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iM 4,1-14,4 2011 iMac Graphics Card Upgrade
- Thread starter MichaelDT
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The wifi still works fine, but the card has not been modified with any connections.
I have had the wifi card for awhile. I believe I installed the card and that’s it, no other mods or software changes.
Where would I disable the original bluetooth card in the 12,1? I have a bluetooth usb adapter that was working before.
To to put this easy for my daft mind: If my bootrom is already at 87.0.0.0.0, I don't have to do anything. Because on the one machine that's still responding, this is the case. Original HDD and original GPU and a High Sierra install if I wanted to update a different machine, yes?
Walk me through here as I still end up on a black screen with the backlight on even after another install: Hold shift beyond the picker? I'm currently holding shift, OCLP posts something along "entering safe mode" and going into recovery mode. Whatever I choose here, I won't be booting into any OS.
Yes, Sonoma's installed. 1, 3, 4 LEDs (left to right) on the board are lit. Installed with the following settings for my 12,1:
Still: I can option key into EFI picker, clean the SSD, install fresh Sonoma and still end up after several reboots including a white screen, apple logo, progress bar and time until finished on a blank screen with the backlight on. My bootrom is 87.0.0.0.0.
Again: This is on a 2nd 12,1 machine with different hardware. Even the WX4130 is different (yes, it's flashed).
And I also found this tool on github to update your Bootrom: https://github.com/MuertoGB/MacBRTool
Somebody tried this?
Look at this thread https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...011-802-11ac-bt-4-0-internal-upgrade.1780242/ for details.
If you want the BT of your new card working then you need to do these HW-mods. But if you keep your old internal BT card then you don't need these mods. Usually the old card works with OCLP but maybe somethings different in your case.
Hi, i have a iMac 21,5 2011 Model and i installed a RX 560 (TYPE A) from a Sonnet Breakaway Puck. Now it boots with a black screen. External Monitor connected over Thunderbolt works fine. Is there a custom bios wich would work for this card?
Link to my Bios
backup.rom
drive.google.com
SPI Rom chip is on the card, any ideas?
Attachments
Usually SOP-8 package so likely upper left of your 2nd picture. Look up part number and google to confirm it’s a flash rom.
Post #1 doesn’t show iMac VBIOS support for RX560. Did you find it somewhere?
Its definetly a flash rom, i have allready tried to flash some roms but i can´t get the internal Display to work. As i mentioned before the graphics card works absolut fine on external monitor. Also the boot screen is working with OCLP.
Seems different to the already known cards with the same chip (WX41x0, RX560).
So if you could provide the original VBIOS of the card, I can maybe modify it to enable the internal screen.
On the other hand you could still try a VBIOS for a WX4150 - did you try that already (you should have some way to recover the VBIOS in case it causes the machine to hang on boot or in a reboot loop)?
So your bootrom is 87.0.0.0.0 on HS? That means you just need to make an install drive for sequoia. I had to hold shift for sonoma but not sequoia so I would try sequoia. But since your boot rom and gpu rom is updated I don’t think you will have to hold shift.
I believe this is all you have to do but I am still having some issues so I am not s certain. But once you create the installer flash drive with OCLP just boot into the installer on the iMac and install sequoia to a wiped drive.
I believe I have to reflash my gpu rom, I still do not have native boot screen and sometimes I just boot to a completely black screen or a backlit black lcd.
How did you perform the gpu rom flash? Do you know if there’s any way to flash it from macos since I am able to boot into sequoia most of the time?
I want airdrop and handoff, I don’t think the original card supports that. I would also like a plug and play option, that’s what I had before with the BCM943602CS. I wonder why this one stopped working tho, it was working fine on sequoia before I swapped around the gpus and did the firmware update.
Here is the orignal Vbios
bios
it would be great if you could modify the vbios and it would work.. Flashing (also recovery) is not a problem (Linux ssh)
I still have an issue where the computer freezes when going out of sleep and when I force reboot it it does not show any boot screen, does not boot into macos and sometimes just boot loops with mac boot sound.
Is this an issue of having the wrong vbios or a bad gpu?
Is this an issue of having the wrong vbios or a bad gpu?
I think my gpu has failed I cannot see anything on the screen and I have to use an external monitor.
When the screen shows up on my imac or the monitor there are these lines on both screens.
When the install finishes I just get a black backlit lcd screen.
Please help
When the screen shows up on my imac or the monitor there are these lines on both screens.
When the install finishes I just get a black backlit lcd screen.
Please help
Last edited:
Correct. Thanks, I'll try Sequioa.
GMRL from here with the same ROMs like you used: https://github.com/Ausdauersportler/GRML-FLASH
Altought I bought my card already flashed from @Ausdauersportler himself who's the author of your ROM and the repo on github.
I have a 2nd WX4130 I can send to you. Mind you, tarriffs and postage will be a lot.
Something similar also happens when using a WX4150 VBIOS on a card which only has 2 GB of VRAM - would not be the first case where a WX4130 was sold as a WX4150.
One could also look up the VRAM chip type specification if you happen to have a photo which shows the chip markings (those four bigger black chips), but you could as well just try flashing a WX4130 VBIOS in order to verify.
Either way I would have to send it back to the seller if it’s a wx4130. I think the vbios is not the issue since the card was previously working on sequoia and senoma and big sur without this problem right?
It is really frustrating that the gpu failed, I will keep trying but I must order a new one. Does @Ausdauersportler have any more wx41x0 gpus? I would prefer to get another wx4150
Hello everyone! I need your help. I have the following situation. I have an iMac 12.2 inch (2011). I bought two AMD Radeon WX 7100 ver. 1.1 GPUs. I bought one in China, the other on eBay in Texas. I installed OS Sequoia 15.6.1. I first ran OCLP with enhanced patches for AMD and Polaris. After installation, with the internal screen removed, only LEDs 1 and 2 lit up, but nothing on the external monitor. I struggled for a long time until I accidentally connected the internal monitor and pressed the start button. At first, the internal monitor was black, but after 30-40 seconds it blinked and showed the Apple icon, and the loading bar started running. The iMac booted up and works perfectly. But!!! I moved the unsecured internal monitor while the computer was running and saw that LEDs 1, 2, and 4 were lit, but LED 3 was not! Very strange. This behavior is observed on both GPUs. I've tried everything imaginable: rolled back patches and re-patched them with OCLP using various configuration combinations, uninstalled and reinstalled clean installs of various OSes (Ventura, Sonoma, Sequoia) on a completely erased drive, tried using Shift to enable safe boot—recommended because the GPU is GCN4 (which didn't work—the system would invariably freeze mid-boot). I asked a fellow hardware enthusiast to flash the GPU's flash memory with what I believe to be the latest vBios from a Github repository. Nothing else comes to mind. I've read through 400 pages of this forum and haven't encountered this issue, so there's no solution. Of course, you can probably use the iMac this way, but there's no EFI boot screen (when booting with the Option key held down, the screen remains black), and in recovery mode, pressing cmd + R or other combinations also results in a black screen. I'll add: everything works fine when installing the NVIDIA Quadro K 2100m graphics card. I have a lot of experience with this type of upgrade; I've already rebuilt and patched two 11.3-inch iMacs and three 12.2-inch iMacs. I installed iBoffRCC bifurcator adapters to connect NVMe M2 SSDs, but they had simple NVIDIA GPUs. Now, I wanted to build a more powerful machine for my daughter, who does animation and video editing, so I decided to install a more powerful and modern GPU. I read on the forum that these AMD Radeon WX 7100s install and run natively, but that's not the case. Please help!
LED 3 staying off was said to be normal when I spoke to @Ausdauersportler. I believe your boot freeze has nothing to do with that.
The fact that I've received information that the missing third LED is normal is certainly encouraging! But how can I solve the problem with the missing EFI boot screen? This issue is clearly related to the AMD Radeon WX 7100 GPU, as GPUs of other types and models on the same computer don't have this problem without changing the firmware, OS, or using a patch. I'm confident that the missing EFI boot screen is directly related to the missing third LED. It seems the card isn't recognized by the motherboard BIOS, and until the EFI file stored on the internal SSD (not the drivers on the motherboard's flash memory) starts loading, the motherboard and processor don't recognize the GPU, effectively saying it's foreign! Therefore, either the GPU's vBios must be modified to be recognized by the motherboard as native, or the motherboard's BIOS must be reflashed to recognize the GPU with its native vBios. Since many places in this blog say that this GPU (its specifications I wrote above, and they are actually from your tables) should launch NATIVELY, I read your blog and recommendations and ordered these video cards! But they NATIVELY refuse to launch or operate with the functionality you described. I managed to somehow get some of their functionality, but they don't work fully! There's no EFI screen! What can I do? There's no recovery screen via cmd + R. What can I do about this?
My apologies, I misinterpreted you. I assumed you were the blog moderator, so I assumed you were the one describing and summarizing the information about video cards and their possible applications at the very beginning. I've been struggling with these AMD Radeon WX 7100s for four or five months now, and I can't find a solution to the loading screen issue. It's driving me crazy! If you have any suggestions or suggestions for someone to contact, I'd be grateful.
Dear Ausdauersportler, I see you've decided to put this topic on hold for a while. However, I was advised to contact you, as the person most knowledgeable about AMD issues. If you can, please help me with my problem. I have the following situation. I have an iMac 12.2 inch (2011). I bought two AMD Radeon WX 7100 ver. 1.1 GPUs. I bought one in China, the other on eBay in Texas. I installed OS Sequoia 15.6.1. I first ran OCLP with enhanced patches for AMD and Polaris. After installation, with the internal screen removed, only LEDs 1 and 2 lit up, but nothing on the external monitor. I struggled for a long time until I accidentally connected the internal monitor and pressed the start button. At first, the internal monitor was black, but after 30-40 seconds it blinked and showed the Apple icon, and the loading bar started running. The iMac booted up and works perfectly. But!!! I moved the unsecured internal monitor while the computer was running and saw that LEDs 1, 2, and 4 were lit, but LED 3 was not! Very strange. This behavior is observed on both GPUs. I've tried everything imaginable: rolled back patches and re-patched them with OCLP using various configuration combinations, uninstalled and reinstalled clean installs of various OSes (Ventura, Sonoma, Sequoia) on a completely erased drive, tried using Shift to enable safe boot—recommended because the GPU is GCN4 (which didn't work—the system would invariably freeze mid-boot). I asked a fellow hardware enthusiast to flash the GPU's flash memory with what I believe to be the latest vBios from a Github repository. Nothing else comes to mind. I've read through 400 pages of this forum and haven't encountered this issue, so there's no solution. Of course, you can probably use the iMac this way, but there's no EFI boot screen (when booting with the Option key held down, the screen remains black), and in recovery mode, pressing cmd + R or other combinations also results in a black screen. I'll add: everything works fine when installing the NVIDIA Quadro K 2100m graphics card. I have a lot of experience with this type of upgrade; I've already rebuilt and patched two 11.3-inch iMacs and three 12.2-inch iMacs. I installed iBoffRCC bifurcator adapters to connect NVMe M2 SSDs, but they had simple NVIDIA GPUs. Now, I wanted to build a more powerful machine for my daughter, who does animation and video editing, so I decided to install a more powerful and modern GPU. I read on the forum that these AMD Radeon WX 7100s install and run natively, but that's not the case. Please help!
You need to flash one of the WX7100-VBIOSes from here to your WX7100 in order to get the native boot screen back:
https://github.com/Ausdauersportler/IMAC-EFI-BOOT-SCREEN/tree/main/EG - just try them in the order they appear there and stick with whichever is the first one to work stably.