.
The new CPU and GPU installation gone ok.
First boot, the Imac wakes up (start up sound), screen stays black, OK.
But after 30 seconds, the IMac reboots over and over.
I double checked the installation, all is ok.

Diagnostic's LED 1 and 2 are green, but 3 and 4 don't light on.

Is anyone have an idea?

Thank you in advance for your help.

I had the same problem once when I was still baking the old 6970m (baked it 3 times), today I finally had time to install the 765m and I also repasted the CPU with kryonaut.

I think what was causing it was the power cable from the button, when I closely inspected it I could see some of the plastic had come off from the wires so I guess it was making contact with something. So I used some electric tape to cover it and double cheacked all the other connectors and everything started working again.

 

[Alex227831]

what GTX765m version are you using ?
note that only Dell/Alienware GTX765m versions are known to work.
of course without EFI bootscreen etc.

Yes I am using a dell 765m, I understand that there is no boot screen or brightness control. The fans are also going full tilt when it turn the computer on... Is that because it dosn't know what temperature the card is at?

Thanks

 

[liquidtwitch]

The fans are also going full tilt when it turn the computer on... Is that because it dosn't know what temperature the card is at?

That usually happens when the fan sensors aren't working/are unplugged. Double check that the sensor cables are seated in properly. Could also be that the card is getting super hot so check your temps.

 

[Nick [D]vB]

Just found this http://store.sourninja.com/sourninja-dual-wield.html - pity it didn't take off. Would have been an easy way to use something like a full sized Apple flashed GTX 680.

I thought about modding a GDC Beast v9 to MXM, but because the iMac’s Intel HD graphics aren’t fully connected there’d be no way to get an image on the internal display. The MiniPCIE Beast works ok, but the WiFi slot is only PCIE2 x1 so a bit slow for graphics or NVME. Still very useful for $30, much cheaper than a thunderbolt box. I have it stuck to the iMac stand with a USB 3 card in it, the cable feeds-up through the RAM compartment.

 

[liquidtwitch]

because the iMac’s Intel HD graphics aren’t fully connected there’d be no way to get an image on the internal display.

Good point, how do headless egpus work though? Do they just handle 3d acceleration and 2d is handled by the integrated gpu?

 

[nathansz]

Baking my current card costs me nothing. Sure, Mojave would be nice to have, but not at that price.

i agree. i thought about getting a new card but it seems like a lot of money to put in to such an old machine.

i also don’t like the idea of not having boot screen access

 

[Nick [D]vB]

Good point, how do headless egpus work though? Do they just handle 3d acceleration and 2d is handled by the integrated gpu?

Yes that’s right, but if you have to send the eGPU render output back to an internal screen that takes a chunk of bandwidth to. I can just about get away using the GDC Beast on an external screen, but it really chokes outputting back to the iMac display. CUDA / CL / Metal compute tasks generally still run at full speed though.

 

[Alex227831]

That usually happens when the fan sensors aren't working/are unplugged. Double check that the sensor cables are seated in properly. Could also be that the card is getting super hot so check your temps.

Cheers to everyone on this discussion. I have successfully booted my 2011 iMac (i7 2600s) with a GTX 765m. Just replugged some cables and its working fine now. Also to my pleasant surprise brightness control dose work with my Apple cinema display. If there are any specific benchmarks you want to run tell me.

Once again thanks to everyone on this thread I wouldn't have been able to do this without you.

 

[win0210]

Hi everyone
I've try to replace my Imac 2011 27 graphic card with alienware GTX980m.
It's boot but have a black screen. I reboot in safe mode but osx (10.10.5) can't recognize GTX980m.
The monitor resolution is force set in 1024x768, I make operation through shared monitor.
Latest Nvidia web drive for 10.10.5 have installed, but I still have a black screen and then auto shut down.

Is anyone have an idea? Thanks

 

[liquidtwitch]

As far I know there's no reports of a 980m working (only Kepler based cards work).

Maybe try other flashing the card with roms if you want to risk it - https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios...=GTX+980M&interface=&memType=&memSize=&since=.

Also have you tried to see what happens if you boot to windows/bootcamp?

 

[FlorisVN]

Hi everyone
I've try to replace my Imac 2011 27 graphic card with alienware GTX980m.
It's boot but have a black screen. I reboot in safe mode but osx (10.10.5) can't recognize GTX980m.
The monitor resolution is force set in 1024x768, I make operation through shared monitor.
Latest Nvidia web drive for 10.10.5 have installed, but I still have a black screen and then auto shut down.

Is anyone have an idea? Thanks

As far as I know, no one has a succesfull install with a gtx980m as of yet.
I would advise to stick with known working kepler cards, like Dell/Alienware GTX765/770/780M.
I suppose some other kepler based GTX600M series should work aswell.
Think of GTX660M and GTX680M..

Kepler based cards also don’t need Nvidia web drivers, which makes life easier..

 

[liquidtwitch]

There are reports of an 880m working too: https://www.ifixit.com/Story/18646/Successful_iMac_Upgrade_to_GTX_880M

 

[FlorisVN]

There are reports of an 880m working too: https://www.ifixit.com/Story/18646/Successful_iMac_Upgrade_to_GTX_880M

You are correct, i forgot that page.
But GTX880m does need Nvidia web drivers, and kepler cards don’t.
So I would still prefer and reccomend a kepler card, kepler also has Mojave support.
Nvidia web drivers are a dead end at this moment.. :S
[doublepost=1552898711][/doublepost]

Cheers to everyone on this discussion. I have successfully booted my 2011 iMac (i7 2600s) with a GTX 765m. Just replugged some cables and its working fine now. Also to my pleasant surprise brightness control dose work with my Apple cinema display. If there are any specific benchmarks you want to run tell me.

Once again thanks to everyone on this thread I wouldn't have been able to do this without you.

Good work
Cinema display brightness would always work, if cinema USB is connected.
The USB port of the cinema display. Will make macos control the brightness of it.
So hooking it up the cinema USB port is reccomended.

GTX765M only has 1 external monitor output working with Dell/Alienware vbios.
So dual cinema display’s wont work..