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iM 4,1-14,4 iMac 2011 Maxwell and Pascal GPU upgrade

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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.
bluecrowHH said:
Hey I just found that offer saying it is optional to supply power with that plug
www.ebay.de

X NVIDIA GTX 1080 8gb MXM Video Card N17e-g3-a1 online kaufen | eBay

Entdecken Sie X NVIDIA GTX 1080 8gb MXM Video Card N17e-g3-a1 in der großen Auswahl bei eBay. Kostenlose Lieferung für viele Artikel!
www.ebay.de

Have a look please ;)

Cheers!
Click to expand...
Yes, I know this Aetina cards (Aetina usually makes card for industrial environments and not laptop/gaming).
They are taller than standard MXM cards, so it'll probably require additional heatsink grind and/or modification. Another drawback is that there seems to be only one online seller offering them.
 
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I may have some time to start working a couple hours a day at this soon so I wanted pool some info before I get in too deep.

First I was going to follow this post as a basic guide for what to do.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/2011-imac-graphics-card-upgrade.1596614/post-29967927

At the end of the project I’d like to boot windows and Mac OS high Sierra. I am willing to do windows only though.

I have a hackintosh as well as a m1 mini, and a media pc I use as a steam box which is my only current windows install.

It looks like their is an app called ?brew? I can use to flash the eeprom in macOS? Or should I get a windows install going on my hack and do the eeprom flashing using a windows app?

I also want to instal an ssd where the hdd is and maybe a third ssd where the super drive is. Is this simple swap or require certain brands etc? I can skip going with 3 and just do one ssd where the hdd is too for the windows install. The main drive is apples 250gb ssd which is slow and id maybe want to I upgrade that too but it’s not a need...

In regards to the windows install drive, can I prepare that a head of time in my hack/pc or do I need to install that after I get the card working first in high Sierra using open core?

If I don’t upgrade my stock ssd which presently has high Sierra on it, is there any prep or open core installation I need to do or should before taking the stock video card out?

I’m pretty sure I have the 3 pipe heat sink in there already.
 
Cloud9 said:
I may have some time to start working a couple hours a day at this soon so I wanted pool some info before I get in too deep.

First I was going to follow this post as a basic guide for what to do.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/2011-imac-graphics-card-upgrade.1596614/post-29967927

At the end of the project I’d like to boot windows and Mac OS high Sierra. I am willing to do windows only though.

I have a hackintosh as well as a m1 mini, and a media pc I use as a steam box which is my only current windows install.

It looks like their is an app called ?brew? I can use to flash the eeprom in macOS? Or should I get a windows install going on my hack and do the eeprom flashing using a windows app?

I also want to instal an ssd where the hdd is and maybe a third ssd where the super drive is. Is this simple swap or require certain brands etc? I can skip going with 3 and just do one ssd where the hdd is too for the windows install. The main drive is apples 250gb ssd which is slow and id maybe want to I upgrade that too but it’s not a need...

In regards to the windows install drive, can I prepare that a head of time in my hack/pc or do I need to install that after I get the card working first in high Sierra using open core?

If I don’t upgrade my stock ssd which presently has high Sierra on it, is there any prep or open core installation I need to do or should before taking the stock video card out?

I’m pretty sure I have the 3 pipe heat sink in there already.
Click to expand...
The guide by @Ausdauersportler is good. My advice:

- Don't try to change/upgrade many things at once, keep a stable system and do upgrades one at a time. I'd stay with just the internal ssd/hdd until you're sure graphics card upgrade is working. Keep in mind you'll loose Apple boot picker once you upgrade card and that can be confusing until you get a working opencore boot picker that enables the internal screen.

- If you have a working Windows machine, use it to flash the eeprom as it will be easier (you could use brew to install flashrom on macOS, but most probably it will not support the eeprom chip on your card). On windows you have to install proper ch341a driver and use AsProgrammer. I wrote somewhere in this thread about it.

- It would be better to have all OS installation done in advance to changing card. If you already have a drive with High Sierra installed, use it to generate the OCLP boot device and apply changes as in this thread. Make sure you can boot from this device. Enable remote access so you can see if OS is working even without internal screen, that way you can generate further Opencore configs or change boot device remotely.

The main goal is to have internal screen enabled on boot and the Opencore emulated boot picker. With that working you can install or upgrade any OS just as if you had the real Apple boot screen.
 
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m0bil said:
The guide by @Ausdauersportler is good. My advice:

- Don't try to change/upgrade many things at once, keep a stable system and do upgrades one at a time. I'd stay with just the internal ssd/hdd until you're sure graphics card upgrade is working. Keep in mind you'll loose Apple boot picker once you upgrade card and that can be confusing until you get a working opencore boot picker that enables the internal screen.

- If you have a working Windows machine, use it to flash the eeprom as it will be easier (you could use brew to install flashrom on macOS, but most probably it will not support the eeprom chip on your card). On windows you have to install proper ch341a driver and use AsProgrammer. I wrote somewhere in this thread about it.

- It would be better to have all OS installation done in advance to changing card. If you already have a drive with High Sierra installed, use it to generate the OCLP boot device and apply changes as in this thread. Make sure you can boot from this device. Enable remote access so you can see if OS is working even without internal screen, that way you can generate further Opencore configs or change boot device remotely.

The main goal is to have internal screen enabled on boot and the Opencore emulated boot picker. With that working you can install or upgrade any OS just as if you had the real Apple boot screen.
Click to expand...
When you say have OS preinstalled you just mean keep my present HS install on my stock ssd.

I would wait to create a windows install till after I have the card working? Does it make sense to prep a separate ssd with a windows install or do it after I have everything working in HS?
 
Do you think that 1080 will work without the additional power? Is there any ROM?
Maybe we should give it a shot?
 
Cloud9 said:
When you say have OS preinstalled you just mean keep my present HS install on my stock ssd.

I would wait to create a windows install till after I have the card working? Does it make sense to prep a separate ssd with a windows install or do it after I have everything working in HS?
Click to expand...
Yes, keep you already HS install and make sure to enable and test remote access. Goal is to have the internal screen enabled via Opencore/OCLP, once you have this working you can install or upgrade any additional OS.
 
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bluecrowHH said:
Do you think that 1080 will work without the additional power? Is there any ROM?
Maybe we should give it a shot?
Click to expand...
I have no idea. But the 1080s were kind of designed to use higher power to archive better performance, so even if it works it may not provide better performance when underpower it to 125W.

Other options I have looked at are the Quadro P5200 with same cores/tmus/rops as the 1080 and standard mxm size. It's easily found online at around double the price of the 1070 but does not score at 3DMark more than 5% to 10% above the 1070...

Also of interest is the Turing RTX 4000. Scores like 25%-30% above the 1070 but it's not easily found to buy and may have additional drawbacks like encrypted/signed vbios making it impossible to modify.
 
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As a follow up, I've been taking a look at higher performance alternative GPUs to the GTX1070.

The Quadro RTX 3000 and RTX 4000 are the most attractive ones. Vbios at techpowerup seem not to be encrypted, and connector configuration on some of these vbios may make the card work with the internal iMac display even with the unmodified vbios. Possible problems are to know if vbios can be modified in case it's needed, and that cards are difficult to find and quite expensive.

The Quadro P4200 is another good option, with 2304/144/64 cores/tmus/rops vs the 2048/128/64 of the 1070 should provide better performance than the 1070 when properly unlocked/overpowered. It seems easy to find online and price of some sellers is about the same as the 1070. Being a Quadro card it may not provide all the possible adjustments of the GeForce cards (undervolting, frecuency curve editing...) on Afterburner.
 
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I have added a 125W version of the GTX 1070 vbios to the original post. Has been tested for a couple of weeks and found no issues. You can take a look at this youtube channel to have an idea of how the GTX1070 performs on modern games like God of War and the like. While my card does not overclock as high and the iMac CPU is slower, it just falls a few frames behind from the tests made on the channel.

Off topic: I have for sale the M4000M and P3000 cards I used for testing and development, if you're in Europe and interested PM me.
 
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Is there a summed up list of all the cards this is working for now?

And their performance compared?

Anyone tried a 1060?
 
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Terros said:
Is there a summed up list of all the cards this is working for now?

And their performance compared?

Anyone tried a 1060?
Click to expand...
No, as thread grows maybe it's a good idea to keep it summarized on first post and linking posts with vbios @G3llings

As of now, there are vbios for Quadro M4000M, M5000M, P3000 (+ overclocked version), P4000 and GeForce GTX1070.

I think nobody tried 1060, it should be possible to mod vbios same way as I did with the 1070, but testing is money and time consuming, as the Pascal cards require removing the card from iMac and reprogramming eeprom with clip for every single test. Everyone is welcome to help and contribute! :)
 
m0bil said:
No, as thread grows maybe it's a good idea to keep it summarized on first post and linking posts with vbios @G3llings

As of now, there are vbios for Quadro M4000M, M5000M, P3000 (+ overclocked version), P4000 and GeForce GTX1070.

I think nobody tried 1060, it should be possible to mod vbios same way as I did with the 1070, but testing is money and time consuming, as the Pascal cards require removing the card from iMac and reprogramming eeprom with clip for every single test. Everyone is welcome to help and contribute! :)
Click to expand...
You can ask the mods to make the first post of this thread editable for the public….
 
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The HD4850 on one of my iMac 2009 failed last week.
Finally I've got the chance to use the M4000m.
Although I've done things wrong here and there, I still managed to get it work (sort of) in High Sierra.

Finished installing nVidia web driver.

www.nvidia.com

Driver Details | NVIDIA

Download the <dd~LanguageName> <dd~Name> for <dd~OSName> systems. Released <dd~ReleaseDateTime>
www.nvidia.com

Tomorrow is backlight control, perhaps.

Just rephrasing my procedures (one that worked):
Devices: 2 iMac 2009 27" and a PC

1. Drill & grind the 2 pipe heatsink to fit the MXM card (Quadro M4000m). I had only 1 power drill usable, so it took me a lot of time struggling with this part.
2. Attach the card to the heatsink, thermal paste for the GPU chip, thermal pad for RAM chip, no copper shim.
3. Install the GPU + heatsink set to the iMac 2009. Power-up the machine and got the normal chime. (i.e. no short-circuit on the card)
4. Prepare the GRML USB on my Windows PC: i) GRML USB is made by Xanderon and later modified by The Croupier at this post. ii) Copy the nvflash file posted by m0bil from this post and the vBIOS from Santa's Little Helper from this post (the post is about P3000m & P4000m, but he also attached a new vBIOS for M4000m & M5000m)
5. Boot the iMac 2009 with the GRML USB and ssh to it from my Windows PC to flash the new rom to the graphic card.
6. On another working iMac 2009 (High Sierra), I attached the old SSD (with High Sierra pre-installed) via USB port, then run OCLP (0.4.2) and copy the newly generated EFI folder to the external SSD.
7. Install the SSD back to the iMac with M4000m and boot from it, after a triple NVRAM reset.
8. OCLP worked beautifully. I got to High Sierra but the graphic was sluggish (lack driver). After installing the latest webdriver from nVidia, High Sierra work smoothly.

I haven't modified the config.plist, so I still haven't got backlight control. But sleep/wake was smooth.
Mac Fan Control couldn't read GPU core temp.
GPU heatsink temp is a little high at 61 Celcius (idle), but it's the slightly overclocked vBIOS anyway.

Screen Shot 2022-02-21 at 1.08.44 PM.png
 
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Thank You guys for an amazing work on the bios and the guides for installing win / HighSierra and OC! I’m very greatfoul :)
I successfully installed a dell P3000 mobile, tried both pwr and the regular modded bios. (Via Hardware programmer of course)
It’s all ok if you install a single disk internally with external boot/install-drive for win and HS.

The problem is I don’t get the internal mac boot screen, only the OpenCore bootscreen , means that when putting multiple drives in ( aiming for tripple drives and a choice of Oc bootloder to win or straight to HS) I can’t pick witch OC or Hs to boot from, maybe the goals are to high. Anyone got the mac bootscreen working with Pascal ?

P3000 is giving me great performance and temperatures both idle and gaming. I Will share my OC-config and also tips on getting backlight in windows working (reghack Nvidia backlight ) and the dreadful Intel graphics BSOD installing windows. (Later though, on my iPhone for now)

Any plans on getting Mxm3.0A bios working: Nvidia M2000m or 2200 mobile for a low power option ( maybe 21.1”) ?

I can sponsor with a m2000m for sure, maybe also a 2200 mobile.

Thanks again for the great work

Best Regards / c-Fuzz
I’ll be back
 
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c-fuzz said:
Thank You guys for an amazing work on the bios and the guides for installing win / HighSierra and OC! I’m very greatfoul :)
I successfully installed a dell P3000 mobile, tried both pwr and the regular modded bios. (Via Hardware programmer of course)
It’s all ok if you install a single disk internally with external boot/install-drive for win and HS.

The problem is I don’t get the internal mac boot screen, only the OpenCore bootscreen , means that when putting multiple drives in ( aiming for tripple drives and a choice of Oc bootloder to win or straight to HS) I can’t pick witch OC or Hs to boot from, maybe the goals are to high. Anyone got the mac bootscreen working with Pascal ?

P3000 is giving me great performance and temperatures both idle and gaming. I Will share my OC-config and also tips on getting backlight in windows working (reghack Nvidia backlight ) and the dreadful Intel graphics BSOD installing windows. (Later though, on my iPhone for now)

Any plans on getting Mxm3.0A bios working: Nvidia M2000m or 2200 mobile for a low power option ( maybe 21.1”) ?

I can sponsor with a m2000m for sure, maybe also a 2200 mobile.

Thanks again for the great work

Best Regards / c-Fuzz
I’ll be back
Click to expand...
Sadly it is not possible to get the Apple boot screen on Maxwell or Pascal cards, as of today you can only get the real Apple boot picker on Kepler cards.
If you have multiple drives you can boot to an Opencore usb/sd and then choose which drive to continue booting on.

For the P3000 take a look at the overclocked/overpowered vbios posted here.

No plans about the K2200M or M2000M, but if anyone is willing to test them I can try to mod the vbios to enable internal screen.
 
c-fuzz said:
Thank You guys for an amazing work on the bios and the guides for installing win / HighSierra and OC! I’m very greatfoul :)
I successfully installed a dell P3000 mobile, tried both pwr and the regular modded bios. (Via Hardware programmer of course)
It’s all ok if you install a single disk internally with external boot/install-drive for win and HS.

The problem is I don’t get the internal mac boot screen, only the OpenCore bootscreen , means that when putting multiple drives in ( aiming for tripple drives and a choice of Oc bootloder to win or straight to HS) I can’t pick witch OC or Hs to boot from, maybe the goals are to high. Anyone got the mac bootscreen working with Pascal ?

P3000 is giving me great performance and temperatures both idle and gaming. I Will share my OC-config and also tips on getting backlight in windows working (reghack Nvidia backlight ) and the dreadful Intel graphics BSOD installing windows. (Later though, on my iPhone for now)

Any plans on getting Mxm3.0A bios working: Nvidia M2000m or 2200 mobile for a low power option ( maybe 21.1”) ?

I can sponsor with a m2000m for sure, maybe also a 2200 mobile.

Thanks again for the great work

Best Regards / c-Fuzz
I’ll be back
Click to expand...

For my case, I just copied the OC EFI to the internal disk (default boot disk), change the timing of boot picker to 50s, enough to read and select the bootable disk.
On the iMacs which I don't want the user to pick the OS, this picker timing are set at 5s, giving the feeling of original Mac boot screen.
 
@m0bil I got my card today and successfully read the bios using the adaptor and AsProgrammer. However, when I wrote the modded BIOS and reread it, it differs. Why is that? I'm suspecting this is not supposed to be like that? What am I doing wrong?

original:

1646949451891.png


Reread:

1646949312433.png
 
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JohnPascololo said:
Nevermind. Worked after erasing and reprogramming.... will do a test run tomorrow...
Click to expand...
Yes, while flashrom will automatically erase and program only the required eeprom blocks, AsProgrammer/NeoProgrammer needs a full erase of the chip before programming (at least for this eeproms). Check CRC32 and reload file/verify read to make sure the programmed rom is the same.
 
Charcoalwerks said:
Is there a market for these 2011’s? I have one I’m about to retire.
Click to expand...
There is a long thread how to replace the graphics card to repair the black boot problem you have. But there is no real market because all these models suffer the same problem and you may find such systems even in a dumpster for free (depending on the part of the world you live in).
 
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Hm. So after giving it a quick test it seems it got stuck with a black screen. It chimes two LEDs light up thats it. Any further suggestions?
 
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