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

[Mrmani]

Unplug all of your other drives so that the only available option is for the computer to boot from your installer USB drive. If that works, then wipe your HDD somehow and plug it in at the same time as the USB. This will force the iMac to boot from the USB first (which you can use to install Monterey to the empty drive.) Once that happens, install OCLP directly to the HDD and get rid of the USB.

Alternatively, look into burning a bootable OCLP CD as described in this thread's docs.

I think I am missing some step everytime . So I created macOS Big Sur on a pendrive and the oclp on the installer pendrive .Then I managed to boot the machine in pendrive and it installed Bigsur completely I was using it for an hr YouTube all worked perfect.I shutdown the machine and to start it to check if the display and chime comes now it only chimes no display no boot picker nothing it just blanks off and then shuts off after 10mins.there is a post install step which I did not understand I tried it but said already rooted. I can’t understand this .pls can someone tell me where am I going wrong with these cards and installation
Thanks again

 

[dfranetic]

I think I am missing some step everytime . So I created macOS Big Sur on a pendrive and the oclp on the installer pendrive .Then I managed to boot the machine in pendrive and it installed Bigsur completely I was using it for an hr YouTube all worked perfect.I shutdown the machine and to start it to check if the display and chime comes now it only chimes no display no boot picker nothing it just blanks off and then shuts off after 10mins.there is a post install step which I did not understand I tried it but said already rooted. I can’t understand this .pls can someone tell me where am I going wrong with these cards and installation
Thanks again

Plug the pendrive back in, boot into BigSur, and run OCLP, rebuild and (re)install onto internal drive.

 

[davidg5678]

I think I am missing some step everytime . So I created macOS Big Sur on a pendrive and the oclp on the installer pendrive .Then I managed to boot the machine in pendrive and it installed Bigsur completely I was using it for an hr YouTube all worked perfect.I shutdown the machine and to start it to check if the display and chime comes now it only chimes no display no boot picker nothing it just blanks off and then shuts off after 10mins.there is a post install step which I did not understand I tried it but said already rooted. I can’t understand this .pls can someone tell me where am I going wrong with these cards and installation
Thanks again

You need to install OCLP onto your internal boot drive. OCLP must be run every time you use this computer if you want it to work. Use the flash drive OCLP to boot back into macOS installed on your internal drive. Then install OCLP there.

Once this is done, the flash drive is no longer necessary.

The post install patches are just for WiFi if you have an AMD metal GPU, so the computer should be mostly functional even without them.

 

[Marche90]

Hmm.

I know I'm somewhat off-topic, so I apologize, but in the end it's somewhat related to replacing the GPU. I tried firing up a game ported by Feral interactive, but their launcher immediately quits with the error that my iMac model is not supported. Should I spoof my SMBIOS with OpenCore? Or any way to bypass the iMac model check? The reason I'm asking here instead of doing it is that I tried with OC... but the iMac got a black screen and had to turn it off with the power button, so I'm not sure if I did something wrong here.

 

[davidg5678]

Hmm.

I know I'm somewhat off-topic, so I apologize, but in the end it's somewhat related to replacing the GPU. I tried firing up a game ported by Feral interactive, but their launcher immediately quits with the error that my iMac model is not supported. Should I spoof my SMBIOS with OpenCore? Or any way to bypass the iMac model check? The reason I'm asking here instead of doing it is that I tried with OC... but the iMac got a black screen and had to turn it off with the power button, so I'm not sure if I did something wrong here.

Which macOS version are you running? Is the game OpenGL-based or 32-bit only? (I seem to remember many of these Feral Interactive ported games are) If so, you'll want to run High Sierra for things to work properly. I'm not certain how the launcher is checking for compatibility, but I would be surprised if it were something so advanced as to be disturbed by OpenCore (but anything is possible.) If this is a 32-bit/OpenGL game and you cannot run a supported OS, due to the nature of the GPU upgrade, unfortunately, you might be out of luck.

 

[Marche90]

Running Monterey, it's a Metal game (Batman Arkham City). The way it is doing so is by checking the iMac version (12,2) and since it sees it's an "incompatible" Mac it closes the launcher.

 

[Klineex]

Hi! I just upgraded my iMac 2009 24 inch with an AMD WX 4150 and it works great with the stock VBIOS! GPU diode temperature sensor shows and Opencore boot screen works great! I’m still using a lvds controller board with the cable going out the ram door to connect to the external Mini DisplayPort cable so I can use the internal lcd, but yeah!

I’ll post pictures tomorrow if anyone wants to see. I had to disassemble it again and order a copper plate to put between the heatsink and die since it was overheating quickly due to the die not touching the heatsink properly

(it’s detected as “AMD Radeon Polaris” by the OS)

 

[Mrmani]

Plug the pendrive back in, boot into BigSur, and run OCLP, rebuild and (re)install onto internal drive.

Finally working !!!!!!! Many thanks to all for their endless and time consuming support . But I had to everytime install my pendrive to boot so my take from this was that the oclp tells you that you are booting from a pendrive and so you want to install on the internal drive so I said yes but still it wouldn’t boot for some reason then I did a pram reset and then it gave me the option again and had to press ctrl key and then select the efi drive so all working.
Thank you all by the way China market is flooded with amd wx4150 cards

 

[Mrmani]

Finally working !!!!!!! Many thanks to all for their endless and time consuming support . But I had to everytime install my pendrive to boot so my take from this was that the oclp tells you that you are booting from a pendrive and so you want to install on the internal drive so I said yes but still it wouldn’t boot for some reason then I did a pram reset and then it gave me the option again and had to press ctrl key and then select the efi drive so all working.
Thank you all by the way China market is flooded with amd wx4150 cards

 

[Klineex]

And it’s done! Early 2009 iMac 9,1 24’ with a AMD Radeon Pro WX 4150! LVDS Controller Board inside with the displayport cable going out the memory door to connect to the external DisplayPort port since the newer GPU can’t output LVDS I’m sure. Amazingly OpenCore showed a boot screen and somehow macs fan control even shows the GPU diode temperature sensor even though it’s using the stock bios (HP). It works great! Future proof for Ventura and very fast!

I mounted the HDD Proximity sensor on the LVDS Controller board which is why it’s so hot lol, since I can already see the SSD’s SATA temp, I don’t need two temperature sensors monitoring the same thing.

Amazingly the CPU Fan (which cools both the GPU and cpu heatsink in this model) goes up when the GPU diode sensor is hot, so the SMC seems to detect the GPU’s temperature, which is good!

OS detects the GPU as “AMD Radeon Polaris” for some reason

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

Finally working !!!!!!! Many thanks to all for their endless and time consuming support . But I had to everytime install my pendrive to boot so my take from this was that the oclp tells you that you are booting from a pendrive and so you want to install on the internal drive so I said yes but still it wouldn’t boot for some reason then I did a pram reset and then it gave me the option again and had to press ctrl key and then select the efi drive so all working.
Thank you all by the way China market is flooded with amd wx4150 cards

I would greatly appreciate if you could pm me some link to buy WX4150....

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

And it’s done! Early 2009 iMac 9,1 24’ with a AMD Radeon Pro WX 4150! LVDS Controller Board inside with the displayport cable going out the memory door to connect to the external DisplayPort port since the newer GPU can’t output LVDS I’m sure. Amazingly OpenCore showed a boot screen and somehow macs fan control even shows the GPU diode temperature sensor even though it’s using the stock bios (HP). It works great! Future proof for Ventura and very fast!

I mounted the HDD Proximity sensor on the LVDS Controller board which is why it’s so hot lol, since I can already see the SSD’s SATA temp, I don’t need two temperature sensors monitoring the same thing.

Amazingly the CPU Fan (which cools both the GPU and cpu heatsink in this model) goes up when the GPU diode sensor is hot, so the SMC seems to detect the GPU’s temperature, which is good!

OS detects the GPU as “AMD Radeon Polaris” for some reason

This is great news for research purpose. But to be honest, is there anyone willing to employ this combination in his/her PC set-up, and for what use of the iMac? Early iMac 2009 + WX4150.

 

[Klineex]

This is great news for research purpose. But to be honest, is there anyone willing to employ this combination in his/her PC set-up, and for what use of the iMac? Early iMac 2009 + WX4150.

Native graphics support especially for Ventura, Massive graphics upgrade, makes playing games and certain software a lot better even with the cpu, and lastly metal support ofc

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

Native graphics support especially for Ventura, Massive graphics upgrade, makes playing games and certain software a lot better even with the cpu, and lastly metal support ofc

Pairing an very old duo-core CPU with a rather new GPU is not a very good solution to my opinion. iMac mid 2010 27" is not very hard to find at a reasonable price. And you got double the core counts, 4 times of RAM capacity, etc.

 

[Gray486]

I originally got the 880m to work on my iMac 2011 21.5" while booted into windows 10 but when I tried to boot into macOS it just has a black screen and now I can't boot back into windows 10 or get into macOS because of the black screen.

Is it possible to upgrade the power supply in my 21.5" iMac 2011 to make it work with the 880m? or will I need to get a 680m? I'm pretty new to this upgrading GPU thing in iMacs so I'm sorry if my question is really stupid...

Edit: I forgot to say that I have 16GB of RAM and an Intel i7. I plan to swap the hard drive for an SSD.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

I originally got the 880m to work on my iMac 2011 21.5" while booted into windows 10 but when I tried to boot into macOS it just has a black screen and now I can't boot back into windows 10 or get into macOS because of the black screen.

Is it possible to upgrade the power supply in my 21.5" iMac 2011 to make it work with the 880m? or will I need to get a 680m? I'm pretty new to this upgrading GPU thing in iMacs so I'm sorry if my question is really stupid...

Edit: I forgot to say that I have 16GB of RAM and an Intel i7. I plan to swap the hard drive for an SSD.

No power supply update possible. For all the details check the very first post of this thread.

 

[Marche90]

I'm thinking about keeping my M5100 for a short term and upgrade it to a 780M later, especially since I want to have a native boot screen (That can make my life easier down the road. So far no MXM A type or AMD card offers it, right?), but I don't have access to a Dremel to modify the heatsink nor I feel confident handling one. What are my options here? Can I even buy one online or can I use something different (like sand paper) to modify one?

I would greatly appreciate if you could pm me some link to buy WX4150....

I saw them online on Aliexpress. Shouldn't be hard to find them.

 

[Gray486]

No power supply update possible. For all the details check the very first post of this thread.

Okay! Thanks!

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

I'm thinking about keeping my M5100 for a short term and upgrade it to a 780M later, especially since I want to have a native boot screen (That can make my life easier down the road. So far no MXM A type or AMD card offers it, right?), but I don't have access to a Dremel to modify the heatsink nor I feel confident handling one. What are my options here? Can I even buy one online or can I use something different (like sand paper) to modify one?

I saw them online on Aliexpress. Shouldn't be hard to find them.

When I read "flooded", I was thinking about dozens of sellers and hundreds of the WX4150. Couldn't find that many on Aliexpress.

 

[Marche90]

When I read "flooded", I was thinking about dozens of sellers and hundreds of the WX4150. Couldn't find that many on Aliexpress.

I only said "found them", not flooded 😅

 

[wolkarg]

Hello,
I need hellp with upgrade my imac 21,5" 2011. I have card AMD W5170m green dell but still have black screen, this looks like no start. I default boot windows 10 and if i use other PC by RPD i can connect to my imac Win10. At system I see my card w5170m like R9 M375X. I tryed flash few bios but without result - always black screen.
Sorry for my english !

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Hello,
I need hellp with upgrade my imac 21,5" 2011. I have card AMD W5170m green dell but still have black screen, this looks like no start. I default boot windows 10 and if i use other PC by RPD i can connect to my imac Win10. At system I see my card w5170m like R9 M375X. I tryed flash few bios but without result - always black screen.
Sorry for my english !

Sorry, there is only a single vBIOS available here and you need OpenCore to enable the internal screen on boot. macOS and Windows should enable the LCD on OS start, but macOS will need OpenCore, no way around it. Check the docs on the first post.

 

[wolkarg]

Sorry, there is only a single vBIOS available here and you need OpenCore to enable the internal screen on boot. macOS and Windows should enable the LCD on OS start, but macOS will need OpenCore, no way around it. Check the docs on the first post.

I also try used OpenCore but still screen not start. Maybe i do something wrong. Can you help my step by step ?

 

[Ausdauersportler]

I also try used OpenCore but still screen not start. Maybe i do something wrong. Can you help my step by step ?

You can read the step by step guide of OCLP. OCLP supports these cards in these iMacs and will automatically generate a valid config.

 

[Nikita Razinkov]

And it’s done! Early 2009 iMac 9,1 24’ with a AMD Radeon Pro WX 4150! LVDS Controller Board inside with the displayport cable going out the memory door to connect to the external DisplayPort port since the newer GPU can’t output LVDS I’m sure. Amazingly OpenCore showed a boot screen and somehow macs fan control even shows the GPU diode temperature sensor even though it’s using the stock bios (HP). It works great! Future proof for Ventura and very fast!

I mounted the HDD Proximity sensor on the LVDS Controller board which is why it’s so hot lol, since I can already see the SSD’s SATA temp, I don’t need two temperature sensors monitoring the same thing.

Amazingly the CPU Fan (which cools both the GPU and cpu heatsink in this model) goes up when the GPU diode sensor is hot, so the SMC seems to detect the GPU’s temperature, which is good!

OS detects the GPU as “AMD Radeon Polaris” for some reason

Hello,
Recently, I have been researching GPU upgrades for the 24-inch Early 2009 iMac.
I love to tinker with computers and electronics, but I am no expert on the functionality of the iMac's SMC/Firmware.
I was wondering, what prevents the internal LVDS connector from working properly after upgrading the GPU?