Very important to know which 2009 iMac model you're talking about, since there were three different generations lauched in 2009.
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iM 4,1-14,4 2011 iMac Graphics Card Upgrade
- Thread starter MichaelDT
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Testing a successful installation of Sonoma from external SSD with OCLP 1.4.1. on my iMac 11,3 with AMD Polaris Rx480 and BT 4.0 mod. Better than I expected!
I am always impressed by the hard work of the OCLP developers, contributors and community. Thank you!
I am always impressed by the hard work of the OCLP developers, contributors and community. Thank you!
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I'm sorry. It's an iMac 11,1; Model name: A1312, iMac 27" 2009, with Intel core i7-870.
Haven't seen anybody post a successful upgrade to Sonoma 14.4 on an old Intel iMac (pre 2012), so I figured why not just try it.
I'm happy to report my 2010, 27" iMac upgraded with AMD M5100 runs just fine with Sonoma 14.4
Prior to the Sonoma upgrade, I upgraded OCLP to 1.4.1. Then I just run OTA software update. During the download of the Sonoma upgrade, OCLP should prompt you to download the KDK. Everything goes smoothly as expected. After some reboots, you'll boot into Sonoma 14.4, then OCLP will prompt you to do the root patch.
I'm happy to report my 2010, 27" iMac upgraded with AMD M5100 runs just fine with Sonoma 14.4
Prior to the Sonoma upgrade, I upgraded OCLP to 1.4.1. Then I just run OTA software update. During the download of the Sonoma upgrade, OCLP should prompt you to download the KDK. Everything goes smoothly as expected. After some reboots, you'll boot into Sonoma 14.4, then OCLP will prompt you to do the root patch.
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So before I installed the new M5100 (pre-flashed from AliExpress), I had OCLP installed and running on Sonoma with a few minor graphical issues. After installation it took a while to get OCLP configured. I honestly don't know exactly what fixed the problem, but after setting up a clean install of Sonoma on an external HDD with OCP following exact steps I followed from a post on this site, I still had the same issue only being able to boot in safe mode.
I shut the computer down unplugged the external HDD with the new OS install on and went for a walk. When I next started the computer everything worked perfectly. No sleep issues and brightness control worked without any problems.
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2012 MBP has a metal GPU so just need to use OCLP to install newer macOS. No HW (other than SSD if still using HDD)
Sonoma will eat battery life at 2X speed. Likely Ventura also (likely all post M1 Silicon introduction macOS releases)
My signature link has pointers to OCLP
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Had same upgrade. Found i3-550 with 2 core/4 thread a bit sluggish on Sonoma. $15 i7-870 upgrade solved that.
Post Apple Silicon macOS releases (Sonoma for sure, probably also Ventura) seems to 1) like 8 threads 2) eat x86 Mac's battery at 2x rate (had to back off my 2015 MBP A1502 from OCLP Sonoma to original macOS Monterey to get back useful battery life)
I have a 2011 iMac 27" 12,2 that I put a modded 5500 XT 8GB in it. Running Monterey, has there been any progress in getting Sonoma working on this gpu?
Finaly decided to completely move to Sonoma 14.4. Works like a charme on my moded iMac 27 inch 11,3.
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That is great news! Now if I could just get High Sierra to flippin reinstall on my 2010 or 2011 iMac I would test this out too. Internet Recovery seems broken. Gonna try Dosdude's bootable method next.
Dosdude no longer releases patches for Mac OS later than Catalina, as OCLP has matured.
Hi Nguyen, I'm still trying to get High Sierra installed on an iMac that has had Linux on it. So I'm not yet at the point of using OCLP to upgrade.
My (mid)2011 21.5" Apple iMac - 12,1
Upgraded
- 2TB HDD in original HD bay for Plex movies, photos, music etc replacing original HDD(thunderstorm death)
- 500GB SSD connected to second SATA 3.0 port with new cable replacing ODD (DVD drive stopped working a while back)< dual booting macOS Sonoma and Windows 11 home n
- Increased RAM to 20GB (2x8GB+2x2GB)
- Replaced original i5 2.7GHz CPU with a i7 2.8
- Replaced the original Radeon 6770M 512MB graphics card with an AMD FirePro M5100 2GB
Everything went surprisingly well considering my lack of experience.
The whole project/experiment snowballed and I became obsessed from just wanting to view 15 years of photo's of the kids growing up on the iMac I've had since new, to a big bloody journey.
I hadn't used the Mac much in the last 5 years as the HDD had been fried in a thunderstorm.
Thought I'd replace the HDD about 3 years ago with the 2TB HDD just to try get it going again. Restored from a TM backup. Hardly used it after that, was painfully slow and the fan on full tit was kind of annoying (eventually found out about the HDD temp sensor thing). The kids played a bit of Roblox on it apart from that it gathered dust. It also started having a problem where it was trying to update High Sierra but was stuck in a loop so didn't bother with it for another year or 2.
FF to the end of last year I had some time on my hands so thought I'd tinker with the old girl and managed to break the update loop by putting in safe mode and went on to fixing the issue (dunno how).
I also realised how outdated and old the computer and OS actually was now so did some digging around online and came across the brilliant Open Core Patcher so applied the patch and installed Big Sur. Then me, always taking things one step too far by pushing onto Monterey ended up crashing the system somehow, got an SOS alarm beeping upon every startup for a solid day or 2 and finding no help online, apart from reading about the diagnostic lights on the logic board so having nothing to lose at that stage I reached for the screwdriver.
I discovered the lights were all working after plugging in with screen off (apart from the screen indicator light), so that was good, 'then' I realised, it hadn't made the obnoxious SOS bleating alarm. Somehow me pulling the screen off and poking around inside it fixed the problem.
That had to be a sign. So away I went again, and decided I'd breath a bit more life into her and wacked in a new SSD and replaced 2 2GB RAM sticks with 2 8GB. That made a big difference. I then found out about the 2nd Sata 3.0 port so me being me wasn't going to settle for boring old Sata 2.0 speeds, ordered the new cable (hastily) and discovered I'd got the wrong one after pulling the MotherBoard out...so made sure and ordered the right one after that.
Monterey worked pretty good and looked great, so thought what hell I might as well try out Sonoma (skipped Ventura). I discovered photos weren't displaying full size in the new Photos app and found out the graphics card was incompatible with the new OS because of not having metal capabilities.. ..so down the wormhole of graphics card upgrading I went and ended up here.
Honestly, I tried to read the first page but got to this sentence : "There is a most compatible card, the M4000/M5100/W5170M" and thought meh, that's good enough for me I'll take the M5100 at a decent price, to go, thanks Aliexpress (I also ordered the CPU from AE too). So feeling pretty good about myself while I waited for the card to arrive I had a bit of space to fill so did some more reading and thought it wise, with limited abilities, to formulate a plan for installing the new GPU whence I went on to continue reading the first page of this thread and encounter the heart sinking moment by being slapped back to reality with the bold red sentence :
Sleep and wake, and cold boot is broken in iMac12,x 2011 system. Needs a PRAM reset on each cold boot - DO NOT USE IN 2011 iMac12,x systems. This problem does not depend on the BIOS in use, so even with an EFI BIOS the very same problems will show up!
And then this from the AliExpress seller directly below the buy now and also red in bright lettering :
Tests:
- iMac12,2: sleep/wake broken - black screen on cold boot needs PRAM reset each time
- iMac12,1: sleep/wake broken - black screen on cold boot needs PRAM reset each time
Too late to change my order for a WX 4130, a few hours after ordering : " Sorry, order shipped already" ffs.
Oh well I thought, too late to cry like a little girl. So I desperately scoured these pages in hope of finding something to put my pathetic mind at ease and found this : post #19,059 from madvinegar and suddenly there was renewed hope.
Anyway to cut a long story short I put the CPU in that night the day they arrived, got beeping code after turning back on turned out just needed to put the RAM back in and then reseat it properly.
On the following day after trying to learn all that morning how to SSH incase I ended up with a blank screen or something, I decided to take the plunge. Installing was easy by that point as I'd already removed the logic board about 3 or 4 times, so after thoroughly cleaning the inside of my iMac, pulling the fans out and apart etc I put it all back together booted it in the guts and away she went, such a relief to hear the chime and see the apple.
So I signed in with password checked the settings, it said something like Radeon xxx 50MB. It was working but not as it should by any stretch. The graphics had stopped partially glitching that it used to do, but honestly it was performing like a not very funny joke.
Played around with OCLP still nothing, card wasn't recognised only said something like 50MB under 'About this Mac'. Also had to boot in safe mode otherwise I got a yellow screen.
I inquired reluctantly on this thread and got a coupleple of replies (ty). Someone mentioned this #21,636 about following a specific sequence to build and install OC so I tried that and installed a new OS on a external HD but it was the same thing after booting in, card not recognised etc..shut down.
Ended booting up the main internal drive a while later and whallah it was working like a rock star. It would sometimes say in 'about Mac'- Radeon Wxxxx 2GB - something like that, but aways works perfectly, no graphical glitching, no sleep/wake issues, brightness control works perfectly, photos displaying perfectly in photos app, not 1 performance issue.
I also installed Windows 11 just to add another set of challenges, was a little tricky getting installed. Lots of BSOD's took a while to get it working smoothly. Installing the right drivers took some patience, and finding files that would cause the plethora of 'blue screens of death' that Windows seems to delight in handing out. Also little things like Apple bluetooth mouse and keyboard needed configuring to work with both OS's without having to disconnect then reconnect when going from one OS to the other, scroll direction on mouse etc. Windows 11 now works smooth as custard, better on the iMac than the near new HP laptop.
Only issue is when it goes to sleep and I wake it up with the mouse or keyboard it just restarts, which is also really quick. I could install windows 11 in my sleep now, I've had that many goes at it. Either MCTI or Rufus both work.
I also ended up installing MacOS 14.4 beta to try to fix an issue I had after forcing a restart where I was getting the same message that the computer shut down because of a problem... everytime I went into macOS.
-Didn't fix it.. and I lost wifi and bluetooth connection, but soon found the solution to fix both.
I also screwed up my EFI partition a couple of times which was touch and go but luckily found ways to boot up again.
I've attached some pics.
Thanks for reading. If there's anything I can help anyone else out with I'd be happy to lend a hand.
Upgraded
- 2TB HDD in original HD bay for Plex movies, photos, music etc replacing original HDD(thunderstorm death)
- 500GB SSD connected to second SATA 3.0 port with new cable replacing ODD (DVD drive stopped working a while back)< dual booting macOS Sonoma and Windows 11 home n
- Increased RAM to 20GB (2x8GB+2x2GB)
- Replaced original i5 2.7GHz CPU with a i7 2.8
- Replaced the original Radeon 6770M 512MB graphics card with an AMD FirePro M5100 2GB
Everything went surprisingly well considering my lack of experience.
The whole project/experiment snowballed and I became obsessed from just wanting to view 15 years of photo's of the kids growing up on the iMac I've had since new, to a big bloody journey.
I hadn't used the Mac much in the last 5 years as the HDD had been fried in a thunderstorm.
Thought I'd replace the HDD about 3 years ago with the 2TB HDD just to try get it going again. Restored from a TM backup. Hardly used it after that, was painfully slow and the fan on full tit was kind of annoying (eventually found out about the HDD temp sensor thing). The kids played a bit of Roblox on it apart from that it gathered dust. It also started having a problem where it was trying to update High Sierra but was stuck in a loop so didn't bother with it for another year or 2.
FF to the end of last year I had some time on my hands so thought I'd tinker with the old girl and managed to break the update loop by putting in safe mode and went on to fixing the issue (dunno how).
I also realised how outdated and old the computer and OS actually was now so did some digging around online and came across the brilliant Open Core Patcher so applied the patch and installed Big Sur. Then me, always taking things one step too far by pushing onto Monterey ended up crashing the system somehow, got an SOS alarm beeping upon every startup for a solid day or 2 and finding no help online, apart from reading about the diagnostic lights on the logic board so having nothing to lose at that stage I reached for the screwdriver.
I discovered the lights were all working after plugging in with screen off (apart from the screen indicator light), so that was good, 'then' I realised, it hadn't made the obnoxious SOS bleating alarm. Somehow me pulling the screen off and poking around inside it fixed the problem.
That had to be a sign. So away I went again, and decided I'd breath a bit more life into her and wacked in a new SSD and replaced 2 2GB RAM sticks with 2 8GB. That made a big difference. I then found out about the 2nd Sata 3.0 port so me being me wasn't going to settle for boring old Sata 2.0 speeds, ordered the new cable (hastily) and discovered I'd got the wrong one after pulling the MotherBoard out...so made sure and ordered the right one after that.
Monterey worked pretty good and looked great, so thought what hell I might as well try out Sonoma (skipped Ventura). I discovered photos weren't displaying full size in the new Photos app and found out the graphics card was incompatible with the new OS because of not having metal capabilities.. ..so down the wormhole of graphics card upgrading I went and ended up here.
Honestly, I tried to read the first page but got to this sentence : "There is a most compatible card, the M4000/M5100/W5170M" and thought meh, that's good enough for me I'll take the M5100 at a decent price, to go, thanks Aliexpress (I also ordered the CPU from AE too). So feeling pretty good about myself while I waited for the card to arrive I had a bit of space to fill so did some more reading and thought it wise, with limited abilities, to formulate a plan for installing the new GPU whence I went on to continue reading the first page of this thread and encounter the heart sinking moment by being slapped back to reality with the bold red sentence :
Sleep and wake, and cold boot is broken in iMac12,x 2011 system. Needs a PRAM reset on each cold boot - DO NOT USE IN 2011 iMac12,x systems. This problem does not depend on the BIOS in use, so even with an EFI BIOS the very same problems will show up!
And then this from the AliExpress seller directly below the buy now and also red in bright lettering :
Tests:
- iMac12,2: sleep/wake broken - black screen on cold boot needs PRAM reset each time
- iMac12,1: sleep/wake broken - black screen on cold boot needs PRAM reset each time
Too late to change my order for a WX 4130, a few hours after ordering : " Sorry, order shipped already" ffs.
Oh well I thought, too late to cry like a little girl. So I desperately scoured these pages in hope of finding something to put my pathetic mind at ease and found this : post #19,059 from madvinegar and suddenly there was renewed hope.
Anyway to cut a long story short I put the CPU in that night the day they arrived, got beeping code after turning back on turned out just needed to put the RAM back in and then reseat it properly.
On the following day after trying to learn all that morning how to SSH incase I ended up with a blank screen or something, I decided to take the plunge. Installing was easy by that point as I'd already removed the logic board about 3 or 4 times, so after thoroughly cleaning the inside of my iMac, pulling the fans out and apart etc I put it all back together booted it in the guts and away she went, such a relief to hear the chime and see the apple.
So I signed in with password checked the settings, it said something like Radeon xxx 50MB. It was working but not as it should by any stretch. The graphics had stopped partially glitching that it used to do, but honestly it was performing like a not very funny joke.
Played around with OCLP still nothing, card wasn't recognised only said something like 50MB under 'About this Mac'. Also had to boot in safe mode otherwise I got a yellow screen.
I inquired reluctantly on this thread and got a coupleple of replies (ty). Someone mentioned this #21,636 about following a specific sequence to build and install OC so I tried that and installed a new OS on a external HD but it was the same thing after booting in, card not recognised etc..shut down.
Ended booting up the main internal drive a while later and whallah it was working like a rock star. It would sometimes say in 'about Mac'- Radeon Wxxxx 2GB - something like that, but aways works perfectly, no graphical glitching, no sleep/wake issues, brightness control works perfectly, photos displaying perfectly in photos app, not 1 performance issue.
I also installed Windows 11 just to add another set of challenges, was a little tricky getting installed. Lots of BSOD's took a while to get it working smoothly. Installing the right drivers took some patience, and finding files that would cause the plethora of 'blue screens of death' that Windows seems to delight in handing out. Also little things like Apple bluetooth mouse and keyboard needed configuring to work with both OS's without having to disconnect then reconnect when going from one OS to the other, scroll direction on mouse etc. Windows 11 now works smooth as custard, better on the iMac than the near new HP laptop.
Only issue is when it goes to sleep and I wake it up with the mouse or keyboard it just restarts, which is also really quick. I could install windows 11 in my sleep now, I've had that many goes at it. Either MCTI or Rufus both work.
I also ended up installing MacOS 14.4 beta to try to fix an issue I had after forcing a restart where I was getting the same message that the computer shut down because of a problem... everytime I went into macOS.
-Didn't fix it.. and I lost wifi and bluetooth connection, but soon found the solution to fix both.
I also screwed up my EFI partition a couple of times which was touch and go but luckily found ways to boot up again.
I've attached some pics.
Thanks for reading. If there's anything I can help anyone else out with I'd be happy to lend a hand.
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If you have a working Mac, then you can use dosdude app to create a High Sierra USB installer. It works better than Internet Recovery (I tried Internet Recovery on my iMac 2011 and failed, as it couldn't get the link to download the files required)
Would this work in a 2011 27" iMac?
Here are the specs:
Included:
+ Nvidia GeForce GTX 780M 4GB MXM Type B
+ OEM iMac 27" Heatsink with thermal sensor (professionally pre-fitted with CNC machine)
+ original mount bracket with 4 screws
iMac 27" 2011 GPU upgrade kit | eBay
This is an GPU upgrade kit for iMac 27". Check MacRumors forum on how it is done. + OEM iMac 27" Heatsink with thermal sensor (professionally pre-fitted with CNC machine).
www.ebay.com
Here are the specs:
Included:
+ Nvidia GeForce GTX 780M 4GB MXM Type B
+ OEM iMac 27" Heatsink with thermal sensor (professionally pre-fitted with CNC machine)
+ original mount bracket with 4 screws
Check here first - first Post of this thread: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/2011-imac-graphics-card-upgrade.1596614/Would this work in a 2011 27" iMac?
iMac 27" 2011 GPU upgrade kit | eBay
This is an GPU upgrade kit for iMac 27". Check MacRumors forum on how it is done. + OEM iMac 27" Heatsink with thermal sensor (professionally pre-fitted with CNC machine).www.ebay.com
Here are the specs:
Included:
+ Nvidia GeForce GTX 780M 4GB MXM Type B
+ OEM iMac 27" Heatsink with thermal sensor (professionally pre-fitted with CNC machine)
+ original mount bracket with 4 screws
I did, the card is on the list with ++ mark. What about the pre-fitted heatsink that comes with the GPU? Is there any place I can get the GPU and heatsink cheaper maybe?
Would this work in a 2011 27" iMac?
iMac 27" 2011 GPU upgrade kit | eBay
This is an GPU upgrade kit for iMac 27". Check MacRumors forum on how it is done. + OEM iMac 27" Heatsink with thermal sensor (professionally pre-fitted with CNC machine).www.ebay.com
Here are the specs:
Included:
+ Nvidia GeForce GTX 780M 4GB MXM Type B
+ OEM iMac 27" Heatsink with thermal sensor (professionally pre-fitted with CNC machine)
+ original mount bracket with 4 screws
AMD WX4130 a lot cheaper option, works with existing heatsink and no problem on OCLP Sonoma. ~1/2 perf of GTX 780M, ~1/2 VRAM and runs way cooler (14nm vs 28nm process and smaller die)
Radeon Pro WX 4130 Mobile vs GeForce GTX 780M : Which one is better?
We compared two Mobile platform GPUs: 4GB VRAM Radeon Pro WX 4130 Mobile and 4GB VRAM GeForce GTX 780M to see which GPU has better performance in key specifications, benchmark tests, power consumption, etc.
www.topcpu.net
In general, anything > WX4130 performance looks like going to need special heat sinks due to much higher heat output (just consult post #1 tables for performance + heat sink requirement) So you are going to really want that performance with the higher cooling requirement.
iMac+Metal GPU - 12,x
Main Info Source All the info is gleamed from the big macrumor's thread post #1. Be sure to consult the following sections. No way to link to these sections so perhaps open 2 browser windows to read side by side this site and these sections Spoiler: 2 Working AMD Graphics Cards Spoiler: AMD GCN v4
More info in my signature link
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Update on my iMac upgrade.
Got the wx4130 GPU and flashed the enable GOP vbios from github. I used CH341a programmer to flash it. It was quite straightforward, just had to pick right size eeprom in the software (google the eeprom topmark). First erase then write and verify.
I first did revert patching in OCLP, rebooted and then built the OCLP again with the AMD GOP injection and AMD Polaris option selected, and then shut down the computer.
Swapped the GPU, CPU and fans in one go. Glued ODD temp sensor to the GPU heatsink. Booted the computer and did PRAM reset. I got the OCLP bootpicker right away, no drama. Windows 11 booted correctly but it had the standard Windows gpu driver in the device manager. Brightness control did not work. Downloaded and installed AMD drivers (not 3rd party, but directly from AMD) and now I have the AMD WX drivers showing the device manager and brightness control works.
Then booted to Sonoma and it seemed to boot correctly up to 50% and then display went black. I could ssh to the imac so it was just matter of screen being black and something wrong with the graphics drivers or setup. Rebooted in safe mode (keeping shift presses during boot) and finally got login screen. Once logged in, started OCLP and did post install patching. OCLP listed AMD polaris and legacy wireless patches, which sounded correct and ran the patching. Rebooted and everything works now, it seems so far
Thanks to everyone helping with the upgrade and of course to the developers of OCLP and vbios for these legacy cards!
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Thank You Brother! Tried your suggestion today and it works. I used a Mac with Big Sur to accomplish this.
*A note for anyone new to this process, the first attempt to write High Sierra to a properly formatted USB thumb drive may fail, but that is okay. Just try again, but this time do not change the default device name or formatting (it will appear to be named something different than 'macOS' and the formatting will appear as 'Mac OS Extended' or something similar. Just run the setup again and it should work. That's what happened for me. More information on this process is here:
Can you post a pic of your CH341a clip? Mine wouldn't grab onto the wx4130 eeprom as its flatter than other older cards (m4000, m5000, k610m) Here is mine clip from a cheap (<$10) CH341a
I first did revert patching in OCLP, rebooted and then built the OCLP again with the AMD GOP injection and AMD Polaris option selected, and then shut down the computer.
Then booted to Sonoma and it seemed to boot correctly up to 50% and then display went black. I could ssh to the imac so it was just matter of screen being black and something wrong with the graphics drivers or setup. Rebooted in safe mode (keeping shift presses during boot) and finally got login screen. Once logged in, started OCLP and did post install patching OCLP listed AMD polaris and legacy wireless patches, which sounded correct and ran the patching. Rebooted and everything works now, it seems so far
I've also always had trouble doing revert root patching + install OC with proper GPU card options followed by install GPU and boot.
One might think this is same as installing OCLP onto a blank SSD prior to root patching but it is clearly behaving differently.
It is interesting you could safe boot multiple times and get it to boot up. I'll try that a few times next time I try this short cut.
I have the same clip, which kind of grabbed the chip but not quite… So I just soldered wires to the chip pins. I’m a HW guy so I had a HW solution
I’m much more comfortable with soldering iron than SW..On the hindsight if I had to do similar install in the future, I would try with just revert patching, then install the gpu and after that do the patching. Just thinking Sonoma will boot with the original 6770HD gpu without any patching (after revert patching). It looks crap and it is slow, but it boots. So it might have booted similarly with the new gpu. But the safe boot method worked as well for me.
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Dear Howard, thrills to read your post as I am aiming to upgrage my Imac 12,2 with a WX4130 to target Monterey update. If Sonoma is reacheable, even better. I have however 2 questions before moving forwardSucceeded installing AMD WX4130 in 12,2 running OCLP Sonoma on 2 different iMacs with same OEM AMD 6770M GPU. Basically same steps as my effort on M5100 in 11,1 ( post #21491 )
Sonoma Stability
Everything seems to work. Smooth and fast.
12,2 Hardware challenges
Need to remove the whole logic board to get GPU card out. 11,x was much easier. This make any GPU physical installation mistakes more cumbersome.
Flash vBIOS using GRML
Hardware Install
- Worked smoothly no problem.
- Actually tried to flash with CH341A BIOS clip. Unfortunately the ROM chip ( IS25LQ040 ) is lower profile and the flash clip could not connect properly. Someone did success but am unsure if this flash clip is higher quality ( post #21698 )
- vBIOS file per post #1
Building OCLP Installation USB
- Used a hot air station (~150c) to remove original WX4130 X bracket with small bolt threads. Used original GPU X bracket.
- Check distance from top of GPU chip to top of board. 2 iMacs had 2 different results. Maybe need to double check again in the future haha.
- iMac #1 original card ~= 2.0mm, WX4130 ~= 1.5mm so used a 0.5mm copper shim
- iMac #2 original card ~= 1.5mm. Didn't use a copper shim
- For HDD temp sensor, jumpered the HDD temp test probe point to nearby ground plane per this website
Follow the diretions in M5100 link above. Really important to have the settings correct when building the USB stick to install smoothly
Set AMD Polaris and AMD GOP Injection when building OC
View attachment 2346234
Proof of Life
View attachment 2346229
Performance and Temperature
GPU runs fairly cool and much higher performance than M5100/M4000
10min valley run reached steady state of 54/60C heatsink/GPU with MacFanControl ODD fan set to GPU heat sink temp sensor so the fan came up only to 1150rpm to help cool. Same results in both shimmed and unshimmed iMac.
View attachment 2348301
OCLP Installation
Review the OCLP Installation and macOS setup summaries from M5100 post above
Encountered a couple of issues during clean install to blank SSD
- Installation stopped in one of the reboot phases ( link ) Seen this before with OEM system OCLP install so unrelated to +metal GPU
- Nearly towards the end got a black screen for like 1 min. Shut down and boot internal SSD installation target to resume progress. The % completion screen phase started and continued to finish
1) From the different vBios, which one would you recommend to use between GOP/EG (or EG2)?
2) I assume that you have upgraded you WIFI/BT to allow Sonoma to work?
I have currently high sierra with my original 6970M. Interested into extended the life of that wonderful machine. Not interested into having windows though.
thank you.