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Ok, so the guide says Dell branded ones should have vbios, only cheaper HP models dont, i guess things change.

Thank you, will have a look at with the injection method.
No, the guide does not say this!

All Nvidia cards have BIOS chips, but HP decided to provide the vBIOS from the HP system laptop and therefore the chip on the card is nearly empty - it contains no valid vBIOS. This is different, ins’t it?
 
I think if you connect a keyboard to the mac and it accepts commands, why not do it directly on the machine

And I thought so but first I need to turn off the SIP. with gtx 770m card i can't in recovery mode because the screen stays black and the old gpu card is useless. how to turn off the SIP before flashing?
Thx
 
Made a new bios using a new M5100 bios that has the single Hynix (AFR Type) ram config (DVS0) (Attached) - With this combo the ram shows correctly as below - So... I'm all done I think :)

Important things I've learned
1. Always backup the original rom before you flash
2. Use ATOMTableResize to combined rom - don't try to do this manually ... its a real time killer :p
3. Even without the EFI boot loader I prefer AMD as I don't need to patch the drivers back in

My collection is now....

2009, i7-870, K2100m (My original love)
2009, i5-750, M5100 (Testing)
2012, 3770, GTX680m (Work)
2012, 3770, GTX680m (Personal)
2007, t8300, 2400xt (Because I'm a hoarder :p)

I think its time to add a 2010 and 2011 to fill the gap :)

Report
Works with Hynix AFR memory (This post)

This is now the 3rd AMD adapter I've replaced, this time it's a RED Dell M5100 with AFR pram again in an 2011 27" iMac 12,2. Right now it's only working in safe mode under Big Sur. I used the ROM from this post, everything flashed fine. Booted it into my already configured Big Sur (with the OCLP changes) and the card wasn't recognized correctly. So I re-installed a clean copy of Big Sur (in case the driver was missing).

Now, booting normally it appears the video driver is restarting over and over (can see and move the mouse, but it freezes and then disappears, then reappears about 20 seconds later and this repeats). Booting into Safe mode the adapter is recognized (AMD Radeon HD 7xxx 2 GB) but of course no graphics acceleration System Information show Vendor: AMD (0x1002) and Device ID: 0x6821, the adapter appears to be recognized.

I see 3 possible issues:
#1 - Maybe the AFR memory was BFR memory and I mis-read it. I'll check that first but I don't think so. I did not take a picture before I installed. I DO have the original ROM backup before I flashed in case that matters.

#2 - The card I just got is bad. This is certainly possible and I would suspect that if the card is bad, the driver will crash and restart over and over as it is doing.

#3 - Maybe the OCLP configuration is incorrect? The mods are in the config.plist so I don't this is it.

Thoughts?

Oh, and yes I install a copper shim for the GPU chip and Macs Fan shows the GPU Heatsink at 39, GPU PECI 40.

I wonder, I'll try to enable ssh server and remote into the iMac while it's up in normal operation. See if dmesg has something in it.
 
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And I thought so but first I need to turn off the SIP. with gtx 770m card i can't in recovery mode because the screen stays black and the old gpu card is useless. how to turn off the SIP before flashing?
Thx
The Linux utility does not need SIP do be disabled.
 
This is now the 3rd AMD adapter I've replaced, this time it's a RED Dell M5100 with AFR pram again in an 2011 27" iMac 12,2. Right now it's only working in safe mode under Big Sur. I used the ROM from this post, everything flashed fine. Booted it into my already configured Big Sur (with the OCLP changes) and the card wasn't recognized correctly. So I re-installed a clean copy of Big Sur (in case the driver was missing).

Now, booting normally it appears the video driver is restarting over and over (can see and move the mouse, but it freezes and then disappears, then reappears about 20 seconds later and this repeats). Booting into Safe mode the adapter is recognized (AMD Radeon HD 7xxx 2 GB) but of course no graphics acceleration System Information show Vendor: AMD (0x1002) and Device ID: 0x6821, the adapter appears to be recognized.

I see 3 possible issues:
#1 - Maybe the AFR memory was BFR memory and I mis-read it. I'll check that first but I don't think so. I did not take a picture before I installed. I DO have the original ROM backup before I flashed in case that matters.

#2 - The card I just got is bad. This is certainly possible and I would suspect that if the card is bad, the driver will crash and restart over and over as it is doing.

#3 - Maybe the OCLP configuration is incorrect? The mods are in the config.plist so I don't this is it.

Thoughts?

Oh, and yes I install a copper shim for the GPU chip and Macs Fan shows the GPU Heatsink at 39, GPU PECI 40.

I wonder, I'll try to enable ssh server and remote into the iMac while it's up in normal operation. See if dmesg has something in it.
The real test is running macOS in normal mode. Everything else does not matter.
Check the card for the memory type.
OCLP recognizes the new card and will set the necessary options. I am not sure how you achieved this, does not work in safe mode. So read and cross check the config from recovery mode, again.
 
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The real test is running macOS in normal mode. Everything else does not matter.
Check the card for the memory type.
OCLP recognizes the new card and will set the necessary options. I doubt you did this, does not work in safe mode. So read and check the config from recovery mode.

Well logged in ssh and yes, the AMD driver is crashing. I skipped the registers, not sure what "LB stuck" is. Here's the summary:

: ** GPU Debug Info End **
[ 112.420188]:
[ 112.420202]: Trying to restart GPU (AMD Radeon HD 7xxx)...
[ 112.422523]: AMD FAIL: >>> Recover Display: 1 \M-b\M^@\M^S LB stuck
[ 112.422547]: AMD FAIL: >>> Disable DPM
[ 112.422680]: AMD FAIL: <<< Disable DPM
[ 112.422683]: AMD FAIL: <<< Recover Display: 1 - LB stuck
[ 112.423782]: AMD FAIL: >>> Recover Display: 2 \M-b\M^@\M^S LB stuck
[ 112.424885]: AMD FAIL: >>> Recover Display: 3 \M-b\M^@\M^S LB stuck
[ 112.425986]: AMD FAIL: >>> Recover Display: 4 \M-b\M^@\M^S LB stuck
[ 112.427086]: AMD FAIL: >>> Recover Display: 5 \M-b\M^@\M^S LB stuck
[ 112.427108]: AMD FAIL: >>> Enable DPM
[ 112.427110]: AMD FAIL: <<< Enable DPM
[ 112.428985]: virtual void IOAccelCommandQueue::retireCommandBuffer(IOAccelEventFence *): Immunity for app[WindowServer] with 2 GPURestarts in 287 submissions.
[ 112.439829]: AMD FAIL: >>> Recover Display: 1 \M-b\M^@\M^S LB stuck
[ 112.439852]: AMD FAIL: >>> Disable DPM
[ 112.439978]: AMD FAIL: <<< Disable DPM
[ 112.439980]: AMD FAIL: <<< Recover Display: 1 - LB stuck
[ 112.441064]: AMD FAIL: >>> Recover Display: 2 \M-b\M^@\M^S LB stuck
[ 112.442150]: AMD FAIL: >>> Recover Display: 3 \M-b\M^@\M^S LB stuck
[ 112.443235]: AMD FAIL: >>> Recover Display: 4 \M-b\M^@\M^S LB stuck
[ 112.444272]: AMD FAIL: >>> Recover Display: 5 \M-b\M^@\M^S LB stuck
[ 112.444294]: AMD FAIL: >>> Enable DPM
[ 112.444296]: AMD FAIL: <<< Enable DPM

[ 112.444299]: void IOAccelEventMachine2::restart_channel(): GPURestartEnd stampIdx=0 type=2
 
Well logged in ssh and yes, the AMD driver is crashing. I skipped the registers, not sure what "LB stuck" is. Here's the summary:

: ** GPU Debug Info End **
[ 112.420188]:
[ 112.420202]: Trying to restart GPU (AMD Radeon HD 7xxx)...
[ 112.422523]: AMD FAIL: >>> Recover Display: 1 \M-b\M^@\M^S LB stuck
[ 112.422547]: AMD FAIL: >>> Disable DPM
[ 112.422680]: AMD FAIL: <<< Disable DPM
[ 112.422683]: AMD FAIL: <<< Recover Display: 1 - LB stuck
[ 112.423782]: AMD FAIL: >>> Recover Display: 2 \M-b\M^@\M^S LB stuck
[ 112.424885]: AMD FAIL: >>> Recover Display: 3 \M-b\M^@\M^S LB stuck
[ 112.425986]: AMD FAIL: >>> Recover Display: 4 \M-b\M^@\M^S LB stuck
[ 112.427086]: AMD FAIL: >>> Recover Display: 5 \M-b\M^@\M^S LB stuck
[ 112.427108]: AMD FAIL: >>> Enable DPM
[ 112.427110]: AMD FAIL: <<< Enable DPM
[ 112.428985]: virtual void IOAccelCommandQueue::retireCommandBuffer(IOAccelEventFence *): Immunity for app[WindowServer] with 2 GPURestarts in 287 submissions.
[ 112.439829]: AMD FAIL: >>> Recover Display: 1 \M-b\M^@\M^S LB stuck
[ 112.439852]: AMD FAIL: >>> Disable DPM
[ 112.439978]: AMD FAIL: <<< Disable DPM
[ 112.439980]: AMD FAIL: <<< Recover Display: 1 - LB stuck
[ 112.441064]: AMD FAIL: >>> Recover Display: 2 \M-b\M^@\M^S LB stuck
[ 112.442150]: AMD FAIL: >>> Recover Display: 3 \M-b\M^@\M^S LB stuck
[ 112.443235]: AMD FAIL: >>> Recover Display: 4 \M-b\M^@\M^S LB stuck
[ 112.444272]: AMD FAIL: >>> Recover Display: 5 \M-b\M^@\M^S LB stuck
[ 112.444294]: AMD FAIL: >>> Enable DPM
[ 112.444296]: AMD FAIL: <<< Enable DPM

[ 112.444299]: void IOAccelEventMachine2::restart_channel(): GPURestartEnd stampIdx=0 type=2
Please use spoiler tags for any such reports and focus first on memory and config.

The third option - a broken card - cannot be fixed.
 
Please use spoiler tags for any such reports and focus first on memory and config.

The third option - a broken card - cannot be fixed.

I can see the backside RAM, just enough to confirm it's AFR. So the flash should have been correct. I was going to ask, why is it that backside RAM doesn't require some kink of heatsink as the front side RAM? I don't think the other 2 AMD adapters I've installed had backside RAM?

I'll refresh it back to original Dell firmware then return it. Thank you for the help! Hope you got the PayPal present a few days ago.
 
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I can see the backside RAM, just enough to confirm it's AFR. So the flash should have been correct. I was going to ask, why is it that backside RAM doesn't require some kink of heatsink as the front side RAM? I don't think the other 2 AMD adapters I've installed had backside RAM?

I'll refresh it back to original Dell firmware then return it. Thank you for the help! Hope you got the PayPal present a few days ago.
The first card I played with last Summer when starting with all the GCN cards was a W5170M - I sent it back to the seller just because I could not fix the OpenCore config back in these days and I was not ware of my mistake.

The CAIL settings (four keys) are the crucial parts and these four keys in the DeviceProperties section are equivalent to the single boot-args entry radpg=15.

Give it a last check!
 
The first card I played with last Summer when starting with all the GCN cards was a W5170M - I sent it back to the seller just because I could not fix the OpenCore config back in these days and I was not ware of my mistake.

The CAIL settings (four keys) are the crucial parts and these four keys in the DeviceProperties section are equivalent to the single boot-args entry radpg=15.

Give it a last check!
The CAIL settings are in config.plist on my thumb drive. It must be a bad card. Here's a pic of what I get.
I'll get another M5100, I only have a 2-pipe heatsink in this iMac.
 

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So I have the same card as you, and I did more or less the same as you with your M4000 card. However, I was unsuccessful in getting the VBIOS to be actually loaded by the card even though it is detected by ATIFLASH and AMDVBFLASH.

With that said, would you be able to follow up with more details such as whether the card works with OpenCore boot menu screen and doesn't need any external VBIOS injection? In addition, would you also be able to send pictures of the front and back of the cards? Thanks.
So when you say loaded by the card do you mean that after replacing the eeprom it still wont flash? even though the eeprom is detected by ati flash etc. ?
I'll follow up and let you know how the install goes when i get to it hopefully this week.
the front and back pictures are on my first post here:
 
The CAIL settings are in config.plist on my thumb drive. It must be a bad card. Here's a pic of what I get.
I'll get another M5100, I only have a 2-pipe heatsink in this iMac.
Which iMac and did you move by any chance the disk over from a different model?
The picture is quite similar to what I got a year back.

A signature would be so great to avoid these questinos!
 
No, the guide does not say this!

All Nvidia cards have BIOS chips, but HP decided to provide the vBIOS from the HP system laptop and therefore the chip on the card is nearly empty - it contains no valid vBIOS. This is different, ins’t it?
Sorry i am confused i was specifically replying about my "dell" AMD m4000 which does not have a vbios eeprom. It doesnt say this in the guide just in this great post from Krutav which is referred to in your guide for flashing the mx400, where he recommend the dell FirePro M4000 over the hp because the Dell version have vbios chips. Turns out some dell version don't have a bios chip also? could be i am wrong though and this is a mislabeled GPU, or actually pulled from a Hp?
Not being critical just wanted to share in-case someone has same issue.

Not complaining and appreciate there are lots of different models out in the wild. Grateful for the assistance of an active community and a bios rom i hope will work ;)

Here's the post-:
 
Which iMac and did you move by any chance the disk over from a different model?
The picture is quite similar to what I got a year back.

A signature would be so great to avoid these questinos!

I've been poking at this yet today before I give it up, actually this doesn't seem like the GPU card has failed. Regarding my .signature I'd be changing it daily because I refurbish these iMac's (laptops, desktops, AIO, etc) and in this case it's a 2011 27" 12,2 (stated above). This iMac was operating with a failing HD6970, already installed and running OCLP with Big Sur. So I replaced the card, flashed the rom, modified the config.plist and it booted operational mode just fine, but the adapter card was not recognized.

Can I flash this with the BFR ROM to see if anything improves, or will that make the card "unrecoverable" to restore the original rom? Is there string or short hex offset I can look for in the original rom that could help us just confirm there is/was nothing strange with this particular red Dell M5100 card? I captured the flash output when I changed it, here it is.

Ok, so I string comp the Original Dell ROM with the iMac modified ROM, it looks like the iMac rom was correct. (see attached)
 

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This iMac was operating with a failing HD6970, already installed and running OCLP with Big Sur. So I replaced the card, flashed the rom, modified the config.plist and it booted operational mode just fine, but the adapter card was not recognized.
You need to uninstall the (TS2 non-metal graphics acceleration) Post-Install patch to have your M5100 card working properly.
 
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You need to uninstall the (TS2 non-metal graphics acceleration) Post-Install patch to have your M5100 card working properly.

Ok, so after the adapter was not properly recognized I re-installed Big Sur. Are you saying the Big Sur post-install process automatically put modified a configuration file and installed a driver for non-metal (older HD6970)? Is this something with an OCLP setting? When I built the OCLP for this 2011 12,2 with the M5100, YES I went to advanced patch settings and set the "Assume Metal GPU always" to AMD. Could that be causing this? I did that with the M6100.

Wait... no. When I tried to install with the newly built OCLP (built on a MacBook, settings changed for iMac12,2) booting to install Big Sur I had an issue, it would not install because it wanted the firmware on this 12,2 updated! So I restored the original config.plist and added the 4 CAIL settings. That fixed it, install went fine. And now that I realize I am still booting that config.plist. I'll change it now and boot up (this is WITH the Assume Metal GPU enabled).
 
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Ok, so after the adapter was not properly recognized I re-installed Big Sur. Are you saying the Big Sur post-install process automatically put modified a configuration file and installed a driver for non-metal (older HD6970)? Is this something with an OCLP setting? When I built the OCLP for this 2011 12,2 with the M5100, YES I went to advanced patch settings and set the "Assume Metal GPU always" to AMD. Could that be causing this? I did that with the M6100.
If you have re-installed Big Sur, the previous post-install patch should have been removed and running Post-Install Patch again in OCLP should yield nothing requiring to be patched.
P.S. Post-Install Patch and EFI config.plist are two different things in different locations. And you should not change any default settings in OCLP except making sure the model number matches your Mac, in your case, it's iMac12,2 (for subsequent OCLP EFI rebuild once the card is recognised. Otherwise, follow #16,695 for the initial setup).
 
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Ok, so after the adapter was not properly recognized I re-installed Big Sur. Are you saying the Big Sur post-install process automatically put modified a configuration file and installed a driver for non-metal (older HD6970)? Is this something with an OCLP setting? When I built the OCLP for this 2011 12,2 with the M5100, YES I went to advanced patch settings and set the "Assume Metal GPU always" to AMD. Could that be causing this? I did that with the M6100.

Wait... no. When I tried to install with the newly built OCLP (built on a MacBook, settings changed for iMac12,2) booting to install Big Sur I had an issue, it would not install because it wanted the firmware on this 12,2 updated! So I restored the original config.plist and added the 4 CAIL settings. That fixed it, install went fine. And now that I realize I am still booting that config.plist. I'll change it now and boot up (this is WITH the Assume Metal GPU enabled).
THAT WAS IT! Boots just fine into Big Sur operational mode. Thank you TigerA! That config.plist must have something configured for the HD6970 ((TS2 non-metal graphics acceleration). I'll have to compare these 2 plist files so I understand for future.
 

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THAT WAS IT! Boots just fine into Big Sur operational mode. Thank you TigerA! That config.plist must have something configured for the HD6970 ((TS2 non-metal graphics acceleration). I'll have to compare these 2 plist files so I understand for future.
Run OCLP again on your iMac12,2 with M5100 and rebuild the OCLP EFI to make sure all settings are correctly set by the OCLP app automatically.
 
Run OCLP again on your iMac12,2 with M5100 and rebuild the OCLP EFI to make sure all settings are correctly set by the OCLP app automatically.
Yes, done. I was still booting from the USB install stick. I ran OCLP on this with the M5100 and installed to the SSD efi partition. Rebooted... Yes, booted perfectly!
 
Yes, done. I was still booting from the USB install stick. I ran OCLP on this with the M5100 and installed to the SSD efi partition. Rebooted... Yes, booted perfectly!
A signature? Yes, necessary!

OCLP generates a hardware specific confiiguration, i.e it is different on different iMacs. After changing the hardware in the same iMac you need to re-create the OpenCore configuration by running OCLP, again. Otherwise it will not boot properly.

Unless you are a real matter expert you should not move over disks and configs from different machines. It causes only a lot of trouble. And you should avoid having more than one OpenCore installed on different disks connected to the very same Mac…

Mark your external boot disks with stickers referring to the installed OpenCore version and GPU flavor, i.e. AMD-112 marking an iMac11,2 with AMD GPU.
 
Hi, I can’t restore full brightness on an iMac 27 2011 w/gtx 780m nikey22 (Catalina), I tried ApplebacklightFixup.kext but I didn’t get any result..is there any other procedure I can try?
 
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A signature? Yes, necessary!

OCLP generates a hardware specific confiiguration, i.e it is different on different iMacs. After changing the hardware in the same iMac you need to re-create the OpenCore configuration by running OCLP, again. Otherwise it will not boot properly.

Unless you are a real matter expert you should not move over disks and configs from different machines. It causes only a lot of trouble. And you should avoid having more than one OpenCore installed on different disks connected to the very same Mac…

Mark your external boot disks with stickers referring to the installed OpenCore version and GPU flavor, i.e. AMD-112 marking an iMac11,2 with AMD GPU.

Signature done. No, I'm not a matter expert - been using Unix since 1981 (DEC PDP11's) so have a little experience. No, I wasn't moving disks from different machines either. But I do have multiple OCLP config's on my USB install thumb drives, each EFI directory folder well marked. It just makes sense when installing OSX on each computer.

Anyway, unless someone can explain why building OCLP on a MacBook for a different target platform (like iMac12,2) doesn't define the "virtual" firmware reversion properly (install error stating "firmware update needed") then I'm going to peek/poke at that. I know I'll need this again, OCLP is a requirement for these old apples.
 
Signature done. No, I'm not a matter expert - been using Unix since 1981 (DEC PDP11's) so have a little experience. No, I wasn't moving disks from different machines either. But I do have multiple OCLP config's on my USB install thumb drives, each EFI directory folder well marked. It just makes sense when installing OSX on each computer.

Anyway, unless someone can explain why building OCLP on a MacBook for a different target platform (like iMac12,2) doesn't define the "virtual" firmware reversion properly (install error stating "firmware update needed") then I'm going to peek/poke at that. I know I'll need this again, OCLP is a requirement for these old apples.
Have the same method, multiple OC folders with different names within the single EFI folder - mostly development versions. But when you posted the picture I knew you were using the wrong OC config and I asked.... :)

Regarding the "firmware update needed" error message I guess you try to install to an external disk connected either via FireWire or USB3/Thunderbolt dock - both will not work. You can only boot from such devices already installed macOS versions (using OpenCore and the extensions provided). But you cannot install, the installer quits with messages like this.
 
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