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

[howardc64]

Curious if anyone would be interested in remote desktop helping overwhelmed newbies for example $50... The more newbies that aren't willing to spend time researching extensively get their iMacs upgraded, the more iMacs get saved from recycling/salvaging.

An example fairly high success rate process might be

• Use free remote desktop (say realVNC) to log into newbie's computer (2nd one and not the iMac)
• Make GRML stick, precheck can ssh their iMac, flash vBIOS
• Make OC Install Stick

Newbie responsible for

• buying GPU card (per your suggestion, keep it simple M4000/M5100, WX4130), copper shims, thermal pastes.
• Insert / remove USB sticks
• Install GPU and/or blank SSD
• Install + Setup + Root Patch OCLP

If there is $ transaction to help with more handholding. Maybe more help is available and more iMacs will saved. Helper gets $ for their services. Kind of a paid support for this effort.Newbie get a new lease on life on iMac.

Could go even further and charge $100 and ship them pre-flashed lower end GPU + shims + thermal paste.

 

[deenx]

it was installed but still system was unusable, untill I installed patches again! now almost everything works fine))
the only crap - is that screen goes into peices after some heavy gpu load, but I figured out how to bypass that...he he he))

 

[deenx]

Curious if anyone would be interested in remote desktop helping overwhelmed newbies for example $50... The more newbies that aren't willing to spend time researching extensively get their iMacs upgraded, the more iMacs get saved from recycling/salvaging.

An example fairly high success rate process might be

• Use free remote desktop (say realVNC) to log into newbie's computer (2nd one and not the iMac)
• Make GRML stick, precheck can ssh their iMac, flash vBIOS
• Make OC Install Stick

Newbie responsible for

• buying GPU card (per your suggestion, keep it simple M4000/M5100, WX4130), copper shims, thermal pastes.
• Insert / remove USB sticks
• Install GPU and/or blank SSD
• Install + Setup + Root Patch OCLP

If there is $ transaction to help with more handholding. Maybe more help is available and more iMacs will saved. Helper gets $ for their services. Kind of a paid support for this effort.Newbie get a new lease on life on iMac.

Could go even further and charge $100 and ship them pre-flashed lower end GPU + shims + thermal paste.

I'm currently looking for a job))) I'm actually a QA engineer/manager with solid hardware knowledge background))
I think spending 100-150$ on hardware upgrade and another 100$ online help to get working modern OS is much better paying Apple another few thousands per new hardware.
But from other side, I'm not sure if there would be a lot of such people who will pay for that.

 

[deenx]

Congrats and great detective work. Problem wasn't obvious to me at first read but fairly obvious once you mentioned it.

non metal GPU on Sonoma have a few visual anomalies but still very usable in Big Sur ( link )

Okay. So this post is for anyone who might need this info.
So I'm typing from my brand old new iMac 27 mid-2011

Input conditions: original GPU HD6770 died and was unable to boot either Windows or MacOS

Requirements: Downgrade GPU to HD4670 which I've got almost for free. It came from some unknown iMac (I suppose early or mid-2009).

Issues:
1. After downgrading GPU, iMac started with chime sound and black screen (even without a backlight). I wasn't sure if OS was booting up and that stage (I had only Windows 10 installed on SSD), but plugged ethernet cable and didn't observe new device in my router devices list on the network, so I suppose it wasn't even booting further, however since I tried few times, Windows recovery might started, so that explains why there was no network connection.

2. Later on, when I was able to deal with that - new issue appeared - Sonoma was installing fine, but wasn't booting up: hanged on Apple logo with 0% progress bar.

3. HD4670 doen't show correct temperatures (even in Windows it showed something like minus 126C). Not sure why that is happening.

HOW TO deal with that:
1. You have to flash your graphics card vBIOS from LVDS version to eDP version. See my post on previous page for details. How to flash - it's up to you (I used xGecu programmer to flahs it directly, with chip desoldering).

2. After I've got picture on boot and was able to utilize OpenCore to run Sonoma installer, I faced issues. Not sure what exactly cause that hang, but I managed to install Monterey and then apply patches.
After system became stable I just run Software Update and it's updated to Sonoma finaly!!
The only thing is that after update to Sonoma and first boot - system is unstable (works extreemly slow, even mouse movements are very slow). So try to login with your password, by typing it one symbol per 10 or so seconds, then slowly move mouse to the login arrow and click. Be patient, once it's load - OpenPatcher will come up and suggests to apply patches - so just agree on that. After reboot - you'd have nice and shiny Sonoma running with 256mb of video memory)))ROFL

3. Even on Windows, Monterey and now on Sonoma (I also tried to recover original MacOS Lion from internet recovery) - gpu temperatures are wrong! Therefore mac is spinning cooler to fast and noisy. But it's quickly to fix. HD4670 is low-end card, so it's enought to install Macs Fan Contol and setup it according to your need)

PROOF attached

Thanks a lot to this forum for helping me to sort all these thing out!)))

P.S. In Monterey even after applying patches video worked glitchy: after some GPU load - screen started to break into pieces and the only fix I found - was to enable the screensaver for 10 seconds and then disable it (for fast access - I setup it to start after moving a mose to right top corner). But on Sonoma everything works flawlessly!

P.P.S. BTW 4K video in youtube loads quite slow, but in the end it works great, without any frames drop or lags!!! And that's on 256mb video memory, insane!))

 

[howardc64]

X Bracket Issues - Quite Important

All the AMD Metal card's original X bracket has the pressed on inner sleeve at each of the 4 holes that prevents iMac heat sink's bolts from mounting. So most people removed the bracket by a heat source (hair dryer, I use hot air station @ 140C + spudger gently at the bolt holes where there are no components) and replaced with the original X bracket.

However, the AliExpress M5100 I received has the bracket inner sleeve pressed out by the seller. Buyer might think this is nice and can just install. But there is a big problem.

These X brackets with inner sleeve pressed out isn't beveled like the original. So the bolt 's beveled head will not sink as deep and extends out extra 1+ to 2mm.

Depending on the heat sink you have, this height extension can come very close the underside of the logic board and maybe even touching it ( all the MXM interface are there. Maybe even some probe points are exposed underneath the logic board which can contact the X bracket mounting bolts ) I believe this was likely my random hang which seems to have been resolved by

1. Install in different iMac with more clearance
2. Removed metal GPU X bracket and use original along with Kapton tape
3. drill bevels to metal GPU's bracket holes so bolt sinks deeper and apply Kapton tape over the 2 X bracket bars that goes under the board. Note drilling a bevel will produce metal shavings which must be all cleaned off and messy with cutting oil. Also constant pressure begins the weaken the insulator under the X bracket.

So if ever use these card's X bracket with the inner sleeve pressed out, need check the clearance for increased height carefully under the logic board.

Here is how much clearance M5100 has under my 11,1 using OEM X bracket. Very very tight. Now imagine the X bracket bolt raise by 2mm with a no bevel bracket. Note I added Kapton tape over the bars under the logic board even with original X bracket since gap is so small.



Here is a metal GPU card bracket with pressed out sleeve and hole beveled for lower bolt height and installed on a M4000. If want to do this, should make a more precise pressing jig than this picture




So always check the X bracket clearance on install and probably should always add Kapton tape on the 2 legs that goes under the logic board.

 

[Herver]

Hi, the new gpu has been installed and the mac boots. Main screen is connected and stays black at all time, external monitor works perfect. Fans are quiet, and if the main screen is disconnected at boot, they go 100%.

Good news is I can boot, bad news is I can't access startup manager and launch GRML to flash the bios. Holding option gives no screen. Any start up combination results in no display at all.

I'm currently looking for a way to access the startup manager, I'm reading page 1 again to find something I've missed. Any help is welcome !

Spoiler: Screenshot

Edit : Booting with disconnected SSD shows black screen on main and external.

 

[howardc64]

bad news is I can't access startup manager and launch GRML to flash the bios. Holding option gives no screen. Any start up combination results in no display at all.

Edit : Booting with disconnected SSD shows black screen on main and external.

Don't want to try disconnect SSD or blank connected SSD + boot GRML stick in USB port to flash vBIOS? Worked for me flash 2 out of 3 AMD GPUs.

See my signature linked webpage for 11,x M5100 12,x WX4130 for GRML flash success summary.

 

[Herver]

Thanks for the reply.
I cannot use another computer to connect remotely (I don't have any) and I am not prepared to flash blindly.

I am going to make a bootable ubuntu usb drive and see what it does.

 

[Yomaho]

Hello,

I am still having troubles on iMac 2009 27 i7 with the quadro K4100M with windows boot.

I am wondering if the ROM of the GPU is for EFI boot or BIOS boot ?

I installed windows in EFI because my optical drive doesn't work.

Could it be the problem ? compatibilities ?

 

[Yomaho]

solves black screen issue with all NVIDIA GPU (using agdpmod=vit9696 in boot-args)

Someone know if this could solve the boot black screen problem ?

And is OCLP natively set on that boot args or do I need to change it ?
Thanks in advance

 

[Herver]

I am going to make a bootable ubuntu usb drive and see what it does.

SSD disconnected, the mac booted on the ubuntu usb. Mouse wasn't working, everything was so slow ! I choose Try Ubuntu, and then black screen for 10 minutes followed by no display.

The main screen backlight was on during this setup, I believe the 4th led was on too.

Next step is to connect another SSD with ubuntu already installed, but this is going to take a week.

 

[pepepro]

hello professionals -

i've a mid 2011 imac 12,1 and successfully updated to sonoma via oclp - the system was running quite fine,
so - as next step - i started to think about the upgrade of the originally non-metal gpu to a metal one.
i read most of the pro- und cons here - and after a lot of considerations (and with some very helpful informations from yezhou1225) i finally decided to buy an amd wx4150 (vbios patched by seller)

... and because i really couldn't find any recommendations here about this hardware upgrade process within a running and already oclp patched sonoma system i just jumped right into it and successfully changed the gpu within some hard working hours ;-) ...

what i now have is a mid 2011 oclp patched machine still with sonoma running, but the upgraded wx4150 card is not really working as expected - the display seems to be in a safe or degraded mode - colors ok, no brightness control, boot picker working, cursor movements very laggy, and system info about graphics just says "display 7mb" or so - and when i try to do oclp post installation tasks - it seems that there is the new installed polaris card detected - but after applying this patch and rebooting - nothing changes.

is there any chance to get this running?

any ideas are very welcome!!!

THANK YOU!!

 

[howardc64]

hello professionals -

i've a mid 2011 imac 12,1 and successfully updated to sonoma via oclp - the system was running quite fine,
so - as next step - i started to think about the upgrade of the originally non-metal gpu to a metal one.
i read most of the pro- und cons here - and after a lot of considerations (and with some very helpful informations from yezhou1225) i finally decided to buy an amd wx4150 (vbios patched by seller)

... and because i really couldn't find any recommendations here about this hardware upgrade process within a running and already oclp patched sonoma system i just jumped right into it and successfully changed the gpu within some hard working hours ;-) ...

what i now have is a mid 2011 oclp patched machine still with sonoma running, but the upgraded wx4150 card is not really working as expected - the display seems to be in a safe or degraded mode - colors ok, no brightness control, boot picker working, cursor movements very laggy, and system info about graphics just says "display 7mb" or so - and when i try to do oclp post installation tasks - it seems that there is the new installed polaris card detected - but after applying this patch and rebooting - nothing changes.

is there any chance to get this running?

any ideas are very welcome!!!

THANK YOU!!

WX4130 upgrade on 12,2 ( link ) Link to my post in there

iMac+Metal GPU - 12,x

Main Info Source All the info is gleamed from the big macrumor's thread post #1. Be sure to consult the following sections. No way to link to these sections so perhaps open 2 browser windows to read side by side this site and these sections Spoiler: 2 Working AMD Graphics Cards Spoiler: AMD GCN v4

sites.google.com

Maybe check OC setting (AMD Polaris, AMD GOP Injection) on OC install to EFI
Maybe vendor flash wrong vBIOS. Can use GRML to read card's vBIOS and maybe do a compare with correct one.

 

[internetzel]

Thanks for the reply.
I cannot use another computer to connect remotely (I don't have any) and I am not prepared to flash blindly.

I am going to make a bootable ubuntu usb drive and see what it does.

You can also use an SSH client app for your Smartphone or Tablet in order to remotely connect to the Mac booted into GRML and flash the VBIOS.

 

[internetzel]

hello professionals -

i've a mid 2011 imac 12,1 and successfully updated to sonoma via oclp - the system was running quite fine,
so - as next step - i started to think about the upgrade of the originally non-metal gpu to a metal one.
i read most of the pro- und cons here - and after a lot of considerations (and with some very helpful informations from yezhou1225) i finally decided to buy an amd wx4150 (vbios patched by seller)

... and because i really couldn't find any recommendations here about this hardware upgrade process within a running and already oclp patched sonoma system i just jumped right into it and successfully changed the gpu within some hard working hours ;-) ...

what i now have is a mid 2011 oclp patched machine still with sonoma running, but the upgraded wx4150 card is not really working as expected - the display seems to be in a safe or degraded mode - colors ok, no brightness control, boot picker working, cursor movements very laggy, and system info about graphics just says "display 7mb" or so - and when i try to do oclp post installation tasks - it seems that there is the new installed polaris card detected - but after applying this patch and rebooting - nothing changes.

is there any chance to get this running?

any ideas are very welcome!!!

THANK YOU!!

I think you've got to remove the post-install patches first and then reinstall them in order to get rid of the graphics patches for the old card.

 

[pepepro]

WX4130 upgrade on 12,2 ( link ) Link to my post in there

iMac+Metal GPU - 12,x

Main Info Source All the info is gleamed from the big macrumor's thread post #1. Be sure to consult the following sections. No way to link to these sections so perhaps open 2 browser windows to read side by side this site and these sections Spoiler: 2 Working AMD Graphics Cards Spoiler: AMD GCN v4

sites.google.com

Maybe check OC setting (AMD Polaris, AMD GOP Injection) on OC install to EFI
Maybe vendor flash wrong vBIOS. Can use GRML to read card's vBIOS and maybe do a compare with correct one.

thank you howardc64!

actually i've now installed ventura on that same imac on a second partition without any issues - and everything workes nicely - the new amd wx4150 is correctely implemented and this old boy is now ready for lift-off ;-)

so the problem with the sonoma installation on the other partition cannot be related to a wrong vBIOS flashing but surely with another user-mistake (mine) - ... and internetzel has a promising idea - just to remove post-install patches first, and then reinstall them - i'll give this a try tomorrow and will come back to you

THANK YOU GUYS!!!

 

[pepepro]

I think you've got to remove the post-install patches first and then reinstall them in order to get rid of the graphics patches for the old card.

that sounds very promising, internetzel, thank you for sharing this idea!!
i'll try this tomorrow and surely will give you feedback here.

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!

 

[Herver]

You can also use an SSH client app for your Smartphone or Tablet in order to remotely connect to the Mac booted into GRML and flash the VBIOS.

Thanks for the reply. I only have an iphone 5 with ios 10, I think it is too old for this.

 

[Yomaho]

I need mor information about ROM version please.

I checked the ROM version in my K4100M and compare to the ones updated by nickey22 on this thread.

I have three questions :

1. I can see "UEFI version : No version found or out-dated" and it's the same in the nickey22's ROMS.
Could it be the problem about UEFI windows boot ?

2. it looks like the ROM is the UGA version (overclocked) by nickey22.
Could it create unstabilities ?

3. if 1 or 2 is right or both of them, then I need to write a new ROM. i would like to be sure of the command in nvflash, someone could tell me ?

Thanks in advance

 

[pepepro]

I think you've got to remove the post-install patches first and then reinstall them in order to get rid of the graphics patches for the old card.

it worked, internetzel, so smart and simple as successful, your idea of first removing and then reinstalling the post-installation patches ... now everything seems to run smoothely ... supercool!!

thank you very much!!

 

[ricomack]

Well after multiple attempts, I finally got my iMac set up with new CPU i7-2600 and GTX 860m graphics card. Turns out the problems I having was because I fubared my LGA1150 socket, which rendered the logic board worthless. Got a new/used logic board that came with a lot more than I needed, i.e. cpu, wireless card, etc.

In any event, thanks to @nikey22 bios for this card the 3rd LED lite and I started dancing around the room. Finally put the display back on and everything worked great except the fans were running at max. I knew this might problem, however the after rebooting system, the fan are no longer running at full speed. I am pleased with this results but don't understand why the change.

ODD : 1148 RPM (min = 1150 RPM, max = 2500 RPM)
HDD : 1098 RPM (min = 1100 RPM, max = 5500 RPM)
CPU : 941 RPM (min = 940 RPM, max = 2100 RPM)

The image below shows the graphics card as NVE4, the lspci cmd lists it as GeForce GTX 860M. Go figure.

Once again many thanks to all on this forum!

 

[drbrains]

Hi, long time reading this thread, finally made the jump to try.

iMac 11,2, replaced my GPU with the AMD FirePro M5100. I got the red Dell card with HynixBFR chips. I flashed the M5100-HynixBFR-EG2_adj.ROM

Created a USB stick with OCLP and Big Sur. iMac boots, no internal LCD but the OCLP bootpicker on my external display. Installed Big Sur, no issues (all on external display only). OCLP installed on internal disk. It did recognise my AMD H7xxx card automatically and I can now boot without USB drive. System Info shows the AMD M5100 with 2Gb as expected.

BUT: only LED1 and 2; no LED3 (was expecting this with the EG2 rom); but also no LED4 after full boot and therefore no internal LCD display.

I tried changing from the EG2 version to the (older) GOP vbios. This also doesn't turn on the internal LCD. (reverted back to the EG2 version)

Given that I can see the OCLP boot picker, I get the Apple boot screen during loading and a full working desktop on my external display, can I assume the card (and vbios) are installed properly and I should possibly get a new LVDS cable, or worse I somehow damaged the LVDS connector on the mainboard?

 

[Herver]

Following the README found inside the GRML tool and using nvflash to save original rom. There doesn't seem to be anything in this vbios :

marc@marc-iMac:~$ sudo ./nvflash --save ~/original_2nd.rom NVIDIA Firmware Update Utility (Version 5.792.0) Copyright (C) 1993-2022, NVIDIA Corporation. All rights reserved. Reading EEPROM (this operation may take up to 30 seconds) Build GUID : Blank Build Number : 0 IFR Subsystem ID : Blank Subsystem Vendor ID : 0x0000 Subsystem ID : 0x0000 Version : Unavailable (Invalid) (Disabled Image) Image Hash : N/A Hierarchy ID : N/A Build Date : Blank Modification Date : Blank UEFI Version : No Version Found or Out-dated ( ) UEFI Variant ID : No Variant ID Found ( No Variant ID Found ) UEFI Signer(s) : Unknown signer XUSB-FW Version ID : N/A XUSB-FW Build Time : N/A InfoROM Version : No Version Found InfoROM Backup : Not Present License Placeholder : Not Present GPU Mode : N/A CEC OTA-signed Blob : Not Present



Also the two saved copies are different !

marc@marc-iMac:~$ diff ~/original.rom ~/original_2nd.rom Les fichiers binaires /home/marc/original.rom et /home/marc/original_2nd.rom sont différents

 

[howardc64]

OCLP USB stick configuration Installation Success and Failures

Having done a few GPU upgrades on few different iMacs and installed OCLP macOS quite a few times. The experience is quite inconsistent.

All following are OCLP 1.3.0 and macOS Sonoma 14.3

Here is what seems to have always worked creating USB install stick for blank SSD

Create macOS Installer CAN NOT have Graphics Override and GOP Injection set. I've had quite a few installation failures with these set, booting to macOS setup after installation has had problems. Without these set, installation seems to have been smooth and predicable. Example with 11,1 + M5100

Must Set Correct Target Model of course.



NOTE : After the macOS Installer is created, OCLP will ask if want to Build and Install Open Core. Click NO so can set the GPU properly before buiilding Open Core in the next step.

Building and install OpenCore must have correct Graphics Override and GOP Injection set of course. Again 11,1 and M5100



macOS setup and install Open Core to SSD

With the above procedure, macOS setup proceeds in the following way

• macOS will boot to setup without hang so no need to boot in safe mode
• Go through all the macOS setup process (network, account, and choose various features etc)
• after setup and user account desktop appears, just wait ~20s for OCLP to popup asking if want install OpenCore to the internal SSD. Just click YES and NO NEED to set GPU Override or GOP Injecton then reboot.
• After reboot, everything works perfectly. If run OCLP to do post install patch, it will say already installed. I'm not sure when it did the post install patch. Maybe when it installed the OpenCore to SSD?

Some failed variations

• 12,2 + WX4130 Create macOS Installer with AMD GOP Inject and AMD Polaris Graphics Override can't boot to macOS setup post install (even with safe mode). Without these 2 options, installer works fine.
• Starting with 11,1 + M4000 + working OCLP macOS Sonoma. Reverse root patch, change GPU to M5100, boot up fails. Tried this to avoid a full macOS install while changing GPU cards.
• There are more failure variation but don't recall exact starting scenario and OCLP settings. But above successful path generally seem most predicable and successful.

Anyway, it seems quite important to follow the above OCLP USB stick sequence correctly.

 

[Herver]

Following the README found inside the GRML tool and using nvflash to save original rom. There doesn't seem to be anything in this vbios :

marc@marc-iMac:~$ sudo ./nvflash --save ~/original_2nd.rom NVIDIA Firmware Update Utility (Version 5.792.0) Copyright (C) 1993-2022, NVIDIA Corporation. All rights reserved. Reading EEPROM (this operation may take up to 30 seconds) Build GUID : Blank Build Number : 0 IFR Subsystem ID : Blank Subsystem Vendor ID : 0x0000 Subsystem ID : 0x0000 Version : Unavailable (Invalid) (Disabled Image) Image Hash : N/A Hierarchy ID : N/A Build Date : Blank Modification Date : Blank UEFI Version : No Version Found or Out-dated ( ) UEFI Variant ID : No Variant ID Found ( No Variant ID Found ) UEFI Signer(s) : Unknown signer XUSB-FW Version ID : N/A XUSB-FW Build Time : N/A InfoROM Version : No Version Found InfoROM Backup : Not Present License Placeholder : Not Present GPU Mode : N/A CEC OTA-signed Blob : Not Present



Also the two saved copies are different !

marc@marc-iMac:~$ diff ~/original.rom ~/original_2nd.rom Les fichiers binaires /home/marc/original.rom et /home/marc/original_2nd.rom sont différents

Don't mind my last post. I made a mistake following GRML README while using nvflash in linux.