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

[Ausdauersportler]

Apologies then. To clarify: when I build OCLP and check config.plist I do not see those settings in boot-args. If I understand you correctly, you're saying that this is expected behaviour i.e. with 0.3.2 or later the needed settings are handled elsewhere. So I should select the right MXM GPU in OCLP and trust that all will be well. Correct?

Depends on situation:

Another Mac: Set MXM GPU type and target system, nothing else!
Same Mac: Do not touch any settings at all, auto detection does the job.

In general: Do not touch any OCLP settings at all unless you are instructed to do so.

The boot-args method has been mentioned back in the days before we had OCLP support (which I had to add) to help tech savvy users on the DIY path.

P.S:
If something is broken (and it is on 0.6.8+ with Navi GPU) I will have to fix it again.

 

[G3llings]

I didn't know this was the wrong place to ask.

Yes, I want to install Mac on my laptop.

But I have the problem of not recognizing the graphics card (k5100m). And in some EFI files, I have the problem of black screen after boot.

Then I searched and found this site.

I hope you have a perfect solution to solve my problem.

Thank you for answering my problem.

Follow the Dortania OpenCore guide to build your own EFI matching your hardware. Then in the BIOS you have to select to use the dedicated GPU or it will automatically use the iGPU.

 

[AgntRndy]

I have
an iMac 27" 2011, High Sierra.
Dead HD6970 replaced by FirePro M6100

What I did:
Replaced HD6970 with M6100
Loaded the iMac without SSD or HDD, without LCD display, confirmed that it can boot normally with a beep.
Performed a PRAM reset.
Connected USB Linux and rebooted.. USB GRML Linux was prepared earlier on my Windows PC.

From another computer (I used a Windows PC) I connected via SSH to the mac, but when I enter the command ./amdvbflash -i.The adapter will not be able to get out.
What does this mean?That my video card is not working?

I don't think M6100 is compatible with 2011 iMac.

 

[lilliputian]

Whelp, one of my main programs, Logic Pro, is basically unusable in Ventura with my 870M. Graphical elements appearing and disappearing, other generally odd behavior. Will have to see about upgrading this Kepler card to something else.

 

[khoe]

Kepler cards also seem to have problems with other applications that require metal and gpu. This is certainly related to the fact that Apple no longer supports the keppler cards or has removed them from the operating system.
I have observed in Lightroom that there is no access to the gpu when denoising. I use an Nvida 4100 with gb vram.
the question arises what is a good alternative that is also available. Or maybe there will be a patch from opencore

 

[lilliputian]

Kepler cards also seem to have problems with other applications that require metal and gpu. This is certainly related to the fact that Apple no longer supports the keppler cards or has removed them from the operating system.
I have observed in Lightroom that there is no access to the gpu when denoising. I use an Nvida 4100 with gb vram.
the question arises what is a good alternative that is also available. Or maybe there will be a patch from opencore

The problems do seem to be new with Ventura, sadly, as my Monterey install works just fine with the 870M. While I'm thankful for the patch that currently exists for Kepler cards running Ventura, I would wager that the devs are mostly concentrating on support for Sonoma in OCLP at this point. Rather than wait for something that may never come, I'll just go GPU shopping again.

 

[khoe]

Question does this card work in imac 12.2 with ventura 15.4.1 does it still need to be patched? or better leave it because it is also a Keppler. Ist eine Nvidea GeForce GTX 870m 6GB MXM 3.0 Typ B for Allenware Clevo. Or what would be a recommendation that can support metal and the GPU is best not Kepler

 

[congtrid]

Following up... Thanks to posts like this one I decided to try a AMD M5100 in spite of the 1st post in the thread which gives a dire warning about using this and similar age AMD cards in 2011 iMacs - says PRAM must be reset every cold boot, do not use, etc...
The similarly priced Nvidia cards (like K2100M which I have installed) do not have metal support, and more recent Nvidia cards with metal are not economic for me. Furthermore there a numerous warnings in this thread about limited supportability for Nvidia cards with Ventura and beyond.
These AMD cards seem to have metal and are priced within reach... So I have given the AMD M5100 a try, and can report no issues so far with cold boot, sleep, wake etc. I did have to do a PRAM reset and I was very careful to follow the specific instructions for this card which are linked to from the first post.
I had to manually edit the config.plist as the GUI based process described there seems to be broken in the current releases of OCLP - and I consider myself lucky to have spotted that.
Anyway, just wanted to share a success with this seemingly good value for money card.
Thanks to the devs who have worked on this!

Edit: don't forget the shim!

i tried and it's work, i just noted that there is no 3rd led on the mobo, but it's work

 

[lilliputian]

Question does this card work in imac 12.2 with ventura 15.4.1 does it still need to be patched? or better leave it because it is also a Keppler. Ist eine Nvidea GeForce GTX 870m 6GB MXM 3.0 Typ B for Allenware Clevo. Or what would be a recommendation that can support metal and the GPU is best not Kepler

While I can't speak to the iMac 12,2 specifically, the Nvidia GeForce 870M is my precise GPU, currently installed in my iMac 11,3 (albeit with 3GB of VRAM instead of 6GB). The problems I've been having I suspect are due to the architecture of the card and how Ventura interacts with it (even patched), rather than the amount of VRAM or which particular iMac one is using, but I could be wrong. Either way though, I suspect you will be better off looking for a newer, non-Kepler card, as I will be doing as well.

 

[khoe]

While I can't speak to the iMac 12,2 specifically, the Nvidia GeForce 870M is my precise GPU, currently installed in my iMac 11,3 (albeit with 3GB of VRAM instead of 6GB). The problems I've been having I suspect are due to the architecture of the card and how Ventura interacts with it (even patched), rather than the amount of VRAM or which particular iMac one is using, but I could be wrong. Either way though, I suspect you will be better off looking for a newer, non-Kepler card, as I will be doing as well.

Thanks for the info.
The question arises what would be a good non-Keppler card that would fit. I'm completely overwhelmed.
actually the system runs quite well for me. fierefox has image errors in my video and denoise from Lightroom, which is not well supported.
sooner or later I need another Imac I'll try to work with this one for a while until the new Imacs are there, then you can get the used ones with 27 inches a little cheaper.

 

[lilliputian]

Thanks for the info.
The question arises what would be a good non-Keppler card that would fit. I'm completely overwhelmed.
actually the system runs quite well for me. fierefox has image errors in my video and denoise from Lightroom, which is not well supported.
sooner or later I need another Imac I'll try to work with this one for a while until the new Imacs are there, then you can get the used ones with 27 inches a little cheaper.

For that, the first post of this thread will be the place I'll be turning to, since they have a list of tested cards already. I'm thinking something AMD myself, but of course price and preferences come into play. I don't have enough GPU knowledge myself to make a personal recommendation, unfortunately.

 

[StefanAM]

Hey guys! I bought this: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/100....order_list.order_list_main.34.12b41802m42boJ and this: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/100....order_list.order_list_main.40.12b41802m42boJ (CNC Mod 1312 27" 3-pipes heatsink). This is WX7100 v1.1 and I just hope that will work with my iMac 11,3 (yes I know, on first page it say v1,1 is for iMac12,2). I will keep you informed (OCLP already installed). The questions are: 1. What firmware should I use for flashing (I'll do before installing, with CH341a)? 2. I can't find in my country K5 Pro. It is OK if I use Arctic MX-4? Thank you!

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Hey guys! I bought this: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/100....order_list.order_list_main.34.12b41802m42boJ and this: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/100....order_list.order_list_main.40.12b41802m42boJ (CNC Mod 1312 27" 3-pipes heatsink). This is WX7100 v1.1 and I just hope that will work with my iMac 11,3 (yes I know, on first page it say v1,1 is for iMac12,2). I will keep you informed (OCLP already installed). The questions are: 1. What firmware should I use for flashing (I'll do before installing, with CH341a)? 2. I can't find in my country K5 Pro. It is OK if I use Arctic MX-4? Thank you!

The first posts says clearly:
- VER 1.0 cards will not run in iMac12,2 while VER 1.1 cards will run in all of the 27 iMac 2009-2011 models.
- The card does not need a modification of the 2011 three pipe heat sink, but it needs such a sink.
- No, you cannot replace K5 pro with MX-4, it will cause an ugly mess and the MX-4 paste simple has no function applied on VRAM and other parts. K5 can be obtained directly from the Greek producer, too.
Try the vBIOS versions published and save the one found on your new card (which has been posted before, too).

 

[crazyjnz]

You could try hy234 thermal putty from aliexpress. it seems to be a cheap knockoff of k5 pro. I have used it in my imac on both nvidia gtx780m and amd wx7100, itworks well. No issues with the Temps. On my wx7100 I used the vbios from the github link one post 1. I think it's called wx7100-EnableGop.rom, it enabled boot picker without bootrom mod. I flashed using the usb grml method. The card worded with the stock vbios so flashing was easy.
What I did was before installing the new card put the usb stick in the Mac and boot holding option and the before choosing to boot the use hold control? and the arrow will change to a circle arrow and when u click that it saves that as the default boot device. So after the new card is installed it will boot the usb incase your screen does not come on. Then you can ssh to flash BUT like I said for me the screen worked and I was able to flash. I also got my card from the same seller and installed today.
Hope that helps. You will need an external screen to make the internal screen come on if booting into high sierra. I used a emulator stick.
Good luck

 

[StefanAM]

The first posts says clearly:
- VER 1.0 cards will not run in iMac12,2 while VER 1.1 cards will run in all of the 27 iMac 2009-2011 models.
- The card does not need a modification of the 2011 three pipe heat sink, but it needs such a sink.
- No, you cannot replace K5 pro with MX-4, it will cause an ugly mess and the MX-4 paste simple has no function applied on VRAM and other parts. K5 can be obtained directly from the Greek producer, too.
Try the vBIOS versions published and save the one found on your new card (which has been posted before, too).

Thank you! I ordered K5 pro from the greek site. Do you know, by chance, a good tutorial to clean a dusty LCD? You know what I mean, dusty clouds on inner LCD screen.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Thank you! I ordered K5 pro from the greek site. Do you know, by chance, a good tutorial to clean a dusty LCD? You know what I mean, dusty clouds on inner LCD screen.

I stopped answering here just because every answer I gave was like this one:
Did you, by any chance, read the first post before starting your project?
It is really worth reading….

 

[StefanAM]

I stopped answering here just because every answer I gave was like this one:
Did you, by any chance, read the first post before starting your project?
It is really worth reading….

My bad! Actually I read it all. Now I'm at this stage and I forgot where I saw this tutorial. I'm sorry!

 

[tdebruin]

I registered to this Forum only to say "It Worked!". I am amazed at the level of knowledge shared. It took me quite some efforts to fix my iMac 27" late 2009 properly, but that was because I was trying to go way too fast. Re-reading the detailed manuals about 20 times helped a lot . In my case one of the main drawbacks was that I could not get past the flashing step. I was so confident that the Grml usb stick I baked was going to boot blindly that I kept trying before admitting failure, and taking the time to check it thoroughly and discover that every time I tried to boot it it just crashed on some unexplainable kernel panic 🤯. Made a new stick and followed the steps in the how-to more carefully, and at last I was blessed with succes.
Big thanks to everyone on this forum and especially the long distance sporters and the bios flashers, you people are ace.

 

[crazyjnz]

Can anyone point me in the right direction, after installing a wx7100 flashed with wx7100-EnableGop vbios in my 2011 27 iMac running Monterey/windows 10 with oclp (also High Sierra on external drive) successfully I noticed that in HWmonitor the gpu die and gpu proxcimity are reading 129, as expected BUT the PHC Die is reading 128 so I ran AHT and got error 4SNS/1/C0000008: TPCD--124.
My searching and googling came up with it being a temp sensor related to power but thats all I know,
Any idea what sensor or where to start looking?
Before changing the GPU it passed both AHT and ASD.
ALSO I noticed when booted with opencore the bootrom is 999.999.999.999 and SMC is 999.999 is this normal, if booting to high sierra on external drive without oclp the bootrom and smc show up correctly.
I also noticed that after changing the GPU that the imac is very slow to post/startup, I push the power button and a few seconds later I hear the optical drive and about 30 seconds later i hear the startup chime, before changing the GPU the chime was 1 or 2 seconds after the optical drive sound.
Thanks

 

[congtrid]

I have
an iMac 27" 2011, High Sierra.
Dead HD6970 replaced by FirePro M6100

What I did:
Replaced HD6970 with M6100
Loaded the iMac without SSD or HDD, without LCD display, confirmed that it can boot normally with a beep.
Performed a PRAM reset.
Connected USB Linux and rebooted.. USB GRML Linux was prepared earlier on my Windows PC.

From another computer (I used a Windows PC) I connected via SSH to the mac, but when I enter the command ./amdvbflash -i.The adapter will not be able to get out.
What does this mean?That my video card is not working?

My amd M5100 work fine excepted cool boot problem sometimes. you should reinstall you card with full 2 holding screws then try to boot again

 

[crazyjnz]

What is the difference between wx7100-EnableGop.rom and wx7100_1234_EnableGop.rom?
I have flashed wx7100-EnableGop.rom and am having a few issues but keep getting error 0FL01 and file wx7100_1234_EnableGop.rom not found while trying to flash wx7100_1234_EnableGop.rom.
I'm flashing with the usb grml method
The 3rd led is not lighting up but the Mac is booting

 

[Ausdauersportler]

What is the difference between wx7100-EnableGop.rom and wx7100_1234_EnableGop.rom?
I have flashed wx7100-EnableGop.rom and am having a few issues but keep getting error 0FL01 and file wx7100_1234_EnableGop.rom not found while trying to flash wx7100_1234_EnableGop.rom.
I'm flashing with the usb grml method
The 3rd led is not lighting up but the Mac is booting

- The 3rd LED will not work on the EnableGOP versions (only on EG2)
- SMC and BootROM versions are spoofed by OpenCore to avoid incompatible updates.
- There are different versions of the WX7100 out and therefore we worked with different vBIOS versions in the past. There is no guarantee the published versions work flawlessly on your particular card. (You kept the original?)
- GPU die temps will never be shown on any replacement card.
(all this has been documented and you missed to look it up properly)

The boot time problem however looks like some hardware components are out of line after installing the new GPU - maybe the GPU itself or you have an installation problem. You may try to reset SMC and PRAM multiple times.

 

[crazyjnz]

Thanks for the reply, I knew about the gpu die and proximity not working, its the pch die that I was not sure about. Apart from that and the very slow boot chime all is working well with good benchmarks in both macos and windows 10.
I did backup the original vbios twice for safe keeping. I will put my old card back in and check if the pch die is still a issue and try reinstalling the wx7100 and see what happens. Install seemed good with big apple x clamp and modded 3 pipe heatsink, that was already modded for gtx780m. Interesting it passed asd efi but failed aht.
I will post feedback after I reinstall

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Thanks for the reply, I knew about the gpu die and proximity not working, its the pch die that I was not sure about. Apart from that and the very slow boot chime all is working well with good benchmarks in both macos and windows 10.
I did backup the original vbios twice for safe keeping. I will put my old card back in and check if the pch die is still a issue and try reinstalling the wx7100 and see what happens. Install seemed good with big apple x clamp and modded 3 pipe heatsink, that was already modded for gtx780m. Interesting it passed asd efi but failed aht.
I will post feedback after I reinstall

PCH die sensor is working fine on my main system using a WX4170. So you can assume this could be the root cause of your problems. But I would expect the fans to go to maximum during boot until tools like Macs Fan Control can kick in after login. This is at least the standard behavior when at least a single sensor is failing/or has not been reconnected properly (only exceptions seem to be the GPU die/proximity).

 

[crazyjnz]

I just put the 780m back in and the pch die is still showing 128, all cables/sensors are connected. I will just have to Live with it for now until I get the 2 logic boards etc from imacs that were turned into a monitors and try swapping bits and cables. Or just swap the logic board . Fans are all running normally which is strange.
Thanks for all your help.