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

[madvinegar]

I see that one of the updates in the OCPL 0.62 is:

• Implement Hardware Encoding support for AMD GCN 1-3, Polaris and Vega GPUs
  
  • Applicable for pre-Haswell Macs on macOS Ventura
  • Resolves DRM playback issues on Netflix, Disney+, etc.
    
    • Note: GCN 1-3 DRM is functional, however hardware video encoding is still experimental
      
      • AppleTV+ may be unstable due to this

Has anyone with GCN 1-2 GPU tried to see how DRM is working with Apple TV?
It is the only thing holding me back from updating to Ventura.
@Ausdauersportler do you believe is now a good time to update our 2011 iMacs from Monterey to Ventura?

 

[kinwin]

I see that one of the updates in the OCPL 0.62 is:

• Implement Hardware Encoding support for AMD GCN 1-3, Polaris and Vega GPUs
  
  • Applicable for pre-Haswell Macs on macOS Ventura
  • Resolves DRM playback issues on Netflix, Disney+, etc.
    
    • Note: GCN 1-3 DRM is functional, however hardware video encoding is still experimental
      
      • AppleTV+ may be unstable due to this

Has anyone with GCN 1-2 GPU tried to see how DRM is working with Apple TV?
It is the only thing holding me back from updating to Ventura.
@Ausdauersportler do you believe is now a good time to update our 2011 iMacs from Monterey to Ventura?

I'm happy to report my 2010 iMac upgraded with AMD GCN card has full AppleTV+ functionality.
(NOTE: The attached screenshot shows a black AppleTV screen, but on the iMac screen itself you see full image, this is normal behavior even for official Apple supported Macs)

 

[madvinegar]

I'm happy to report my 2010 iMac upgraded with AMD GCN card has full AppleTV+ functionality.
(NOTE: The attached screenshot shows a black AppleTV screen, but on the iMac screen itself you see full image, this is normal behavior even for official Apple supported Macs)

Hi, thanks for your reply. I see that you have not yet updated to 13.3.
When you do so, can you please confirm again that Apple TV is still working?

Many thanks.

 

[mrlost]

Jesus, please install OC through OCLP app to regain brightness control with the K2100M in your iMac. You are deliberately running the LCD hot. And get used to install Windows in UEFI mode. The legacy EFI is broken in so many ways, there is a good technical reason why Apple never supported W10 on these machines.

Note:
It is really frustrating to experience how the knowledge gathered in a few years got quickly buried in this chat. Everything has been documented. Everything can be ignored - and it will be ignored.

Dear colleague @Ausdauersportler, I will try to answer you, in the most gentle and empathetic way possible. The value is not in how much knowledge you have, the value is in what you do with that knowledge. First of all, all my appreciation to people like you, who have invested resources and time in research for the benefit of many people in this forum. Second, before you criticize so harshly, you should read what I said about opencore and why I haven't installed it.

It is more than evident that I, with the little knowledge I have, do not understand everything you explain, but you definitely do not understand that it is a miracle that my imacs work after the upgrade. For a person like me with so little knowledge on the subject, it is quite an advance to make them still work.
You should start respecting more, to the people that we are at least trying.

You are very intelligent, and you should already know that if many of us ignore and do not do what you know how to do, it is simply because we do not know how to do it.

Very soon I will receive an imac, which I will use to experiment and learn everything you suggest, since with my daughters' ones, I cannot stop them for a long time, since they need them to study.

To finish, I want to ask you to have a little more patience with people who do not have
knowledge, which you do have, and remember that no one is born with knowledge.

Wanting to do something and not knowing how to do it, believe me, is much more frustrating. With and without Jesus, we need to learn and time.

I personally appreciate all that you do for this forum.

 

[Baoulettes]

Hi,
Sorry, if maybe that require a new thread for it I will make it properly.
I have a question about AMD FirePro S2700x GPU upgrade on an iMac 27" late 2009.

On macOS it does work just fine I got everything working as intended.
Any control like sound, brightness any ports work fine.

However when I boot on Windows:
Both Bootcamp and manual installation
Windows 10 created with bootcamp
Windows 11 is a custom iso to be as minimal as possible and installed with Ventoy (booted from OCPL boot disk picker the one full black screen and actually the disk boot selection, that UEFI right?
(I will be able to confirm it after work),
But brightness is constantly at maximum and I am unable to control it with the keyboard or Settings apps.
Beside it the Windows image work perfectly fine every other drivers even keyboard work perfectly.
I tried several regedit manipulation with EnableBright settings but I am still unable to control it.
All I want it to set it at around 70% and remain there, is there any trick to do it ?
I tried several different drivers and trick commonly found on internet, but since that specific to iMac maybe there is OCPL patches or something I did miss

Full brightness is actually an issue for me has it would "overheat" and flicker, on full brightness the backlight goes a bit too crazy to be usable ^^

I will check every post there, right now most I have checked seem to be a Nvidia issue
Or that control issues is on macOS, fo rme that just on Windows side.

Also sorry if my English is not correct, I am doing my best there

PS: I will edit that post if I find something that could help me, I am only half way in post there

 

[thenicnic]

Hi!
While replacing a 6xxx series AMD card in a 2011 iMac 21.5 with a new Nvidia K610M bought second-hand, I noticed an issue:

I swapped out the original assembly spider (too small screw holes on the original) and the card seems to fit without extra copper plate. They both have the same thickness (board to die, confirmed with vernier caliper).

But - bad news - two of the four VRAM ICs are on the other side of the new card, which means I cannot connect them to the heatpipe. Can't find anything about this circumstance.
However, following the product number (785225-001) it turns out that the card is designed for a HP ZBook 15 whose heatpipe doesn't cover the VRAM chips on the back either (

).

Is the card doomed to die in the iMac? Or just different thermal design on the K610M?
I read that they're getting hot in a 2011 iMac (that's why I ordered K5 Pro, too), is this only valid for the original AMD cards?
The original AMD card works fine after treating it with a hot air station two years ago but I'd like to upgrade macOS to a more recent version. Plus, the repaired card may fail again soon.

Is anybody out there with experience with the K610M?

Thanks in advance,
Nico

 

[junley4]

Hi!
While replacing a 6xxx series AMD card in a 2011 iMac 21.5 with a new Nvidia K610M bought second-hand, I noticed an issue:

I swapped out the original assembly spider (too small screw holes on the original) and the card seems to fit without extra copper plate. They both have the same thickness (board to die, confirmed with vernier caliper).

But - bad news - two of the four VRAM ICs are on the other side of the new card, which means I cannot connect them to the heatpipe. Can't find anything about this circumstance.
However, following the product number (785225-001) it turns out that the card is designed for a HP ZBook 15 whose heatpipe doesn't cover the VRAM chips on the back either (

).

Is the card doomed to die in the iMac? Or just different thermal design on the K610M?
I read that they're getting hot in a 2011 iMac (that's why I ordered K5 Pro, too), is this only valid for the original AMD cards?
The original AMD card works fine after treating it with a hot air station two years ago but I'd like to upgrade macOS to a more recent version. Plus, the repaired card may fail again soon.

Is anybody out there with experience with the K610M?

Thanks in advance,
Nico

I also had a mid 2011 21.5 iMac which I upgraded to k610m... I installed it without modification to the heatsink, I used mx-4 for the gpu die, and k5 pro for the 2 vrams. I did not mind the vrams on the other side. I did that updgrade couple of years ago and that machine is still working very well util now.

 

[internetzel]

Hi,
Sorry, if maybe that require a new thread for it I will make it properly.
I have a question about AMD FirePro S2700x GPU upgrade on an iMac 27" late 2009.

On macOS it does work just fine I got everything working as intended.
Any control like sound, brightness any ports work fine.

However when I boot on Windows:
Both Bootcamp and manual installation
Windows 10 created with bootcamp
Windows 11 is a custom iso to be as minimal as possible and installed with Ventoy (booted from OCPL boot disk picker the one full black screen and actually the disk boot selection, that UEFI right?
(I will be able to confirm it after work),
But brightness is constantly at maximum and I am unable to control it with the keyboard or Settings apps.
Beside it the Windows image work perfectly fine every other drivers even keyboard work perfectly.
I tried several regedit manipulation with EnableBright settings but I am still unable to control it.
All I want it to set it at around 70% and remain there, is there any trick to do it ?
I tried several different drivers and trick commonly found on internet, but since that specific to iMac maybe there is OCPL patches or something I did miss

Full brightness is actually an issue for me has it would "overheat" and flicker, on full brightness the backlight goes a bit too crazy to be usable ^^

I will check every post there, right now most I have checked seem to be a Nvidia issue
Or that control issues is on macOS, fo rme that just on Windows side.

Also sorry if my English is not correct, I am doing my best there

PS: I will edit that post if I find something that could help me, I am only half way in post there

Me too, I didn't find a way to enable brightness control in Windows with any upgraded AMD graphics cards in my iMac late 2009.
For the mid 2010 iMac however there have been success reports, but no way I could achieve that on my late 2009 one.

 

[kinwin]

Hi, thanks for your reply. I see that you have not yet updated to 13.3.
When you do so, can you please confirm again that Apple TV is still working?

Many thanks.

Yes, it's still working in 13.3

 

[farscaper]

Hello All,

I'm coming here for some help -I have an Imac A1312 EMC 2429 27 Inch - here are my iMac's Specs Originally it came with,

1. 4Gb of Ram
2. AMD Radeon HD 6770 512 MB
3. 2.7 GHz Intel Core i5
4. A1312 Imac Mid 2011 27 Inch EMC 2429
5. 1 TB mechanical hard drive with High Sierra 10.13.6

so this setup wasn't patched by Open core legacy nor was the video card changed but it started to display that issue where the LCD goes turns off - I think it goes into a deep sleep because I was able to bring it back by pressing the power button for about 2 seconds or so, but soon after it will go black again and I repeat the same process to bring it back but it's random when it goes black when it does come back it will work for 10 minutes to an hour sometimes for more than 5 hours before the LCD goes black. I did, of course, shine a light on the LCD and no picture was visible.

so all this happened early last week of February then I planned for upgrades.



------------------
3/29/23 - Here is what I upgraded...

1. 32GB of Ram - simply because I wanted to.
2. 3.4 GHz Intel Core i7 2600
3. 1 TB Samsung 870 Evo SSD with OWC's thermal sensor
4. 4GB Nvidia Quadro K4000m Patched by the seller - Bought from Aliexpress - I believe the seller was mentioned here so I went based on that to choose to buy from.
5. New - Used LCD Inverter from Ebay.
6. Installed High Sierra without open core legacy - then installed Ventura with latest open core legacy.
7. Installed Windows 10

The Imac turned on and I finished patching the Imac with the latest Open Core Legacy and Ventura 13.13. So then I proceeded to install everything I wanted for the mac, Hours later after normal use, browsing the net, etc, the LCD turns off again presumably into sleep mode because I am able to bring it back by pressing the power button for about 2 seconds, immediately after I bring it back it goes off again 3 or 4 times but sometimes after bringing it back the LCD will stay on for hours without a hitch.

When the LCD Inverter came in also today, I immediately installed it, and when I turned it on unfortunately the issue still persisted. Not right away but hours later. Now weirdly enough when I boot into windows 10 none of the LCD issues I describe Happens, go figure!

So here I am looking for answers, one thing Im fuzzy about,

Black Screen: After a PRAM reset the LCD gets and remains black. Just press alt/option on boot to force the EFI boot screen, this enables the LCD. Unfortunately this does not work on iMac11,1 and you need to apply one of the the fixes below:
- Sierra, High Sierra, Mojave, Catalina: Use this package installer to solve this issue with all NVIDIA cards on all systems up to macOS Catalina. Do not use this package on Big Sur and later.
- Big Sur and later: Install OCLP or manually add with agdpmod=vit9696 in the boot-args in OpenCore. This fires up the LCD even after a PRAM reset or GPU change, too.

I'm not sure if I still have to do this. I know the latest open-core patched the Kepler card I have that's why ask.

So any help would be appreciated Thank you.

 

[mrlost]

Hello All,

I'm coming here for some help -I have an Imac A1312 EMC 2429 27 Inch - here are my iMac's Specs Originally it came with,

1. 4Gb of Ram
2. AMD Radeon HD 6770 512 MB
3. 2.7 GHz Intel Core i5
4. A1312 Imac Mid 2011 27 Inch EMC 2429
5. 1 TB mechanical hard drive with High Sierra 10.13.6

so this setup wasn't patched by Open core legacy nor was the video card changed but it started to display that issue where the LCD goes turns off - I think it goes into a deep sleep because I was able to bring it back by pressing the power button for about 2 seconds or so, but soon after it will go black again and I repeat the same process to bring it back but it's random when it goes black when it does come back it will work for 10 minutes to an hour sometimes for more than 5 hours before the LCD goes black. I did, of course, shine a light on the LCD and no picture was visible.

so all this happened early last week of February then I planned for upgrades.



------------------
3/29/23 - Here is what I upgraded...

1. 32GB of Ram - simply because I wanted to.
2. 3.4 GHz Intel Core i7 2600
3. 1 TB Samsung 870 Evo SSD with OWC's thermal sensor
4. 4GB Nvidia Quadro K4000m Patched by the seller - Bought from Aliexpress - I believe the seller was mentioned here so I went based on that to choose to buy from.
5. New - Used LCD Inverter from Ebay.
6. Installed High Sierra without open core legacy - then installed Ventura with latest open core legacy.
7. Installed Windows 10

The Imac turned on and I finished patching the Imac with the latest Open Core Legacy and Ventura 13.13. So then I proceeded to install everything I wanted for the mac, Hours later after normal use, browsing the net, etc, the LCD turns off again presumably into sleep mode because I am able to bring it back by pressing the power button for about 2 seconds, immediately after I bring it back it goes off again 3 or 4 times but sometimes after bringing it back the LCD will stay on for hours without a hitch.

When the LCD Inverter came in also today, I immediately installed it, and when I turned it on unfortunately the issue still persisted. Not right away but hours later. Now weirdly enough when I boot into windows 10 none of the LCD issues I describe Happens, go figure!

So here I am looking for answers, one thing Im fuzzy about,


I'm not sure if I still have to do this. I know the latest open-core patched the Kepler card I have that's why ask.

So any help would be appreciated Thank you.

The first time the monitor turned off, did you already have windows installed? if so, try pausing windows updates and see if this works. If the monitor doesn't turn off again, come back and we'll finish troubleshooting.

 

[farscaper]

The first time the monitor turned off, did you already have windows installed? if so, try pausing windows updates and see if this works. If the monitor doesn't turn off again, come back and we'll finish troubleshooting.

No I did not have windows installed the first time It turned off. The updates on windows are now complete, they installed without a problem.

 

[mrlost]

The first time the monitor turned off, did you already have windows installed? if so, try pausing windows updates and see if this works. If the monitor doesn't turn off again, come back and we'll finish troubleshooting.

When I installed windows for the first time, after a few days, the monitor began to turn off, I tried to do everything to fix it, but it would last a few hours, even days, and it would turn off again. Until I realized that if I pause the updates, it doesn't turn off. It was not a matter of updates, it was a matter of searching for updates. I put a blocker and it was definitely solved, don't ask why? To this day, I don't understand it.

 

[gagarin]

Thank you very much, I feel much calmer. I'm really happy with the upgrade of both imacs. It only remains to perform a delid on the I7 2600s and, surely, this will also help to lower the temperature of the power supply.

I also have the brightness at maximum power, but only on MacOs, I am using the mac brightness control app, because windows does give brightness control, and for this reason, windows is colder.

I do not really see how delid will help you with keeping iMac cooler. it does help with better heat transfer from die to the cooling plate but it will be same amount of heat either way. If you are not overclocking what reason to delid?

 

[Pacific1972]

Dear colleague @Ausdauersportler, I will try to answer you, in the most gentle and empathetic way possible. The value is not in how much knowledge you have, the value is in what you do with that knowledge. First of all, all my appreciation to people like you, who have invested resources and time in research for the benefit of many people in this forum. Second, before you criticize so harshly, you should read what I said about opencore and why I haven't installed it.

It is more than evident that I, with the little knowledge I have, do not understand everything you explain, but you definitely do not understand that it is a miracle that my imacs work after the upgrade. For a person like me with so little knowledge on the subject, it is quite an advance to make them still work.
You should start respecting more, to the people that we are at least trying.

You are very intelligent, and you should already know that if many of us ignore and do not do what you know how to do, it is simply because we do not know how to do it.

Very soon I will receive an imac, which I will use to experiment and learn everything you suggest, since with my daughters' ones, I cannot stop them for a long time, since they need them to study.

To finish, I want to ask you to have a little more patience with people who do not have
knowledge, which you do have, and remember that no one is born with knowledge.

Wanting to do something and not knowing how to do it, believe me, is much more frustrating. With and without Jesus, we need to learn and time.

I personally appreciate all that you do for this forum.

Dear mrlost,

Often the very good hints & Tips are not found on the
famous page 1 of this thread.

This is about how to use CH341A, what type of BIOS Chips are
on the different useable Video cards, when using Wire Mod from
Power Supply to Inverter (PCB request for AMD) or what version
you should use from OCLP...

If I read some older articles here sometimes I found something
that I try alternatively. Perhaps - or for sure - the A1311 and A1312
are different platforms through the years. A 2009 iMac is a little bit
different than the 2010 model and if having a look on the 2011 model,
you can see different CPU sockets - and overall another platform...

The 2011 iMac is a good model for NVIDIA Video card upgrades
and the 2010 is a good choice for patched 3rd party AMD cards.

If I use AMD FirePro S7100 (8GB) the video card and the install process
is a little bit different between 2009 and 2010 models ! If you exchange the
workflow or using a Core i5 680 (DualCore) you wonder that the card don't
open it's speed resources (only with Core i5 or i7 Quadcore - Multiprocessor
Score - possible) - and have a look of the system overall power consumption...

As you see you got here very much hints & tips but personally I don't
await here anymore a complete How-To-Guide from hardware hints & mods,
OCLP, MacsFanControl rpms, needing a native Boot Screen or OCLP Picker
and so on. The iMac model & video card differences makes it difficult to have
an overall knowledge - but I try to do so...

I'll be sure you got a solution for your iMacs - with some "Try & Errors"
like all of us. Sometimes it's important to keep going back to the basics
again, so that you don't go round in circles mentally ... me,too !

😄 P.S. Your conversation is pure entertainent - LOL 😄

 

[dorninko]

Hi guys, I am trying to flash a K3000M card but got the below error message.
Interestingly, the card works now and show that it was flashed!?!



root@grml ..ive/mount/persistence/sdb2/flash/Video # ./nvflash -6 QUADRO/K3000M_V4.rom

NVIDIA Firmware Update Utility (Version 5.792.0)

Copyright (C) 1993-2022, NVIDIA Corporation. All rights reserved.



Checking for matches between display adapter(s) and image(s)...



Reading EEPROM (this operation may take up to 30 seconds)



NOTE: EEPROM does not contain board ID, skipping board ID check.



WARNING: Firmware image PCI Subsystem ID (10DE.0950)

does not match adapter PCI Subsystem ID (1028.153F).



You are intending to override PCI Subsystem ID.

Are you sure you want to continue?

Press 'y' to confirm (any other key to abort): y

Overriding the PCI Subsystem ID mismatch.

Current - Version:Unavailable (Invalid) ID:0000:0000:0000:0000



Replace with - Version:30.6B.32.37.04 ID:10DE:11BE:10DE:0950

NVIDIA Quadro K3000M by nikey22 (Normal Board)



Update display adapter firmware?

Press 'y' to confirm (any other key to abort): y

Reading EEPROM (this operation may take up to 30 seconds)



[==================================================] 100 %

Reading EEPROM (this operation may take up to 30 seconds)



Nothing changed!







ERROR: Mismatch at offset 0x00002640 - Expected value: 0xFC - Read back: 0x00

 

[mrlost]

Dear mrlost,

Often the very good hints & Tips are not found on the
famous page 1 of this thread.

This is about how to use CH341A, what type of BIOS Chips are
on the different useable Video cards, when using Wire Mod from
Power Supply to Inverter (PCB request for AMD) or what version
you should use from OCLP...

If I read some older articles here sometimes I found something
that I try alternatively. Perhaps - or for sure - the A1311 and A1312
are different platforms through the years. A 2009 iMac is a little bit
different than the 2010 model and if having a look on the 2011 model,
you can see different CPU sockets - and overall another platform...

The 2011 iMac is a good model for NVIDIA Video card upgrades
and the 2010 is a good choice for patched 3rd party AMD cards.

If I use AMD FirePro S7100 (8GB) the video card and the install process
is a little bit different between 2009 and 2010 models ! If you exchange the
workflow or using a Core i5 680 (DualCore) you wonder that the card don't
open it's speed resources (only with Core i5 or i7 Quadcore - Multiprocessor
Score - possible) - and have a look of the system overall power consumption...

As you see you got here very much hints & tips but personally I don't
await here anymore a complete How-To-Guide from hardware hints & mods,
OCLP, MacsFanControl rpms, needing a native Boot Screen or OCLP Picker
and so on. The iMac model & video card differences makes it difficult to have
an overall knowledge - but I try to do so...

I'll be sure you got a solution for your iMacs - with some "Try & Errors"
like all of us. Sometimes it's important to keep going back to the basics
again, so that you don't go round in circles mentally ... me,too !

😄 P.S. Your conversation is pure entertainent - LOL 😄

Dear @Pacific1972, thank you very much for replying.

At the technical forums, 3 types of people arrive. Type 1 people are people who come looking for a solution, they look for a way to solve their problems, these people come, solve their problems and go on living their lives.

Type 2 people, (like @Ausdauersportler and others) these people come in, do research, and take up research as a hobby. They stay because they love to investigate, and they love to help other people.

Type 2 people make forums like Macrumors grow and become important.

Type 3 people are people who have the knowledge and time to investigate but they just love to show their superiority, for everyone to see that they are the best and their ego comes first and they love to point out other people's mistakes .

When a person like that comes to a forum, they hijack any kind of community. And the forums begin to disappear, simply because the objective with which the forum was created (to help on a subject) disappears.

In macrumors, somehow, they force you to stay longer than necessary, since it takes a long time, to get a complete solution.

Possessing practical guides to solve problems is not necessarily food in the mouth, it is rather the main objective of a technical forum.

In addition, people who visit a technical forum always try to contribute something to the community and to improve the forum.

For people who live in developed countries, it is very easy to take up forum topics as a hobby, but for people who live in underdeveloped countries, as is my case, repairing an imac means being able to continue working or studying, since, it is impossible for us to buy a new imac.

This shows that the basic needs of each one of us are very different.

I, in my possibilities, try to contribute to the forum what I can, and help others in what I can. But I hope very soon to be able to solve the problems of my Imacs. And continue my life.

PD:I'm glad you enjoy the forum

 

[madvinegar]

FYI:

Just updated to Ventura 13.3 with OCPL 0.6.2.
As soon as I open Apple TV, my iMac hangs.

I have the 2011 iMac with updated dGPU to AMD firepro m5100 but it shows as R9 M370x (after I installed the new motherboard bios to gain native boot screen).

I see in the Ventura thread that another member with 2015 iMac and R9 380 dGPU has the same issue.

Maybe there is an issue with R9 cards...?

 

[madvinegar]

FYI:

Just updated to Ventura 13.3 with OCPL 0.6.2.
As soon as I open Apple TV, my iMac hangs.

I have the 2011 iMac with updated dGPU to AMD firepro m5100 but it shows as R9 M370x (after I installed the new motherboard bios to gain native boot screen).

I see in the Ventura thread that another member with 2015 iMac and R9 380 dGPU has the same issue.

Maybe there is an issue with R9 cards...?

UPDATE.

AppleTV seems to be working fine now... Maybe the system needed some time to process the new Ventura OS and update all necessary libraries.
I will keep you updated.

 

[gagarin]

Well, are iMac PSUs going out are normal thing when you start tinkering with GPUs or is it just my luck? First fuse on 2010 fired because of this metal sliver that looks like part of some connector but I am not able to find which one.

Then after installing wx4150 in 2011 I have found no power on diagnostic LEDs at all and after few reassemblies I have finally checked PSU to MB connector — zero on every pin, mains cables are fine, fuze is fine (checked with continuity)

I wonder is it normal? I only have one working PSU left for 3 computers now ;(
Also any good guides on troubleshooting these iMac PSUs?

P.S. Going to put new fuse into first one that fired and hope no other component died during that short.

Well after taking presumably not working abruptly PSU from 2011 into 2009 it started! Go figure I thought at first but then I inspected 2011 board thourougly and sure there are knocked off components on it (basically creating a short so PSU was turning itself off). I was lucky to find IC right away inside the case so I only need two smd resistors. If it is easy for anyone to look what values are those plese let me know.

That is how it looks and these plastic air guards are hapen to be quite nasty when you are not areful enough.

 

[madvinegar]

these plastic air gurds are hapen to be quite nasty when you are not careful enough.

What do you mean?

 

[gagarin]

What do you mean?

The thing on a third photo, the edge of it is what knocked them off for me. Air guards, kidn of fences to create air pressure

 

[madvinegar]

The thing on a third photo, the edge of it is what knocked them off for me. Air guards, kidn of fences to create air pressure

Ok, now I understand what you meant. Thanks

 

[Erkki82]

Hi.
Long time post reader.
I have modded already about 5 iMacs with guides here.

I have odd issue with 27" 2011 machine.
with i7-2600, 2x8gb mem & ssd.
Fresh Montrey 12.6.4 install.
K2100m as a card I have flashed it with recuired bios file. In operating system feels responsive.

Bechmark Valley & Geekbench 6 scores are okay & at last in the right ballpark. As I watch the valley the picture is lagging weardly, even when frames looks what to expect from this card.
Macs own system monitor usage around 55-80%, gpu is hanging quite stable at ~62%
I kind see that when cpu usange goes ~70+ lagging stars.
Have anyone experience on something similiar?
Might try to get another cpu to test if the problem lies there.
Edit. Heaven benchmark lags similiar way.
Asphalt 8 - runs smooth.

 

[internetzel]

Hi.
Long time post reader.
I have modded already about 5 iMacs with guides here.

I have odd issue with 27" 2011 machine.
with i7-2600, 2x8gb mem & ssd.
Fresh Montrey 12.6.4 install.
K2100m as a card I have flashed it with recuired bios file. In operating system feels responsive.

Bechmark Valley & Geekbench 6 scores are okay & at last in the right ballpark. As I watch the valley the picture is lagging weardly, even when frames looks what to expect from this card.
Macs own system monitor usage around 55-80%, gpu is hanging quite stable at ~62%
I kind see that when cpu usange goes ~70+ lagging stars.
Have anyone experience on something similiar?
Might try to get another cpu to test if the problem lies there.
Edit. Heaven benchmark lags similiar way.
Asphalt 8 - runs smooth.

Have a look at this post for how to know whether throttled CPU speed is the cause for your lags:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/2011-imac-graphics-card-upgrade.1596614/post-31998170
Also have a look at your temperature values, as mentioned in posts related to the linked one.