I currently have both a Xeon E3-1245v1 and a Nvidia Quadro K2100M waiting for some thermal pads to arrive in the mail, so I can start my iMac 2011 21.5" FrankeniMac revival.
From what I've read in this and several other threads, the original iMac 21.5" PSU won't be able to power both changes, so I got myself a spare iMac 2011 27" PSU ready in case it's needed... Won't fit, but I don't care if I have to somehow mount it on the outside. The machine was boxed in a closet for the last 3 years, so it's not much of a loss if everything goes to waste.
Therefore, for the sake of knowledge, I intend to proceed as follows:
1) Replace the Core i5 2400S with the Xeon E3-1245 with standard PSU and standard 21.5" AMD GPU. See if it posts, and if successful, verify if sleep, return from sleep works as expected (High Sierra with all security updates installed in the internal SSD (BTW, gone are the original 7.200 RPM HDD and the ODD).
2) Proceed with GPU replacement. See if it posts with original PSU. (Doubt it...) If succesful, load High Sierra and see if sleep still works. Once this has been stablished, go on and NVflash with
@xanderon USB method using K2100.rom.
3) If everything above successful, verify sleep still works on High Sierra.
Leave it like that for a few days, so I can see if it is stable and run some benchmarks, test, whatever...
Of course, all of the above depend on the original PSU being able to support the additional wattage consumption of the replaced components. I suppose somewhere in the middle of all this, I will have to replace the PSU with the beefier one.
Once everything "settles", go on and try updating to Catalina with OpenCore and everyhing else I may need.
Do you experts believe this intended course is ok? Should I do anything else or in different order?
TIA
Cesar
