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

[Marche90]

Yes, it is expensive. I should have waited for it to come down in price. The card costs almost as much as the used iMac itself. Thrilling project, though and I didn't want to take it apart again anytime soon. The RX480 also looks like a good choice and a better bang for your buck.

It actually seems to be. With the modified heatsink and X-bracket it's $150 USD. That's not a bad price at all and it's mighty tempting. Shame it's a V1.0 card, meaning it won't work on a 2011 iMac, only on 2009/2010 models. I was searching locally and those seem to be somewhat harder to find. Shame, since I found a mint 27" 2011 iMac including its box, original keyboard and magic trackpad for $200.

You also lose AVX instructions on those iMacs, so some games will not launch.

edit: typos

 

[AgntRndy]

Andy, the M6100 does not work in the 27" 2011 imac (12,2). The imac will have nvram issues. This is discussed in the thread on page https://forums.macrumors.com/thread....1596614/page-735?post=31026910#post-31026910

Thank you. Felt like I was going crazy. I'd read this post previously and thought it meant that the m6100 would work in a 2011 but not a 2012. Thanks for clarifying for me. I'll try a different card.

 

[Sr_JL]

Hi, I have a 2011 27 iMac and I would love to upgrade the OS. As far as I have read, I need to replace my GPU for a metal enable one. I have read about quadro 3100 and also Radeon Pro WX 3200. Which one is better? I'm not planning to play any game with the Mac, just upgrade it and have the less issues as possible... Which is the most stable OSX version beyond High Sierra for the new setup?

Thank you for your help.

 

[Tim_imac]

It actually seems to be. With the modified heatsink and X-bracket it's $150 USD. That's not a bad price at all and it's mighty tempting. Shame it's a V1.0 card, meaning it won't work on a 2011 iMac, only on 2009/2010 models. I was searching locally and those seem to be somewhat harder to find. Shame, since I found a mint 27" 2011 iMac including its box, original keyboard and magic trackpad for $200.

You also lose AVX instructions on those iMacs, so some game will not launch.

Yes, it is expensive. I should have waited for it to come down in price. The card costs almost as much as the used iMac itself. Thrilling project, though and I didn't want to take it apart again anytime soon. The RX480 also looks like a good choice and a better bang for your buck.

I recently ordered a wx7100 from Ali express. I bought it with the heat sink and it came already flashed. I had oclp already installed and the upgrade for me was plug and play.

When I ordered delivery was estimated to take a month, but it arrived to the uk in about a week.

With ssd, wifi upgrade and Ventura upgrade (and windows 10) the computers like new

But now I want more - going to monitor the rx5700xt etc and plan another upgrade later in the year.

I did k5100 myself on my other computer and flashing the bios etc was a bit of a faff. Finding a seller that test the card in an iMac and flashes it removes a lot of the time and risk and in my experience there’s good options for that now. 👍

Thanks to all the people that have worked on developing these bios. Amazing to keep these iMacs working and as good (almost) as the new stuff.

 

[steve123]

Hi, I have a 2011 27 iMac and I would love to upgrade the OS. As far as I have read, I need to replace my GPU for a metal enable one. I have read about quadro 3100 and also Radeon Pro WX 3200. Which one is better? I'm not planning to play any game with the Mac, just upgrade it and have the less issues as possible... Which is the most stable OSX version beyond High Sierra for the new setup?

Thank you for your help.

You do not have to upgrade the GPU to perform the OS upgrade. The most recent update to Opencore Legacy Patcher includes accelerated GPU drivers for the 2011 iMac's GPU. OCLP will allow you to upgrade up to Ventura.

 

[Tim_imac]

You do not have to upgrade the GPU to perform the OS upgrade. The most recent update to Opencore Legacy Patcher includes accelerated GPU drivers for the 2011 iMac's GPU. OCLP will allow you to upgrade up to Ventura.

• But: You need to upgrade BT/WiFi to 4.0/802.11 a/b/g/n/ac in order to have working Ventura system. You need a BCM94360 or BCM943602 compatible card, there are no other options. Otherwise no WiFi support!

Is the above from page 1 also out of date?

Upgrade of gpu to metal capable one presumably makes the experience better though (or maybe it’s 100% apple an apple con)? Since it’s easy, cheap and the old cards are fairly slow compared to newer ones, maybe it’s worth it.

 

[steve123]

I recently ordered a wx7100 from Ali express. I bought it with the heat sink and it came already flashed. I had oclp already installed and the upgrade for me was plug and play.

Which Aliexpress "store" did you purchase from? HoTecHon? I think I saw your review there. That card looks quite expensive with the heatsink?

 

[Tim_imac]

Which Aliexpress "store" did you purchase from? HoTecHon? I think I saw your review there. That card looks quite expensive with the heatsink?

Yes, I bought from there. If we have apple I guess we’re used to paying 300% mark up on component prices. I thought the price was ok for an option that is plug and play. The card came mounted on the heat sink etc.

I’ve done both options and going this route saves a fair few hours of messing. Depends what you want I guess.

 

[Marche90]

Yes, I bought from there. If we have apple I guess we’re used to paying 300% mark up on component prices. I thought the price was ok for an option that is plug and play. The card came mounted on the heat sink etc.

I’ve done both options and going this route saves a fair few hours of messing. Depends what you want I guess.

Hearing that a member from here has already bought from them gives them credibility, especially since they are the ones selling the RX480, with the grinded heat sink included for $150.

 

[kolkotz]

You do not have to upgrade the GPU to perform the OS upgrade. The most recent update to Opencore Legacy Patcher includes accelerated GPU drivers for the 2011 iMac's GPU. OCLP will allow you to upgrade up to Ventura.

I have upgraded my imac 21,5 mid 2011 to ventura with oclp 0.6.1, but have not accellerated gpu driver . Infact many app ( Maps, imessage, photoshop, Apple tv and other )don't work .
May i forget to applicate specific patch to resolve?

 

[sashkin_bro]

I have upgraded my imac 21,5 mid 2011 to ventura with oclp 0.6.1, but have not accellerated gpu driver . Infact many app ( Maps, imessage, photoshop, Apple tv and other )don't work .
May i forget to applicate specific patch to resolve?

Without upgrading the video card to a card that supports metal, you will not be able to use it normally, since the video acceleration will not work fully ( I recommend you to update the video card for full use)

 

[gangtchen]

Only 27" due to the power draw of the K3000m (big MXM-B card).

But would the power draw limit prevent the card from working at full performance or from working at all?

 

[steve123]

I have upgraded my imac 21,5 mid 2011 to ventura with oclp 0.6.1, but have not accellerated gpu driver . Infact many app ( Maps, imessage, photoshop, Apple tv and other )don't work .
May i forget to applicate specific patch to resolve?

You have to run the post install process to install the patches.

 

[steve123]

Without upgrading the video card to a card that supports metal, you will not be able to use it normally, since the video acceleration will not work fully ( I recommend you to update the video card for full use)

The iMac 7,1 through 12,2 have accelerated GPU support now though still "beta" and in development. See the iMac section of supported models here:

Supported Models | OpenCore Legacy Patcher

An upgraded GPU will give you much better performance.

 

[kolkotz]

The iMac 7,1 through 12,2 have accelerated GPU support now though still "beta" and in development. See the iMac section of supported models here:

Supported Models | OpenCore Legacy Patcher

An upgraded GPU will give you much better performance.

yes, i read , but i don't find beta version. or is not released again? or there a menu flag inside oclp?

 

[bgb27]

good to know, thank you. I pulled the HDD and after some trouble wiped the drive and reformatted as HFS+, totally empty. I’m now hoping to reinstall Big Sur using the OCLP thumb drive and patch I created on my MacBook.

Before I get there though, I still do not have an image on my screen nor external monitor. I mistakenly installed Big Sur with the wrong patch and seem to have lost output since. The screen did work after installing the WX3200 so I feel confident that the flash and card itself are good, as well as the screen. I was able to access the boot menu before reinstalling Big Sur.
On the reinstall, the screen had gone to sleep when I stepped away. When I came back i held down the power button to turn the system on but realized at that moment I shut the system down, I suspect midinstall. I could see this corrupting the drive but I can’t see why I would lose my screen/ability to access boot menu of my OCLP install drive has the EFI loader showing on my MacBook. I’m truly at a loss, especially after everything going well initially

Is there anyone that would like to take a stab at this system in Upstate NY before I send it to the ewaste bin? I’m at a loss, granted I haven’t touched the system since August

 

[steve123]

yes, i read , but i don't find beta version. or is not released again? or there a menu flag inside oclp?

There are still quite a few issues with the beta Non-Metal GPU Acceleration patches so some things require work arounds or you need to install non metal versions of some apps.

Legacy Non-Metal GPUs and macOS Big Sur - Sequoia · Issue #108 · dortania/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher

Thanks to recent developments in the community and great work from @ASentientBot and the Moraea team, we've made great progress on GPU Acceleration support. GPU Acceleration Hardware Support NVIDIA...

github.com

Post-Installation | OpenCore Legacy Patcher

I am running Big Sur using the Non-Metal GPU Acceleration patches on an iMac 10,1 and the machine is usable.

I think OCLP after v0.4.4 normally installs the root patches automatically. You should check if they were installed:

Post-Installation | OpenCore Legacy Patcher

 

[JohnPascololo]

Hearing that a member from here has already bought from them gives them credibility, especially since they are the ones selling the RX480, with the grinded heat sink included for $150.

I had a look at the shop on ali express. I was a little bit surprised of the screenshot of the valley benchmark. 2000 seems pretty low? It is listed with 2900 right here? The they ran it in the native resolution and not full hd as benchmarks here in this group, but does this explain the difference of 900 points?

 

[Bmac0288]

Ok so I’ve been through the threads roughly for about a month now. Every day I dive in and just get a headache lol. So I have a 27in 11,3 iMac and I’m upgrading to a k3100m. Of course once I install it I hear the boot chime and I’m presented with a black screen. My question is at this point can I just use my windows laptop to ssh in and flash the bios with the nvidia flasher? Do I need to command anything else in other than the bios? Or will just the flashing of the bios grant me a boot screen again? I’m sorry if this answer is already in the thread, if it is can someone point me to the thread? I really appreciate everyone’s efforts here.

I got to the point were I called a local computer shop, talked to the “Apple” specialist and he said it’s better I just buy one of their newer models. I laughed and told him to politely eat crap! With that being said I know it’s all up to me to get it done which I plan to do but it’s hard finding the time since I work full time, have a prego wife, and a 2 year old running around. I just want the feedback I can get from the community so next time I attempt the upgrade it will be a success! Thanks again for all you guys do and I appreciate any insight you guys provide.

 

[Lt Mao]

hello everyone) successfully updated to Ventura 13.2) oc legacy patcher 0.6.1) After installing the patches, everything works perfectly, including Wifi and Bluetooth) temperatures under load, do you think they are normal?) update took 20 minutes) brightness works perfectly as before) run Geekbench 5 tests?
View attachment 2154835

Did you upgrade your BT/wifi card?

 

[AgntRndy]

Is there anyone that would like to take a stab at this system in Upstate NY before I send it to the ewaste bin? I’m at a loss, granted I haven’t touched the system since August

I'm no expert, but this link might help. It explains how to repair a corrupted bootloader with one of those CHA programmers.

Although, I'd be happy to receive the MXM GPU in the mail if you would like to post it to Australia

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/imac-2011-27-white-screen-corrupted-bootloader.2234046/

 

[Lt Mao]

Is there anyone that would like to take a stab at this system in Upstate NY before I send it to the ewaste bin? I’m at a loss, granted I haven’t touched the system since August

Where are you located? I'm in Rochester.

 

[Rick Cruser]

Ok so I’ve been through the threads roughly for about a month now. Every day I dive in and just get a headache lol. So I have a 27in 11,3 iMac and I’m upgrading to a k3100m. Of course once I install it I hear the boot chime and I’m presented with a black screen. My question is at this point can I just use my windows laptop to ssh in and flash the bios with the nvidia flasher? Do I need to command anything else in other than the bios? Or will just the flashing of the bios grant me a boot screen again? I’m sorry if this answer is already in the thread, if it is can someone point me to the thread? I really appreciate everyone’s efforts here.

I got to the point were I called a local computer shop, talked to the “Apple” specialist and he said it’s better I just buy one of their newer models. I laughed and told him to politely eat crap! With that being said I know it’s all up to me to get it done which I plan to do but it’s hard finding the time since I work full time, have a prego wife, and a 2 year old running around. I just want the feedback I can get from the community so next time I attempt the upgrade it will be a success! Thanks again for all you guys do and I appreciate any insight you guys provide.

You installed the K3100m, did you install and setup a bootable OpenCore thumbdrive (with your OS choice) before you put the new graphics card in?

The steps i've used are as follows:
Upgrade the imac to at least High Sierra and build two bootable USB thumbdrives, #1 to boot the imac with linux headless to flash the GPU when you replace it, and #2 with the latest OpenCore installed and configured for your imac.

Then replace the CPU/GPU. Put it back together but leave the screen off (so you can see the leds) AND leave any internal HDD/SSD power unplugged. Plug the linux USB drive in and plug the power in, you should have 1 green light, turn it on and you get 2 green lights, the chime and it'll boot from the linux USB. I am assuming you have the imac ethernet plugged in and know how to get your ip address so, yes, from your windows box you SSH into the imac and flash the new GPU. After the GPU is flashed, shutdown and install the screen. Plug in the bootable OpenCore USB, power it on and you should see the boot selector screen. If not (the screen is blank) then power off, power on doing a Pram reset (chime twice) and see if the boot selector comes on. If still no screen repeat the pram reset. If still no boot selector then you've built the OpenCore incorrectly and you need to use another imac or macbook to rebuild OpenCore for this machine. If you still have a black screen then fallback to the linux USB, remote login and reflash it a second time. You should get a message about the flash image is the same, then you know the card has the firmware on it. Finally, after you get a boot selector, power it off and connect the HDD/SSD power but leave the bootable OpenCore USB drive plugged in. It's important you NOT have the HDD/SSD plugged in previously because otherwise the imac will default boot from that first, never the USB drive, and the screen will not come on without OpenCore installed.

I've done this several times, 2010/2011 21.5 and 27" imacs. When you get boot selector your ready to install the new OS. Sometimes I'll need to hit the spacebar at this point and boot into Recovery mode or clear nvram, but if you get boot selector your golden.

Hope that helps.

 

[asd903191]

Hello, I have received the vbios provided by MSI gtx780m mxm flashing Santa's Little Helper. I found that only the first two LEDs are on, and the screen has no picture.

 

[Bmac0288]

You installed the K3100m, did you install and setup a bootable OpenCore thumbdrive (with your OS choice) before you put the new graphics card in?

The steps i've used are as follows:
Upgrade the imac to at least High Sierra and build two bootable USB thumbdrives, #1 to boot the imac with linux headless to flash the GPU when you replace it, and #2 with the latest OpenCore installed and configured for your imac.

Then replace the CPU/GPU. Put it back together but leave the screen off (so you can see the leds) AND leave any internal HDD/SSD power unplugged. Plug the linux USB drive in and plug the power in, you should have 1 green light, turn it on and you get 2 green lights, the chime and it'll boot from the linux USB. I am assuming you have the imac ethernet plugged in and know how to get your ip address so, yes, from your windows box you SSH into the imac and flash the new GPU. After the GPU is flashed, shutdown and install the screen. Plug in the bootable OpenCore USB, power it on and you should see the boot selector screen. If not (the screen is blank) then power off, power on doing a Pram reset (chime twice) and see if the boot selector comes on. If still no screen repeat the pram reset. If still no boot selector then you've built the OpenCore incorrectly and you need to use another imac or macbook to rebuild OpenCore for this machine. If you still have a black screen then fallback to the linux USB, remote login and reflash it a second time. You should get a message about the flash image is the same, then you know the card has the firmware on it. Finally, after you get a boot selector, power it off and connect the HDD/SSD power but leave the bootable OpenCore USB drive plugged in. It's important you NOT have the HDD/SSD plugged in previously because otherwise the imac will default boot from that first, never the USB drive, and the screen will not come on without OpenCore installed.

I've done this several times, 2010/2011 21.5 and 27" imacs. When you get boot selector your ready to install the new OS. Sometimes I'll need to hit the spacebar at this point and boot into Recovery mode or clear nvram, but if you get boot selector your golden.

Hope that helps.

This does help, I just need to do the OpenCore usb. I never thought I needed it because it says a lot throughout the thread that it wasn’t necessary. So 2 USB’s one with Linux, and the other with open core and the os “Catalina”. Then on windows computer ssh in and have nvidia flash installed and my new vbios. After flashing do as you said from that point. I will be attempting this my next rainy day and will keep you posted on how it goes. You just made my life a lot easier and headache free!