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the reason of gpu failure
- Thread starter zoran
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Wasn't just overheating, both Nvidia and and had a run of defective chips (something to do with the solder balls on the surface mount) which could sometimes be re-flowed to work again.
Looks like the forums won't allow AI-generated content, so my answer was deleted. What I did was to paste your question without any changes into ChatGPT and at the end it suggested to give you some tips - you can speak to the AI directly
I want to say that the 2011 iMac GPUs had first-gen lead-free solder. The solder alloy used had a tendency to grow tin whiskers under thermal cycles and short themselves out, especially the 6970M. (Or maybe it was some other solder issue, but bad solder was half the problem).
Not sure if the 2010s had fewer issues because they still used traditional proven leaded solder (unsure if true) or because Apple was using lower power GPUs that generated less heat. Regardless, the default fan speeds seem to work good enough for 2010 iMacs.
Newer cards are more heat resistant but also tend to be more power hungry (produce more heat). It is certainly possible to install a power-hungry overclocked card that will fry itself, but it is also possible to install a low power non-stock card that will happily run without issue.
Not sure if the 2010s had fewer issues because they still used traditional proven leaded solder (unsure if true) or because Apple was using lower power GPUs that generated less heat. Regardless, the default fan speeds seem to work good enough for 2010 iMacs.
Newer cards are more heat resistant but also tend to be more power hungry (produce more heat). It is certainly possible to install a power-hungry overclocked card that will fry itself, but it is also possible to install a low power non-stock card that will happily run without issue.
I have 2009 and 2010 iMac 27 inch models. The 2009 is the 3.06 Core 2 Duo and the 2010 is the i7. Both work just fine. Though I run them in the basement which is pretty cool. One of the thermal sensors in the 2010 failed so the fan runs at max speed so I changed it to run at a low, fixed speed and watch the temperature on the menubar.
Macs Fan Control. I run it on all of my Macs.
I don't recall the max temperature that I've seen on it as I mostly use it as a TV set. It's in front of my spin bike and I use the infrared remote control that came with the 2009 iMac to change the video or volume or stop/start.
I don’t know if the AMD chips suffered from the same poor manufacturing choices — I assume so.
The short, simple version:
The long version:
www.overclock.net
By the way, the problem affected the entire industry. I can tell you from first-hand experience there were plenty of Dell, HP, and other ‘PC' laptops failing prematurely. And, indeed, a lot of instances occurred just beyond the warranty period. Suffice it to say, as a PC technician, it was far less than fun to deal with.
Related:
en.wikipedia.org
It wasn’t overheating.
The short, simple version:
The long version:
[INQ]Nvidia GPU defects explained
By the way, the problem affected the entire industry. I can tell you from first-hand experience there were plenty of Dell, HP, and other ‘PC' laptops failing prematurely. And, indeed, a lot of instances occurred just beyond the warranty period. Suffice it to say, as a PC technician, it was far less than fun to deal with.
Related:
Xbox 360 technical problems - Wikipedia
Nvidiagate: which models are affected? \ VOGONS
www.vogons.org
Speaking of reinforcement… I tried to find photos but failed… MS’s quick and low-cost remedy (beyond extended warranty) for the Xbox 360 RROD was a revision to the heatsink mounting system, it was more robust and helped to reduce mainboard/motherboard flexing during thermal cycles. And the Xbox 360 used a PowerPC chip. So, again, just a bad era of material and design choices across the board — no pun intended.
For non-stock cards see the iMac 2009-2011 GPU upgrade thread:
2011 iMac Graphics Card Upgrade
iMac 2009 to 2011 MXM3 graphics card upgrade (Lastest update 10/13/2023 - this is the official documentation page - you found it finally!) This is the single and only documentation post. During the last years we constantly updated this post to reflect the lastet development of vBIOS and OCLP...
forums.macrumors.com
Look up the thermal draw power (TDP), if published, or just stick to MXM-A options to err on the low power side.
Correct, the 2010 iMac did not use nVidia.