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

[idenis42]

I've tried different options. At this working stage, I stopped...like this. I will add a line to OpenCore: Pciroot(0x0)/Pci(0x1,0x0)/Pci(0x0,0x0) -> @0,APPL boot-display = 1 , then Mac OS 10.13.6 turns on the display! Other systems also include a display. It's convenient. miniDP, agpdmod, hardware mod and a second display are not required.

 

[shovelcheco]

Hi!

I have one (well... now almost 2) iMac's 2011 21,5". I bought the first one with windows running on it due to a faulty GPU. So i decided to make it run like a charm and also make some upgrades.

I've bought a WX4150 4GB and 32gb of compatible ram 1333 mhz, but in the first build i kindda broke a capacitor on my new GPU, got electrocuted and made the PSU smoke a little.

So i ordered: a new MOBO, GPU and PSU. Put everything together carefully, but only DX LED 1 lights up. I have another identical iMac that i bought trying to use the better looking case, so i have 3 mobos, 2 PSUs, and basically spare parts for everything else.

I've tried:

• Booting with and without mobo battery
• Using both CPUs (were working on windows)
• Replacing power cables (outlet-psu and psu-mobo)
• Booting with and without RAMs (with originals and the ones i boght)
• 2 power buttons (were working on windows) and jumping power pins
• With and without SSS/HD

I know ill have to flash my GPU, but i dont know if my DX LEDs should only light 1st one before this flash happens. Can someone help me please?

Tomorrow ill get a macbook borrowed in case any solution needs some bootable made from a mac (whis is my plan for the headless flashing aswell)

 

[Pacific1972]

Hi!

I have one (well... now almost 2) iMac's 2011 21,5". I bought the first one with windows running on it due to a faulty GPU. So i decided to make it run like a charm and also make some upgrades.

I've bought a WX4150 4GB and 32gb of compatible ram 1333 mhz, but in the first build i kindda broke a capacitor on my new GPU, got electrocuted and made the PSU smoke a little.

So i ordered: a new MOBO, GPU and PSU. Put everything together carefully, but only DX LED 1 lights up. I have another identical iMac that i bought trying to use the better looking case, so i have 3 mobos, 2 PSUs, and basically spare parts for everything else.

I've tried:

• Booting with and without mobo battery
• Using both CPUs (were working on windows)
• Replacing power cables (outlet-psu and psu-mobo)
• Booting with and without RAMs (with originals and the ones i boght)
• 2 power buttons (were working on windows) and jumping power pins
• With and without SSS/HD

I know ill have to flash my GPU, but i dont know if my DX LEDs should only light 1st one before this flash happens. Can someone help me please?

Tomorrow ill get a macbook borrowed in case any solution needs some bootable made from a mac (whis is my plan for the headless flashing aswell)

I don't know if the A1311 can handle 32GB, also there is the page #1 of this thread. If you have macOS
High Sierra installed, surely you don't become a signal on the internal screen without OCLP modification
or a HDMI Ghost Adapter !

The WX4150 is a GCN4 Card, so the priority of video output on the internal screen (without
HDMI Ghost Adapter) needs an OCLP Big Sur Installation BEFORE modify the whole computer.

But 32GB RAM and a WX4150 together are often more expensive that a complete A1311, which you can
use today only as a Steam Arcade machine 😄 ... I have here 2-3 A1311 which I want to put to 🗑️ !

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

Hi!

I have one (well... now almost 2) iMac's 2011 21,5". I bought the first one with windows running on it due to a faulty GPU. So i decided to make it run like a charm and also make some upgrades.

I've bought a WX4150 4GB and 32gb of compatible ram 1333 mhz, but in the first build i kindda broke a capacitor on my new GPU, got electrocuted and made the PSU smoke a little.

So i ordered: a new MOBO, GPU and PSU. Put everything together carefully, but only DX LED 1 lights up. I have another identical iMac that i bought trying to use the better looking case, so i have 3 mobos, 2 PSUs, and basically spare parts for everything else.

I've tried:

• Booting with and without mobo battery
• Using both CPUs (were working on windows)
• Replacing power cables (outlet-psu and psu-mobo)
• Booting with and without RAMs (with originals and the ones i boght)
• 2 power buttons (were working on windows) and jumping power pins
• With and without SSS/HD

I know ill have to flash my GPU, but i dont know if my DX LEDs should only light 1st one before this flash happens. Can someone help me please?

Tomorrow ill get a macbook borrowed in case any solution needs some bootable made from a mac (whis is my plan for the headless flashing aswell)

You are too hard core.
Prices of intel-iMacs have been dropping rapidly. With 250$ I can get an 2nd-hand iMac 2017 21.5" still in working conditions.
This leads to me questioning myself each & every time I have a desire to buy an old model iMac 2011: "Does it worth to buy and fix these things, while a more modern iMac can be bought with slightly the same money?"

 

[shloimy95]

2nd-hand iMac 2017 21.5" still in working conditions.

Curious how performance of this compares to an upgraded 2011. I have the 2015 model in stock condition running Monterey and a 2011 upgraded with 24GB Ram, SSD and Nvidia K2100m, OCLP 2.4+Sequoia 15.5. The upgraded 2011 literally runs circles around the 2015.

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

Curious how performance of this compares to an upgraded 2011. I have the 2015 model in stock condition running Monterey and a 2011 upgraded with 24GB Ram, SSD and Nvidia K2100m, OCLP 2.4+Sequoia 15.5. The upgraded 2011 literally runs circles around the 2015.

Comparing with an iMac 2011 with WX4510 4GB and SATA SSD.
An iMac 2017 has
Better CPU (intel gen 6 vs gen 2)
Faster RAM (DDR4 vs DDR3)
Similar GPU (Same Polaris GPU, RX560 or RX570) but slightly faster (WX4150 is equivalent to RX460)
Faster wifi.
Slightly faster SSD (nvme vs SATA)

Basically it's just better in any aspect, it still struggling a little bit to drive the 5k display of 27" model, though.
For 21.5" 4k model, it can beat both models of iMac 2011 with no problem at all.

You Quadro K2100m doesn't have HEVC encode/decode power.

For 27" model, iMac 2015 still struggle to drive the 2 x QHD displays sticked together as a 5k display.
2017 iMac 27" can do slightly better.

 

[howardc64]

Comparing with an iMac 2011 with WX4510 4GB and SATA SSD.
An iMac 2017 has
Better CPU (intel gen 6 vs gen 2)
Faster RAM (DDR4 vs DDR3)
Similar GPU (Same Polaris GPU, RX560 or RX570) but slightly faster (WX4150 is equivalent to RX460)
Faster wifi.
Slightly faster SSD (nvme vs SATA)

Basically it's just better in any aspect, it still struggling a little bit to drive the 5k display of 27" model, though.
For 21.5" 4k model, it can beat both models of iMac 2011 with no problem at all.

You Quadro K2100m doesn't have HEVC encode/decode power.

For 27" model, iMac 2015 still struggle to drive the 2 x QHD displays sticked together as a 5k display.
2017 iMac 27" can do slightly better.

I've upgraded a few 2012+ iMacs. Better in general but have its challenges

1. Many have HDD (through 2019) and leaves them useless without SSD upgrade
2. SSD upgrade require cutting open the screen foam tape. Is delicate even with custom wheel. Not sure how good most aliexpress/ebay/amazon resealing tapes are. Proper removal of all left over glue and primer required. 27" is hardest of all and many have cracked it cutting it open and later LCD fall off with poor resealing after SSD upgrade. On 21.5, RAM can't be added externally so highly desirable to increase RAM while screen is off. Some models (some 2014 only?) comes with 8GB and have non upgradeable RAMs.
3. Fusion drives are really bad. The fusion algorithm don't work well. Kills the small SSD and the iMac eventually fails
4. So ideally, buy one with factory installed SSD and not fusion drive. If get a fusion drive, split HDD and SSD into 2 separate drives to avoid poor performance and high SSD wear.
5. If adding non Apple NVMe SSD, require an adapter. Quality/reliablity have been hit and miss.

SSD upgrade is must and more delicate than <= 2011 iMacs.

 

[BzowK]

Finally got it to work -

The issue was either the GRML image I was using or the physical flash drive. I made a new flash by manually partitioning a different USB flash then copying the files from that linked zip as opposed to the one I initially used which was written using Balena etcher. I still can't explain why the first one wouldn't boot with new GPU + no SSD as in all other scenarios it worked, but the 2nd one did.

After flashing and shutting down, booted to modded Sequoia 15.2 USB and started the install onto SSD. It did freeze after the first reboot as expected, but hard power off then starting in safe mode with shift got it running again. Once at desktop, I cancelled OCLP, reran selecting the AMD + Lexi options, then installed to disk. All looks good with the exception of Wi-fi not working.

Bluetooth works and Wifi is on, but no SSIDs appear. Had same issue prior to this mod after upgrading to 15.2 so am sure it's unrelated. Verified root patches are installed, but sure I'll have to look for an answer for that elsewhere.

Thanks again for the help!

Maybe partition+fs? I followed direction (need to chase few links to get to the link ) GPT+FAT32



Often some Wifi/Bt issues after OCLP install. Need PRAM reset



Follow my directions and explanation and make a OC CD to avoid having to pull the SSD in the future.

Hey Guys - It's been a minute since I upgraded and haven't been able to even turn the iMac on until yesterday. GPU still works great, however still having two issues I was hoping someone could advise on, please.

1. No SSIDs Listed Still - Wifi appears and I can turn on/off but it doesn't list any SSIDs and cannot manually join. I reset the PRAM via terminal as keyboard is bluetooth. I tried executing "sudo nvram -c && sudo reboot" & "sudo nvram ResetNVRam=1 && sudo reboot" and that did not resolve it.
2. Loud Fan - If I leave the iMac on for a while with dynamic background, a loud fan kicks in. Going to track temps today I'm sure this is by design, but wondered if there was a silent solution. I used the original heatsink when replacing my OEM 6770m with a wx3200) plus shims and new thermal paste. I'm monitoring temps today and will post results once it happens again.

Any suggestions? Thanks!

 

[howardc64]

Hey Guys - It's been a minute since I upgraded and haven't been able to even turn the iMac on until yesterday. GPU still works great, however still having two issues I was hoping someone could advise on, please.

1. No SSIDs Listed Still - Wifi appears and I can turn on/off but it doesn't list any SSIDs and cannot manually join. I reset the PRAM via terminal as keyboard is bluetooth. I tried executing "sudo nvram -c && sudo reboot" & "sudo nvram ResetNVRam=1 && sudo reboot" and that did not resolve it.
2. Loud Fan - If I leave the iMac on for a while with dynamic background, a loud fan kicks in. Going to track temps today I'm sure this is by design, but wondered if there was a silent solution. I used the original heatsink when replacing my OEM 6770m with a wx3200) plus shims and new thermal paste. I'm monitoring temps today and will post results once it happens again.

Any suggestions? Thanks!

If high fan spin doesn't appear immediately (common issues are 1) need thermal solution when HDD removed 2) knocked off small component when pulling CPU fan + ambient temp connector) then maybe wx3200 not shimmed enough. Its a really shallow die, I recall needing 1.5mm for the MXM-B heat sinks.

I think dynamic background work correctly with GCN4 but not nVidia Kepler. Fan spin only on dynamic background? How about Unigine Valley?

 

[BzowK]

If high fan spin doesn't appear immediately (common issues are 1) need thermal solution when HDD removed 2) knocked off small component when pulling CPU fan + ambient temp connector) then maybe wx3200 not shimmed enough. Its a really shallow die, I recall needing 1.5mm for the MXM-B heat sinks.

I think dynamic background work correctly with GCN4 but not nVidia Kepler. Fan spin only on dynamic background? How about Unigine Valley?

Thanks for the reply -

Yeah, high speed fan doesn't kick in immediately - it takes a few minutes. Watched temps yesterday when the dynamic background started. Once the fan kicked in, I went to the desktop and saw the highest GPU sensor was at about 46 and CPU was about 50. With dynamic now off, GPU started falling and at about 40 went to a low fan speed. Will try benchmark this afternoon.

Any ideas on the wifi thing? Thanks!

 

[howardc64]

Thanks for the reply -

Yeah, high speed fan doesn't kick in immediately - it takes a few minutes. Watched temps yesterday when the dynamic background started. Once the fan kicked in, I went to the desktop and saw the highest GPU sensor was at about 46 and CPU was about 50. With dynamic now off, GPU started falling and at about 40 went to a low fan speed. Will try benchmark this afternoon.

Any ideas on the wifi thing? Thanks!

No idea on wifi. 12,2 (post #22229) wifi card is PCI-e connection so pretty hard to screw up hardware reinstall. There is a screw that secures it down against the GPU heat sink bracket.

OCLP wise, it has always just auto patched the driver for me. But in older versions of OCLP where first boot after clean formatted drive install doesn't include driver patches (latest OCLP seems to do this) then post install patch + reboot was necessary to get wifi after initial setup.

 

[Heindijs]

Ordered a Firepro M5100 for installing into my 24" mid 2009 iMac. I thought I've followed the steps required, installing Opencore with AMD GCN selected first etc etc. But it simply does not boot up with the card. The screen stays black, the 3 status LED remains off and the system just reboots after 30 seconds or so.

It's not clear to me what steps I have to take to make it function. Instructions for flashing are vague and often times contradictory. Do I need to flash the card, do I need to do anything else other than having Opencore installed or not? How can I even flash a card when the system will not boot?

EDIT: When I try to use GRML, the iMac still just shuts down after 30 seconds which makes it impossible to do, how can I prevent this?

EDIT2: Whelp, managed to flash the correct firmware to it. Turns out the vram is probably bad: vertical lines on my screen..

 

[dorninko]

Hi all, another strange problem, maybe someone has an idea:
I installed a M6100 into an iMac 11,3. I made sure that the thermal contact between GPU and Heatsink was good.
Everything went fine, Sequoia rund smooth and fast. But when I ran the Valley test the GPU overheated and the iMac crashed. So I looked at the temperatures and found that the GPU temp differs from the heat sink temperature by up to 11 degrees C. Apparently the thermal contact is not good but I checked and it is perfect.
Any ideas?
Thanks

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

Hi all, another strange problem, maybe someone has an idea:
I installed a M6100 into an iMac 11,3. I made sure that the thermal contact between GPU and Heatsink was good.
Everything went fine, Sequoia rund smooth and fast. But when I ran the Valley test the GPU overheated and the iMac crashed. So I looked at the temperatures and found that the GPU temp differs from the heat sink temperature by up to 11 degrees C. Apparently the thermal contact is not good but I checked and it is perfect.
Any ideas?
Thanks

GPU chip doesn't contact well with the heatsink surface?

You are using the original heatsink, or a modified one? Check post#1 to see how to carve your original heatsink.

 

[dorninko]

This was also my first guess, but I checked and the contact is good. I will check again.

I changed the cooling pads on the ROM chips (thinner) now the temperature difference between GPU and heatsink dropped to 6-7 degrees, which is still more than I noticed on other GPUs (WX4130). And the iMac still crashed during Valley test (apparently with too high GPU temperature). I am out of ideas why the thermal contact is bad. I applied the same procedure as I have done many times before. Any suggestions?

 

[internetzel]

This was also my first guess, but I checked and the contact is good. I will check again.

I changed the cooling pads on the ROM chips (thinner) now the temperature difference between GPU and heatsink dropped to 6-7 degrees, which is still more than I noticed on other GPUs (WX4130). And the iMac still crashed during Valley test (apparently with too high GPU temperature). I am out of ideas why the thermal contact is bad. I applied the same procedure as I have done many times before. Any suggestions?

In case the iMac suddenly reboots, it might also be the power supply.
And last but not least the VBIOS might set too high clock frequencies for the GPU core or the VRAM.

 

[dorninko]

Thanks for the reply, the overclocking might be the problem. The card came with a VBIOS which gave a low performance in the metal test (23). I changed the VBIOS to one from this thread and this increased the performance by a factor of 2!
But maybe this also overloaded the card during valley test?
I also noticed some artefacts during the valley test.
Has anyone experienced similar issues?

 

[Heindijs]

Ordered a Firepro M5100 for installing into my 24" mid 2009 iMac. I thought I've followed the steps required, installing Opencore with AMD GCN selected first etc etc. But it simply does not boot up with the card. The screen stays black, the 3 status LED remains off and the system just reboots after 30 seconds or so.

It's not clear to me what steps I have to take to make it function. Instructions for flashing are vague and often times contradictory. Do I need to flash the card, do I need to do anything else other than having Opencore installed or not? How can I even flash a card when the system will not boot?

EDIT: When I try to use GRML, the iMac still just shuts down after 30 seconds which makes it impossible to do, how can I prevent this?

EDIT2: Whelp, managed to flash the correct firmware to it. Turns out the vram is probably bad: vertical lines on my screen..

There's probably someone more knowledgeable than me about these issues in this thread. Do these lines indicate bad vram, bad connection maybe? Is my card basically dead? Or could this also be a firmware related issue?

It's a Firepro M5100

 

[howardc64]

View attachment 2529681
There's probably someone more knowledgeable than me about these issues in this thread. Do these lines indicate bad vram, bad connection maybe? Is my card basically dead? Or could this also be a firmware related issue?

It's a Firepro M5100

Just to confirm you flashed the correct VRAM VBIOS? There are 3 varients ( AMD M5100 ) I wonder if incorrectly flash Hynix AFR / BFR would produce your pattern?

 

[Heindijs]

Just to confirm you flashed the correct VRAM VBIOS? There are 3 varients ( AMD M5100 ) I wonder if incorrectly flash Hynix AFR / BFR would produce your pattern?

I have tried every variant of the firmware. To my knowledge this card does not have SKHynix ram, but after trying the regular firmware and getting those artifacts, I tried both Hynix firmwares and both worked but the artifacts remained. So I then just reflashed the regular firmware to no avail
EDIT: Mine has Samsung ram, which firmware would be the correct one for an iMac 9,1?