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

[Pacific1972]

Off Topic - Sorry (for reading page 1) !

I'm receiving various problems / questions about GPU Upgrade &
OCLP usage - because of using macOS BigSur / Ventura / Sonoma.

Attention: some users forgot, some 32Bit Software which they use on High
Sierra don't work on further 64Bit macOS without manufacturer update or
additional service anymore. Important for STEAM / App Store as same as for
MS Edge or Chrome with 10.13. - make password & data backup in every
case before - there is sometimes NO WAY BACK...

Simple try a new Metal GPU + upgraded WiFi / Bluetooth module +
additional antennas, patch your macOS USB Stick with OCLP and install,
but most people simple ignore additional "Must Haves" - only install a
new GPU and ask about direct OS updates 😄 !

And then you often read on advertisements:
"VENTURA or SONOMA RUNS GREAT !"

(with various restrictions & weird - on A1311 & A1312)
-> that is of course nobody says, the same old story
you can read sometimes on various Hackintosh forums !

"Thoughts spin in circles but nobody wants to go backwards !"

 

[Durhamlandy]

Hi, recently had issues with a green strip on the screen of my a1312 mid 11 27 mac. After lots of reading this forum I purchased a K4100M and set about replacing the card. replacement went successfully and machine boots and works as it should, however, the green stripe I started with is still present in the same location same size as it was before the upgrade. is this a screen issue and not a card issue?

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Hi, recently had issues with a green strip on the screen of my a1312 mid 11 27 mac. After lots of reading this forum I purchased a K4100M and set about replacing the card. replacement went successfully and machine boots and works as it should, however, the green stripe I started with is still present in the same location same size as it was before the upgrade. is this a screen issue and not a card issue?

99.9% chance - get a GPU dead system and replace the display. You might even go a step further and open the display itself as described in this post and check the electronics and connectors - or replace the electronics from another broken iMac12,2 display. As always just check out the first post of this thread.

 

[Durhamlandy]

Thanks for that. I expected the new card to resolve the issue. I've got another unit so will swap the screen later today and see if that resolves the issue.

 

[sergiodadi]

But did you read the documentation? Or did you come up with a statistic based on experiences made by people widely ignoring the documentation? What kind of discussion style is this? Making up facts and let others waste their life time in correcting your misconceptions?

I will not debate or talk you into this update. I will not answer questions explained in great detail in the documentation. I will not hold your hand when buying a card. I will not support resellers. You will have to read the documentation and do it yourself. According the OCLP stats more than ten thousand of iMacs have been upgraded this way.

Hello, if I understood correctly, since several versions of OCLP, statistics have been sent to developers. Is it possible to have these statistics, particularly the use of OCLP by type of Mac and, if possible , stats by country ?

I searched on the OCLP website, I found nothing on these statistics.

thanks in advance

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Hello, if I understood correctly, since several versions of OCLP, statistics have been sent to developers. Is it possible to have these statistics, particularly the use of OCLP by type of Mac and, if possible , stats by country ?

I searched on the OCLP website, I found nothing on these statistics.

thanks in advance

No!

 

[boy80]

this page has helped me out alot over the last few years. Sadly i havent used my old 27 imac in a couple years. if any of u want a couple 2011 27" imacs with some flashed gpus and are located in the GVRD area msg me. I have a few that i have collected over the years as well as spare gpus and heatsinks, etc. I currently have 2 2011 21.5" with flashed k1000m and k1100m inside. a 2011 27" imac with a k2100m as well as a couple stock 27" 2011 with working gpus. i also have a couple flashed k1000m and k1100m as well to put in these that i never got around to doing.

il only sell them locally in the GVRD area (vancouver, BC canada ) and no shipping. make me a offer for one or all.
thx.

if u are local and need a gpu heatsinc, i have a few spares as well. these u can have for free. just pm me with a contact number and we can text as i no longer really cheack here as often as before.

 

[dorninko]

Hello all, I have a new problem, maybe someone has an idea:
On my iMac 12,2 with GTX880M card and Ventura 13.6.1 it takes unusually long to open a finder window. But only on items on the internal disks. On the external disks it works normal. Strange. I thought the internal HDD might die but after replacing the disk the problem still persists. And even on the system SSD the issue is present.
Any ideas???

Update: I upgraded to Sonoma and now the issue is almost gone. I still would like to understand what the problem might be...

 

[mrlost]

Good afternoon macrumors, I have had the opportunity to buy an imac 27" 2011. I am looking for a wx 7100 mxm gpu. I am an aeronautical technician, I have read the 852 pages of this forum about 5 times. And I know it is difficult to believe that, I'm not lying. Currently I still lack some basic knowledge. But I will keep trying. I wonder, how many of us would be in this forum if @nick thought that those who do not have the same knowledge were babies. Interesting reflection

 

[StefanAM]

Good afternoon macrumors, I have had the opportunity to buy an imac 27" 2011. I am looking for a wx 7100 mxm gpu. I am an aeronautical technician, I have read the 852 pages of this forum about 5 times. And I know it is difficult to believe that, I'm not lying. Currently I still lack some basic knowledge. But I will keep trying. I wonder, how many of us would be in this forum if @nick thought that those who do not have the same knowledge were babies. Interesting reflection

I bought this: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/100....order_list.order_list_main.34.12b41802m42boJ, 2 month ago. I flashed and it is working like a charm. It was 173,5 USD. Now is more expensive. Good luck!

 

[unclemiltie]

I'm using that exact configuration (WX7100, 27" imac 2011) and it works great running Monterey. I used the GRML USB stick to boot the iMac and program the WX7100 in the system.

There are three BIOS versions, only one of them worked for me so if you continue to get the black screen and no boot picker, boot the USB again and try one of the other BIOS files.

 

[mrlost]

Thank you very much @StefanAM
, if you trust the seller I will follow your advice.

 

[mrlost]

I'm using that exact configuration (WX7100, 27" imac 2011) and it works great running Monterey. I used the GRML USB stick to boot the iMac and program the WX7100 in the system.

There are three BIOS versions, only one of them worked for me so if you continue to get the black screen and no boot picker, boot the USB again and try one of the other BIOS files.

Thank you very much, what version of bios worked for you? what running Monterrey Opencore version?

 

[unclemiltie]

Honestly I don't remember which bios I got working. There were three. I downloaded all of them to the USB stick and then booted it. Tried one, that didn't work so I rebooted and tried the next. When I got a live boot picker I stopped.

I was using Opencore 0.98 I think, I've since upgraded to 1.1

 

[yezhou1225]

Experimental AMD Radeon Pro 5500XT 8GB support

This card has been (likely) produced in more than a single variant, currently I have only tested one version as shown and described below. Rumors told me approx. 5000 cards have been produced in China for crypto mining, only.
There will be no such new cards available. Most cards hit the Chinese market last year after a few years of use, most of them were reused by commercial buyers to build or rebuild PCI desktop cards - what a waste if this story is real.

Currently I believe you cannot cross flash a the vBIOS coming with this card to other models. We would have to walk the development path described below with each version, again.

Type	ident	device-id	working
Green PCB	SH149V-0 E248799	7340	yes

It is a big MXM-B card fitting into 27 inch iMac models, only! Card comes with a modern UEFI2 compliant GOP vBIOS. It has been configured to provide 5 DP output channels, OpenCore and WhateverGreen enable the internal screen on macOS login screen with apdpmod=pikera added to boot-args in the config.plist.

With the help of some friends we were able to enable the EFI boot picker using the MacPro7,1 firmware graphics drivers (many thanks to @Nick [D]vB for providing those drivers).

Following another approach with help from @internetzel we were able to modify the original vBIOS and change the 2nd DP connector type to eDP - this way the LCD panel will be recognized as an internal one providing macOS software support from brightness management.

Since one cannot flash any modified vBIOS back onto the BIOS chip we tried to inject the first 64K of the modded vBIOS using OpenCore and the ATY,bin_image property. It is important to fix the checksum of the modded vBIOS although is will be only used via OpenCore. To enable native brightness control you need to add applbkl=3 to the boot-args entry, too.

After some trial and error we thought this approach failed - but on the next morning after a night and a system sleep brightness control suddenly and finally worked - heureka!

Finally I documented the method how to modify and construct the 64K bytes to inject via OpenCore on GitHub (link on the bottom of the page).

Known issues:
- no native brightness control with Apple EG2 vBIOS (injection of modded vBIOS impossible)
- does not enable backlight on boot without wire-mod or this PCB

Known features:
- supports two external displays using both TB2 ports of an iMac12,2
- sleep/wake is working
- boot screen with OpenCore (GOP) or natively (EG2)
- brightness control working (only GOP after first system sleep)
- needs Catalina 10.15.6 or better (AMD support)
- 4K HEVC and 4K H.265 hardware support
- 5K (external) display support when using dual miniDP connection

System Support:
- tested in iMac11,1 and iMac11,3 and iMac12,2

macOS Support:
- Catalina 10.15.6, Big Sur, Monterey (no OCLP support on Ventura for NAVI dGPU)

Performance:
- GeekBench Metal: > 40.000
- GeekBench OpenCL: > 40.000
- Valley: > 65 FPS, > 2729 (is more limited by GPU core and CPU frequency, not so much by resolution)
(resolution 2560x1440, quality low: 2716, medium 2703, high 2429, ultra 2157)
(resolution 1920x1080, quality low: 2729, medium 2729, high 2442, ultra 2396).
- MetalBench: 230 MRays/s
- PowerDraw: 19W idle - 95W max (observed by HWMonitor app)

Notes:
- this card needs a big MXM-B heat sink of the Mid 2011 models and more grinding (check picture for details)
- no Apple X-clamp is fitting, a 3D printed special 1mm bed to avoid contact with small components would be great
(using a Dremel grinding away big parts the big X-clamp from the 2011 HD6970 works, too)
- move the ODD temp sensor to the heat sink!
- adjust CPU fan according to PSU Primary using Macs Fan Control, avoids an over heating PSU
- use copper plate 0,5mm width and 20mm x 20mm size to bridge a gap between GPU and heat sink and avoid deeper grinding

Credits:
- @vmbl for trying the Sonnet card
- @Rainy1989 for helping!
- @lyf314512 for his initial RX5500XT post
- kingo132 for implementing RX5500XT backlight control support into OpenCore
- @Nick [D]vB and @internetzel
- last but not least: @Bmju for helping getting EFI boot screen support

Technical information:
- please check out this page

Hello,
Appreciate for your great work !
I bought 2pcs RX5500XT cards from a PC user.
I followed your steps to modded the heatsink, flashed the "rx5500xt-enablegop.rom", configured the "config.plist" (injected first 64KB, added "apdpmod=pikera") and upgraded the WhateverGreen, but no display in iMac 11,1 / 11,3 / 12,2. There is a chime, and in iMac 12,2 I can see the 1st, 2nd, and 4th LEDs light on, but no internal display, no miniDP display.
Even with the original ROM, there is no display too.
I attached my config.plist, could you help me to figure out the wrong? Or, maybe the 2 cards are DOA?
Thank you very much

 

[The_Croupier]

Hello all, I have a new problem, maybe someone has an idea:
On my iMac 12,2 with GTX880M card and Ventura 13.6.1 it takes unusually long to open a finder window. But only on items on the internal disks. On the external disks it works normal. Strange. I thought the internal HDD might die but after replacing the disk the problem still persists. And even on the system SSD the issue is present.
Any ideas???

Update: I upgraded to Sonoma and now the issue is almost gone. I still would like to understand what the problem might be...

Could be TRiM setting in OCLP?
I have a few SSD’s that don’t like it and take 10 minutes to boot but are usually good once booted. It’s a pain if you forget to disable trim in the settings when updating OC.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Hello,
Appreciate for your great work !
I bought 2pcs RX5500XT cards from a PC user.
I followed your steps to modded the heatsink, flashed the "rx5500xt-enablegop.rom", configured the "config.plist" (injected first 64KB, added "apdpmod=pikera") and upgraded the WhateverGreen, but no display in iMac 11,1 / 11,3 / 12,2. There is a chime, and in iMac 12,2 I can see the 1st, 2nd, and 4th LEDs light on, but no internal display, no miniDP display.
Even with the original ROM, there is no display too.
I attached my config.plist, could you help me to figure out the wrong? Or, maybe the 2 cards are DOA?
Thank you very much

Re-read the post you quoted and search for known issues. It may explain your problems using the internal display.
But you should be able to use the card with an external display!

Your installation looks scary, I had to use a big copper plate to avoid bending the card. Using the four screws without the cross is dangerous - you cannot keep track of the force applied to all four points and you will bend the card. In a first step I used the original unmodified big cross and four washers to avoid contact with components. Later on I used a Dremel to adjust it locally.

OCLP versions from 0.6.2 until 0.6.8 seem to generate a valid configuration automatically. Unfortunately this is broken on 1.x versions and I had no time to fix it. I have some of those PCB cables left to sell.

 

[yezhou1225]

Re-read the post you quoted and search for known issues. It may explain your problems using the internal display.
But you should be able to use the card with an external display!

Your installation looks scary, I had to use a big copper plate to avoid bending the card. Using the four screws without the cross is dangerous - you cannot keep track of the force applied to all four points and you will bend the card. In a first step I used the original unmodified big cross and four washers to avoid contact with components. Later on I used a Dremel to adjust it locally.

OCLP versions from 0.6.2 until 0.6.8 seem to generate a valid configuration automatically. Unfortunately this is broken on 1.x versions and I had no time to fix it. I have some of those PCB cables left to sell.

You are right, bro. The card should work with an external display, but these two can't. It seems that they are DOA. Maybe I need to return to the seller now.
BTW, what's the PCB cable and how much?
Do you have a link for selling?
Thank you very much.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

You are right, bro. The card should work with an external display, but these two can't. It seems that they are DOA. Maybe I need to return to the seller now.
BTW, what's the PCB cable and how much?
Do you have a link for selling?
Thank you very much.

Try the backlight hot wire mod instead of the PCB. The post I linked does the same as shown on this picture....

It will enable the backlight at full brightness and you can at least check if both cards work. You need Catalina latest oder Big Sur or Monterey installed, other macOS version have no driver support.

It is not necessary to inject a VBIOS during card testing. Only agdpmod=pikera in boot-args is essential.

Again: Your installation needs to be adjusted. Add a copper plate below the GPU!

 

[Fesrfj]

Hi. I have imac 27 a1312 12.2.
My hd6970 1GB has died and I'm thinking about replacing it with a 4GB px480 due to availability. Is there a possibility of this replacement? Do I need to flash it as 480 4gb or otherwise?
Upd:
Serial number C02H91XNDHJQ emc 2429
Date release 2012 year 9 week

 

[MrZupp]

Hi, I'm trying to install windows uefi/legacy and I get the same error every time on an iMac12,2 using the latest firmware with a K3000M using nickey22's vbios, this is what i get after the loading screen every time. I tried installing windows 30+ times with 5 different ssds and a couple of versions of windows 10/11, 15 usbs, booting usbs were made with the macos terminal, media creation tool and rufus, nothing changed, the error is the same every time. Also, when I don't get the error I get a black screen. ( i left the imac on the blackscreen for 3h and nothing happened )

Edit: Forgot to mention, the ssd's boot fine in other laptops/computers, tested with a lenovo y520, mbp9,1, macpro5,1 and a ryzen build.

Does anyone know what causes this?

 

[mrlost]

Does anyone know what causes this?

What Mac OS operating system do you have installed? Try High Sierra, just to see what happens.

 

[MrZupp]

What Mac OS operating system do you have installed? Try High Sierra, just to see what happens.

My issue is that windows won't install after rebooting from usb, thus showing the error seen in the original reply. Every single version of MacOS including hs And sonoma do work flawlessly.

 

[mrlost]

My issue is that windows won't install after rebooting from usb, thus showing the error seen in the original reply. Every single version of MacOS including hs And sonoma do work flawlessly.

Windows reacts to opencore versions, combined with card models. But I don't have knowledge about opencore, maybe someone here can tell you more, but as you can see, that is more complicated than replacing a card.

 

[yezhou1225]

Try the backlight hot wire mod instead of the PCB. The post I linked does the same as shown on this picture....

It will enable the backlight at full brightness and you can at least check if both cards work. You need Catalina latest oder Big Sur or Monterey installed, other macOS version have no driver support.

It is not necessary to inject a VBIOS during card testing. Only agdpmod=pikera in boot-args is essential.

Again: Your installation needs to be adjusted. Add a copper plate below the GPU!

View attachment 2313653

Thank you very much for your guidance.
The internal and external displays work now.
I didn't do hot-wire-mod, so there is no EFI boot loadpicker.
By reading your Github, the Add-On PCB is the best solution.
However, it is obviously difficult for us individual users to DIY a similar PCB.
If possible, could you tell us where to buy the PCB+CABLE?
Thanks a lot.