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iM 4,1-14,4 2011 iMac Graphics Card 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.
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Fl0r!an

macrumors 6502a
Aug 14, 2007
909
530
A ROM dump of this card would be interesting. Easiest way should be GPUZ in Windows via VNC.
 
Kamionist

Kamionist

macrumors newbie
Dec 5, 2015
12
3
Will do in couple hours.

Is there any special firmware, driver, update, patch, config, kext or something that I should also try?
 
Y

yifuhood

macrumors member
Nov 3, 2014
75
16
I have seen your post , but i Do not know anything about Quadro K3000M , this is really out of the box. even 680m 780m dose not work well . what about k4100m
 
F

Fl0r!an

macrumors 6502a
Aug 14, 2007
909
530
Look up the device ID of your R9 card (e.g. System profiler in OS X or GPUZ in Windows). If the device ID is missing in the drivers, it won't load. In this case, you'd have to add it to the AMD kext plists (AMD7000Controller and X4000). To do this, you'll have to disable rootless and repair file permissions (afterwards).

On Windows I'm not sure, I think it should always give you at least basic video output... Did you do a EFI install of Windows? In this case it might not like the combination of a Mac EFI system and a PC EFI video card (not sure about this).
 
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Kamionist

Kamionist

macrumors newbie
Dec 5, 2015
12
3
Thanks, will do.

I have not touched EFI in any way before the unsuccessful upgrade other than installing "iMac EFI Firmware Update 1.9".
Windows 7 was installed using Bootcamp on OS X Lion years ago, later I've added SSD with fresh El Captain and formatted the original HDD.
 
Kamionist

Kamionist

macrumors newbie
Dec 5, 2015
12
3
Fl0r!an said:
Look up the device ID of your R9 card (e.g. System profiler in OS X or GPUZ in Windows). If the device ID is missing in the drivers, it won't load. In this case, you'd have to add it to the AMD kext plists (AMD7000Controller and X4000). To do this, you'll have to disable rootless and repair file permissions (afterwards).

On Windows I'm not sure, I think it should always give you at least basic video output... Did you do a EFI install of Windows? In this case it might not like the combination of a Mac EFI system and a PC EFI video card (not sure about this).
Click to expand...

Okay, I guess this is pretty bad. No graphics card has been detected in OSX and it took about 1 minute to load both windows.

Now trying Windows 7.

EDIT: attached GPU-Z xml dump

EDIT 2: attached GPU-Z screenshot

EDIT 3: just out of curiosity I tried playing Fallout 4 over TeamViewer, and it does run quite well :-D ... stable 40-50 fps on medium, HD6970 1GB had 20 on lowest.
 

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F

Fl0r!an

macrumors 6502a
Aug 14, 2007
909
530
Okay, so Windows recognizes the card properly but doesn't give any display output, right? Did you check external ports?

On the OS X side, I think the device ID might be missing (0x6801) in the drivers. I'll verify this when I'm home, currently don't have access to any Macs. Adding the device ID would likely enable the card but won't give any output, like in Windows.
Can you do a BIOS dump with GPU-Z?
 
Kamionist

Kamionist

macrumors newbie
Dec 5, 2015
12
3
Yes, it looks like if display was not even connected to motherboard.

Today I'll do the BIOS dump and try external ports.
 
M

madeirabhoy

macrumors 68000
Oct 26, 2012
1,612
558
Meleeman777 said:
Alright guys so I got no help from this forum and I have to say this: I got a cheaper card working in Yosemite and it's a DDR5 MXM-A video card. It's the Dell Quadro K3000M 2GB DDR5 vRAM that I picked up for $50 on eBay. It works perfectly, no additional drivers needed (web drivers might make it more badass cuz it's the Quadro Series) and it's solid! Installation was standard and I need to put a bit more thermal paste before I run games on this bad boy but other than that, she's solid. Thanks for no help but I'll help everyone with that i can.
Click to expand...


any idea why this card is so cheap through one vendor on ebay? its not you is it :)
weird amazon and all sellers on ebay are charging a couple of hundred euros for it, and there's one seller selling them refurbished for 50-70.
 
Kamionist

Kamionist

macrumors newbie
Dec 5, 2015
12
3
Fl0r!an said:
Okay, so Windows recognizes the card properly but doesn't give any display output, right? Did you check external ports?

On the OS X side, I think the device ID might be missing (0x6801) in the drivers. I'll verify this when I'm home, currently don't have access to any Macs. Adding the device ID would likely enable the card but won't give any output, like in Windows.
Can you do a BIOS dump with GPU-Z?
Click to expand...

Here's BIOS dump from GPU-Z attached.


I've tried external connections without any luck. Used ThunderBolt to VGA and HDMI adapters with Dell monitor - it didn't even recognise any input, as if the video cables were unplugged. Nothing happened.

Also tried Target Display Mode with old MacBook late 2008 and new MacBook Pro early 2015 using ThunderBolt and old MDP cables with the same outcome. Nothing happened, no device recognised.


I guess this is just a pure hardware issue where no driver/firmware modification would help.
 

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Fl0r!an

macrumors 6502a
Aug 14, 2007
909
530
Okay, your card's vBIOS has 5 connectors defined. One is unknown (maybe but in the vBIOS?!), the others are: 1x DP, 2x HDMI, 1x VGA.
Not quite surprising that it doesn't work, Apple is using DisplayPort only (Apples MXM HD 6970m has 1x eDP, 4x DP, 1x VGA defined in vBIOS).

Btw, OS X does know the device ID, it's correctly listed as Pitcairn GPU (which your R9 is). Not sure why it doesn't recognize the card, usually the AMD drivers should pick it up.
 
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scepternetworks

macrumors newbie
Dec 8, 2015
6
0
I have just come into possession of an a1311 mid 2010 21.5" i3 imac and the gpu is dead. It's got a 4670 in it currently. I tried the solder reflow method and that failed so I'm after another card. I have a couple questions regarding replacing the card with a non-efi card.
a) the mac hdd is currently running windows only - that's the way it came to me. I intend to put things right again. If I get a non-efi card, will I be able to install osx onto this machine at all? Or would I be left to finding a drive to clone?

b) for the "as cheap as possible" route, would an mxm 3.0a card such as from an Acer notebook (ATI 4670, same as stock I guess except no EFI) http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mobility-Ra...hash=item2a5d147b16:m:mZhPz9bzr6US7LhNJtvHDMA or even an HP nvs 5100 card work? http://www.ebay.ca/itm/HP-Compaq-59...436118?hash=item1c4f795596:g:0KsAAOxyHjxR6HFr

I'd like to give this Mac as a Christmas gift to a friend in need but as I say, I'm looking for the cheapest option not the highest performance.
 
Y

yifuhood

macrumors member
Nov 3, 2014
75
16
scepternetworks said:
I have just come into possession of an a1311 mid 2010 21.5" i3 imac and the gpu is dead. It's got a 4670 in it currently. I tried the solder reflow method and that failed so I'm after another card. I have a couple questions regarding replacing the card with a non-efi card.
a) the mac hdd is currently running windows only - that's the way it came to me. I intend to put things right again. If I get a non-efi card, will I be able to install osx onto this machine at all? Or would I be left to finding a drive to clone?

b) for the "as cheap as possible" route, would an mxm 3.0a card such as from an Acer notebook (ATI 4670, same as stock I guess except no EFI) http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mobility-Ra...hash=item2a5d147b16:m:mZhPz9bzr6US7LhNJtvHDMA or even an HP nvs 5100 card work? http://www.ebay.ca/itm/HP-Compaq-59...436118?hash=item1c4f795596:g:0KsAAOxyHjxR6HFr

I'd like to give this Mac as a Christmas gift to a friend in need but as I say, I'm looking for the cheapest option not the highest performance.
Click to expand...
Radeon HD4670 should do the job, but one thing you should know, if its not a apple video card it may have problem with the driver, Dell usually works better with apple Products
 
S

scepternetworks

macrumors newbie
Dec 8, 2015
6
0
yifuhood said:
I donot think so. EFI partition is a must . There is 200mb EFI partition in Mac OS X disks for firmware update. Never tried, I think not. Is that what u r taking about ?
Click to expand...

No, I am speaking of the lack of the apple logo on boot prior to loading the o/s. Will a bootable installer disk or web install come up without a proper mac rom'd card?
 
mhafeez

mhafeez

macrumors regular
Oct 30, 2013
103
56
scepternetworks said:
No, I am speaking of the lack of the apple logo on boot prior to loading the o/s. Will a bootable installer disk or web install come up without a proper mac rom'd card?
Click to expand...

Bootable installer disk or web install options are not available when using non-Apple graphic cards. I have tested mine.
 
P

pgleesonuk

macrumors newbie
Mar 8, 2012
10
1
I have performed this upgrade, and I now have a HD 6970M 2GB in my Late 2009 iMac 27"
It all seems to work well in windows and OSX. But I have a few questions.

I no longer see a GPU Diode temperature reading. Is this normal?

Using GPU-Z in windows it seems the GPU dramatically reduces the clock speed (900 to 15) is the GPU temp reaches 85c . Is this normal?

I have installed the heatsink using arctic silver compound, but I do have a temperature difference between the GPU Diode (reported by GPU-Z) and the GPU Heatsink (reported by MacFansControl) of ~10c. Is this normal?

Thanks for any information you can give me.

Also, what piece of software produces the list of temperatures from the menu bar?

Regards

Paul
 

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ivoruest

ivoruest

macrumors 6502
Jul 12, 2010
398
28
Guatemala
pgleesonuk said:
The second picture is not from my machine. It's a picture of some monitoring software, which I'm trying to find the name of.

Thanks, Paul
Click to expand...

Did you take both pictures at the same time? If so, and you're still getting throttling then you may want to re install the card along with the heatsink.

Also, there are some guys that can help with some software mods you may have to work on.
 
P

pgleesonuk

macrumors newbie
Mar 8, 2012
10
1
ivoruest said:
Did you take both pictures at the same time? If so, and you're still getting throttling then you may want to re install the card along with the heatsink.

Also, there are some guys that can help with some software mods you may have to work on.
Click to expand...


This picture on the right is taken from a picture earlier in the thread. Ignore that fact the numbers don't match.
I only want to know the name of the software that displays the temperatures from the menu bar. like in the picture.
 
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