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CPU Upgrade iMac Mid 2011

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The first post of this thread is a WikiPost and can be edited by anyone with the appropiate permissions. Your edits will be public.
Thanks for your help! Will any Ivy Bridge CPU work well? Or are they all messed up somehow?

Also, are Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge Xeon CPUs better than i7 2600? And do they work well? Or also messed up somehow?
 
Sandy Bridge Xeon don't allow hibernation although the equivalent of the i7-2600 (E3-1270) is "slightly" better than the latter (and has 80 Watt Max), although I think we might find a solution.

For the Ivy Bridges still in research phase regarding the possible change of the EFI Boot phase of our machines (Intel microcodes change is OK but maybe not enough).
 
gagarin04 said:
Thanks for your help! Will any Ivy Bridge CPU work well? Or are they all messed up somehow?

Also, are Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge Xeon CPUs better than i7 2600? And do they work well? Or also messed up somehow?
Click to expand...
Please check the first post of this thread - it‘s a wiki post and your questions have been addressed there...
 
i got dump 82.0.0.0 firmware from iMac 27 inch but i cant say what exactly chip was here, so i did backup using the romTool with each provided by the program select items
 
DeletteUA said:
i got dump 82.0.0.0 firmware from iMac 27 inch but i cant say what exactly chip was here, so i did backup using the romTool with each provided by the program select items
Click to expand...
Latest on the 2011 iMac family is 87.0.0.0.0 and because your firmware contains some hardware identification which is used to handle iCloud security it is a bad idea to share it on a public thread like this.
 
Ausdauersportler said:
Latest on the 2011 iMac family is 87.0.0.0.0 and because your firmware contains some hardware identification which is used to handle iCloud security it is a bad idea to share it on a public thread like this.
Click to expand...
yea, i removed it, but as i found some info that there is a chance that downgrading firmware could solve the issue with xeon v2 and 37 series cpus.
did someone tried to downgrade the firmware ?
 
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Bonjour,

I would have liked to test but I still don't have a new programming clip.

I'm here to test if we regain power or not.

Otherwise it won't make any difference in terms of compatibility with the Ivy Bridge, plus we don't know if my mod is enough to boot on them.

I had time to recover your firmware "MX25L6406E/MX25L6436E" (obviously I wouldn't use it for me...) I modified it with a 206A7 Pre-Spectre microcode and also with only one microcode but this time from Ivy Bridge.

Capture d’écran 2020-09-08 à 15.56.06.png

I'll give you this in MP.
 
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Ausdauersportler said:
If I will find an older 2011 iMac containing an older MacOS than 10.8.3 version I will get the firmware off it using a Ch341A clip. Probably somebody can work out then if there is another firmware part allowing the installation of Ivy Bridge.

Does anybody know of an online firmware database for such 2011 iMacs?
Click to expand...

Did we locate the old firmware dump yet?
 
Before I order anything, can anyone confirm that the Xeon 1275 will work in the 27-inch 2011 iMac? Thanks!
 
Ausdauersportler said:
Why you want to go this route? It breaks sleep and you get no real more power than with the i7-2600.
Click to expand...

Does it break sleep? I've read a few places that said it only breaks sleep with the Xeons that don't have onboard graphics, but the 1275 has graphics so it should be OK. But that's one of the things I wanted to double check before ordering one.

The main reason for going this route is because the Xeon is half the price of the i7, and at least according to the CPUboss benchmark comparisons, you get even better performance at half the price, so it seems like a win win.
 
Bonjour,

I think @Ausdauersportler has been confused with 1270. 😉

Xeon E3-1275 = Core i7-2600 with ECC support, that we have never tested on our machines it seems to me.
Edit: but it must be said that ECC memory is expensive.

Edit2: As I want to test the ECC ram in addition to the Ivy Bridge, I would take a Xeon E3-1275 v2, I still don't know when, but in any case I'm decided.

Too bad there's still not enough information, because after all the information we've exchanged, there's little chance it will work if we've only changed the microcode as I thought at the beginning.
 
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Bonjour,

Intel Xeon E3-1275 v2 "Ivy Bridge" ordered, more than enough to wait 3 to 4 weeks. :)

So I call the experts, possibly concerning the modification of a boot code before my order arrives. o_O

Thank you and have a nice day. ;)


Edit: I have taken exactly the Microcode (x2 for us) part of the iMac 13,1
More than seeing the famous question of a BootCode to change, but which one?
Capture d’écran 2020-09-28 à 11.04.35.png

I would add my questions on this same post, there I look a little bit at all the "differences".
For example I saw a AppleIvyBridgeGop, no equivalent.
 
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Bonjour,

extract from Unified Extensible Firmware Interface on Wikipedia:

The interface defined by the EFI specification includes data tables that contain platform information, and boot and runtime services that are available to the OS loader and OS. UEFI firmware provides several technical advantages over a traditional BIOS system:

  • Ability to use large disks partitions (over 2 TB) with a GUID Partition Table (GPT)
  • CPU-independent architecture <-- it smells good 👍
  • CPU-independent drivers <-- it smells good too 👍
  • Flexible pre-OS environment, including network capability
  • Modular design
  • Backward and forward compatibility
We know some who are in a hurry to try, don't we? 😅😄😄
 
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But we don't know yet if the V2's will boot the machines or did I miss something?
 
probably asked before but I've been googling this forever... is it possible to upgrade the Power Supply in my 21.5 mid 2011 iMac with a 27"s power Supply in order to install a higher power consumption CPU?
 
rc3105 said:
I have an i7-2600 in a 21" 2011 and it works ok but it's right on the edge. The power supply doesn't have enough oomph left to spin up a regular 3.5 hd. With no 3.5 hd, dvd replaced by an ssd, and a K1100m video card it all works ok. (These changes all use less power than the original config.)

If I were going to do it again I'd go with the Xeon E 1220 ($20 on ebay) or 1230 which is almost as fast but only pulls 80 watts vs 93 for the i7-2600.
Click to expand...
Hey pal I just bought a 2600 i7 for my mid 2011 iMac based on your feedback and image comes up during boot and then goes black once finishes loading, seems like the CPU is taking down the GPU, the computer finishes loading but no image. I have an AMD WX4150 video card Wich I checked that has same TGP value than your K1100m (45W) and I also have one SSD installed, disconnected the DVD an I still get low power, what you'd you think I'm missing? I put back the i5 and everything goes fine so it's definitely the i7 sucking up the power 😅 any help will be appreciated thanks!
 
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