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cyberheater

macrumors regular
Mar 31, 2010
165
20
Near Glasgow
The following is a vbios ROM for: Nvidia Quadro K610M

K610M:
MXM-A (3.0) bus interface, low powered card at TDP 30W.
It is a drop in fit for the 21.5" iMac and 27” iMac heatsinks without modification.
It is based on the GK208 GPU Kepler 2.0 architecture.
Metal supported.

I put this together only because there are now a few members on here that have one and it is relatively cheap to purchase for the moment.
It is based on Nick [D]vB's ROMs. All credit to him.
I have not had a chance to test it fully, but I can confirm brightness control will work with Opencore implementation.
Bootpicker menu is also available ofcourse.

This card should be added to our database of working GPUs.
Enjoy.
Can you tell me if you need to updated the firmware on this card or will a iMac work without it.
 

Fernando Cardone

macrumors newbie
May 22, 2020
5
0
Argentina
The following is a vbios ROM for: Nvidia Quadro K610M

K610M:
MXM-A (3.0) bus interface, low powered card at TDP 30W.
It is a drop-in fit for the 21.5" iMac and 27” iMac heatsinks.
It is based on the GK208 GPU Kepler 2.0 architecture.
Metal supported.

I put this together only because there are now a few members on here that have one and it is relatively cheap to purchase for the moment.
It is based on Nick [D]vB's ROMs. All credit to him.
I have not had a chance to test it fully, but I can confirm brightness control will work with Opencore implementation on High Sierra 10.13.6.
Bootpicker menu is also available ofcourse.

This card should be added to our database of working GPUs.
Enjoy.
I cannot thank you enough...really, I´m very gratefull in these times is gold for me.
 

strupp3003

macrumors newbie
Oct 19, 2015
7
2
Hi all,

first, thank you for this amazing thread and all the work that has gone into making our macs live a bit longer!!

I read a lot on this thread and finally decided to go for it and get my 2011 iMac 27" upgraded with a GTX 770M Card. Got one from eBay, flashed it with Nicks VBIOS (CH341a Programmer with clip - that was quite the challenge as the clip did not really fit the chip...), did the trimming on the heatsink and put it all back together. In the course I also upgraded Bluetooth and WiFi and replaced internal HDD with two SSDs (Samsung 840 Pro 256 Gb for System & 850EVO 1Tb for Data). Installed Catalina with the patcher, all good works like a charm!

I also followed @highvoltage12v 's guide to install the kexts to get sleep and airplay back - however, and that is my problem, the iMac crashes when he has been sleeping for too long or while waking up from sleep...

This is the crash report I get - can anyone point me towards the cause of this and how to solve it?
Thank you very much!!

Regards, Stephan

Edit: Forgot to mention that I have enabled FileVault - might this be (part) of the issue?

Code:
panic(cpu 6 caller 0xffffff80218652fa): Kernel trap at 0xffffff7fa506cf61, type 14=page fault, registers:
CR0: 0x000000008001003b, CR2: 0x00000000000001c0, CR3: 0x0000000025e83000, CR4: 0x00000000000626e0
RAX: 0x0000000000000000, RBX: 0xffffff8043561c00, RCX: 0x00000000ffffffef, RDX: 0x0000000000000000
RSP: 0xffffff821914bc90, RBP: 0xffffff821914bcb0, RSI: 0x00000000ffffffef, RDI: 0x0000000000000001
R8:  0x0000000000000000, R9:  0x0000000000989680, R10: 0x0000000000000000, R11: 0x0000000000000000
R12: 0xffffff80442d3001, R13: 0xffffff8043561000, R14: 0x0000000000000000, R15: 0x0000001ffffffde0
RFL: 0x0000000000010202, RIP: 0xffffff7fa506cf61, CS:  0x0000000000000008, SS:  0x0000000000000000
Fault CR2: 0x00000000000001c0, Error code: 0x0000000000000000, Fault CPU: 0x6, PL: 0, VF: 1

Backtrace (CPU 6), Frame : Return Address
0xffffff821914b6f0 : 0xffffff802173bb2b
0xffffff821914b740 : 0xffffff80218734d5
0xffffff821914b780 : 0xffffff8021864f4e
0xffffff821914b7d0 : 0xffffff80216e2a40
0xffffff821914b7f0 : 0xffffff802173b217
0xffffff821914b8f0 : 0xffffff802173b5fb
0xffffff821914b940 : 0xffffff8021ed2aa9
0xffffff821914b9b0 : 0xffffff80218652fa
0xffffff821914bb30 : 0xffffff8021864ff8
0xffffff821914bb80 : 0xffffff80216e2a40
0xffffff821914bba0 : 0xffffff7fa506cf61
0xffffff821914bcb0 : 0xffffff7fa5050df8
0xffffff821914bcf0 : 0xffffff7fa505f8d6
0xffffff821914bd40 : 0xffffff7fa50501de
0xffffff821914bd80 : 0xffffff7fa20de1fe
0xffffff821914be20 : 0xffffff7fa20ddf5c
0xffffff821914be50 : 0xffffff7fa20e4d35
0xffffff821914bee0 : 0xffffff8021e4109d
0xffffff821914bf30 : 0xffffff8021e3f9e2
0xffffff821914bf70 : 0xffffff8021e3ef6c
0xffffff821914bfa0 : 0xffffff80216e213e
      Kernel Extensions in backtrace:
         com.apple.iokit.IOGraphicsFamily(569.4)[1F9B5D88-52DB-3A16-8373-4F608A3CB2D8]@0xffffff7fa20d3000->0xffffff7fa2123fff
            dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(2.9)[ADD485B5-3EF8-37C4-B3C5-F86326E497A4]@0xffffff7fa2065000
         com.apple.driver.AppleIntelSNBGraphicsFB(10.0.4)[628D2F1C-66EC-340F-AB0A-576401250CCC]@0xffffff7fa504a000->0xffffff7fa5076fff
            dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOACPIFamily(1.4)[3D78401B-5D2D-33BC-9E41-DD2164EA874D]@0xffffff7fa2a2f000
            dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(2.9)[ADD485B5-3EF8-37C4-B3C5-F86326E497A4]@0xffffff7fa2065000
            dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOGraphicsFamily(569.4)[1F9B5D88-52DB-3A16-8373-4F608A3CB2D8]@0xffffff7fa20d3000

BSD process name corresponding to current thread: kernel_task
Boot args: -no_compat_check

Mac OS version:
19D76

Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 19.3.0: Thu Jan  9 20:58:23 PST 2020; root:xnu-6153.81.5~1/RELEASE_X86_64
Kernel UUID: A8DDE75C-CD97-3C37-B35D-1070CC50D2CE
Kernel slide:     0x0000000021400000
Kernel text base: 0xffffff8021600000
__HIB  text base: 0xffffff8021500000
System model name: iMac12,2 (Mac-942B59F58194171B)
System shutdown begun: NO
Panic diags file available: YES (0x0)

System uptime in nanoseconds: 71726991001
last loaded kext at 26841541412: >!A!BHIDKeyboard    209 (addr 0xffffff7fa4b60000, size 16384)
loaded kexts:
com.promise.r2p.icon    1.0.7
com.parrotgeek.SIPManager    1
as.vit9696.WhateverGreen    1.3.5
as.vit9696.Lilu    1.4.0
>!A!BMultitouch    97
>AudioAUUC    1.70
@fileutil    20.036.15
>AGPM    111.4.2
@filesystems.autofs    3.0
>!AMikeyHIDDriver    131
>!APolicyControl    4.7.2
>!AMikeyDriver    281.52
>!AGraphicsDevicePolicy    4.7.2
@AGDCPluginDisplayMetrics    4.7.2
>!AHV    1
>!AHDAHardwareConfigDriver    281.52
|IOUserEthernet    1.0.1
>!AUpstreamUserClient    3.6.8
>!AHDA    281.52
@GeForce    14.0.0
|IO!BSerialManager    7.0.3f5
>pmtelemetry    1
@Dont_Steal_Mac_OS_X    7.0.0
>!ASMCPDRC    1.0.0
>!A!IHD3000Graphics    10.0.4
>!ASMCLMU    212
@nvidia.NVDAStartup    14.0.0
>AGDCBacklightControl    4.7.2
>eficheck    1
>!ABacklight    180.1
>!ALPC    3.1
>!A!ISNBGraphicsFB    10.0.4
>!AFIVRDriver    4.1.0
>!A!ISlowAdaptiveClocking    4.0.0
>!AFWOHCI    5.6.2
>ACPI_SMC_PlatformPlugin    1.0.0
>!AMCCSControl    1.5.9
>!AThunderboltIP    3.1.3
|IO!BUSBDFU    7.0.3f5
>!U!SCoexistentDriver    489.80.2
>!UCardReader    489.80.2
>!AIR!C    360
@filesystems.apfs    1412.81.1
>!AFileSystemDriver    3.0.1
>!AVirtIO    1.0
@filesystems.hfs.kext    522.0.9
@!AFSCompression.!AFSCompressionTypeDataless    1.0.0d1
@BootCache    40
@!AFSCompression.!AFSCompressionTypeZlib    1.0.0
|SCSITaskUserClient    422.0.2
>AirPort.BrcmNIC    1400.1.1
|!ABCM5701Ethernet    10.3.5
>!AAHCIPort    341.0.2
@private.KextAudit    1.0
>!ARTC    2.0
>!AACPIButtons    6.1
>!AHPET    1.8
>!ASMBIOS    2.1
>!AACPIEC    6.1
>!AAPIC    1.7
>!A!ICPUPowerManagementClient    222.0.0
$!AImage4    1
@nke.applicationfirewall    303
$TMSafetyNet    8
@!ASystemPolicy    2.0.0
>!A!ICPUPowerManagement    222.0.0
|EndpointSecurity    1
>!A!BHIDKeyboard    209
>!AHIDKeyboard    209
>IO!BHIDDriver    7.0.3f5
>!AMultitouchDriver    3430.1
>!AInputDeviceSupport    3430.1
|IOFireWireIP    2.3.0
@kext.triggers    1.0
>!AGraphicsControl    4.7.2
|IOAVB!F    800.17
>DspFuncLib    281.52
@kext.OSvKernDSPLib    529
>!ASSE    1.0
|IOAccelerator!F2    438.3.1
@nvidia.driver.NVDAGK100Hal    14.0.0
@nvidia.driver.NVDAResman    14.0.0
@plugin.IOgPTPPlugin    810.1
|IOSkywalk!F    1
>!ABacklightExpert    1.1.0
|IONDRVSupport    569.4
@!AGPUWrangler    4.7.2
@!AGraphicsDeviceControl    4.7.2
|IOSlowAdaptiveClocking!F    1.0.0
>!AHDA!C    281.52
|IOHDA!F    281.52
|IOFireWire!F    4.7.5
>!ASMBusPCI    1.0.14d1
>IOPlatformPluginLegacy    1.0.0
>IOPlatformPlugin!F    6.0.0d8
>!ASMBus!C    1.0.18d1
|IOGraphics!F    569.4
>!AThunderboltEDMSink    4.2.2
|Broadcom!BHost!CUSBTransport    7.0.3f5
|IO!BHost!CUSBTransport    7.0.3f5
|IO!BHost!CTransport    7.0.3f5
|IO!B!F    7.0.3f5
|IO!BPacketLogger    7.0.3f5
|IOUSBMass!SClass    4.0.4
>usb.IOUSBHostHIDDevice    1.2
>usb.cdc    5.0.0
>usb.networking    5.0.0
>usb.!UHostCompositeDevice    1.2
>usb.!UHub    1.2
>!AXsanScheme    3
|IOAudio!F    300.2
@vecLib.kext    1.2.0
|IOSerial!F    11
@filesystems.hfs.encodings.kext    1
|IOSurface    269.6
|IOSCSIMultimediaCommandsDevice    422.0.2
|IOBD!S!F    1.8
|IODVD!S!F    1.8
|IOCD!S!F    1.8
>!AThunderboltDPOutAdapter    6.2.5
>!AThunderboltDPInAdapter    6.2.5
>!AThunderboltDPAdapter!F    6.2.5
>!AThunderboltPCIDownAdapter    2.5.4
|IOAHCISerialATAPI    268
|IOAHCIBlock!S    316.80.1
>!AThunderboltNHI    5.8.6
|IOThunderbolt!F    7.6.0
|IO80211!F    1200.12.2
>corecapture    1.0.4
|IOEthernetAVB!C    1.1.0
>mDNSOffloadUserClient    1.0.1b8
|IOAHCI!F    290.0.1
>usb.!UEHCIPCI    1.2
>usb.!UUHCIPCI    1.2
>usb.!UUHCI    1.2
>usb.!UEHCI    1.2
>usb.!UHostPacketFilter    1.0
|IOUSB!F    900.4.2
>!AEFINVRAM    2.1
>!AEFIRuntime    2.1
|IOSMBus!F    1.1
|IOHID!F    2.0.0
$quarantine    4
$sandbox    300.0
@kext.!AMatch    1.0.0d1
>DiskImages    493.0.0
>!AFDEKeyStore    28.30
>!AEffaceable!S    1.0
>!AKeyStore    2
>!UTDM    489.80.2
|IOSCSIBlockCommandsDevice    422.0.2
>!ACredentialManager    1.0
>KernelRelayHost    1
>!ASEPManager    1.0.1
>IOSlaveProcessor    1
|IOUSBMass!SDriver    157.40.7
|IOSCSIArchitectureModel!F    422.0.2
|IO!S!F    2.1
|IOUSBHost!F    1.2
>!UHostMergeProperties    1.2
>usb.!UCommon    1.0
>!ABusPower!C    1.0
|CoreAnalytics!F    1
>!AMobileFileIntegrity    1.0.5
@kext.CoreTrust    1
|IOTimeSync!F    810.1
|IONetworking!F    3.4
|IOReport!F    47
>!AACPIPlatform    6.1
>!ASMC    3.1.9
>watchdog    1
|IOPCI!F    2.9
|IOACPI!F    1.4
@kec.pthread    1
@kec.Libm    1
@kec.corecrypto    1.0
 

Ausdauersportler

macrumors 603
Nov 25, 2019
5,001
5,807
Hi all,
first, thank you for this amazing thread and all the work that has gone into making our macs live a bit longer!!

I also followed @highvoltage12v 's guide to install the kexts to get sleep and airplay back - however, and that is my problem, the iMac crashes when he has been sleeping for too long or while waking up from sleep...

Regards, Stephan
This guide @highvoltage made is known to work. You should check if you really added all the extensions and the single framework to /S/L/E and /S/L/PF - I saw recently one user tagging these files with a red color before dropping them in just to find them more easy.

Or course there are other ways...and do not mix up the single AppleIntelSNB* kext patched to work with AMD cards.

Writing this message from my 780M system known to sleep well and often :)
 
Last edited:

roscho

macrumors member
May 17, 2020
59
39
Switzerland
Too bad, at least we tried!
[automerge]1590231060[/automerge]

What could be interesting is testing this card in windows10 or a linux distribution to compare results with the ones you have on MacOS. This way we'll know if it's a software problem or a hardware problem.

I managed to run Kubuntu from a live USB stick, and as it ran quite smoothly, I resized the nasty Bootcamp partition to fit a Kubuntu 20.04 LTS installation on the SSD. Unfortunately closed AMDGPU-PRO Drivers seem not yet to be available for Ubuntu 20.04, so I tried with stock amdgpu drivers and also with the latest drivers from ppa:eek:ibaf.

What can I say?Valley Benchmark (available for Linux, too) performs somewhat better, but still not to the level I expected. and machine runs really hot on the top right back. Maybe this is also due to non-working brightness control under Kubuntu (display run at max brightness)

1590266200507.png
 
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Ausdauersportler

macrumors 603
Nov 25, 2019
5,001
5,807
I managed to run Kubuntu from a live USB stick, and as it ran quite smoothly, I resized the nasty Bootcamp partition to fit a Kubuntu 20.04 LTS installation on the SSD. Unfortunately closed AMDGPU-PRO Drivers seem not yet to be available for Ubuntu 20.04, so I tried with stock amdgpu drivers and also with the latest drivers from ppa:eek:ibaf.

What can I say?Valley Benchmark (available for Linux, too) performs somewhat better, but still not to the level I expected. and machine runs really hot on the top right back. Maybe this is also due to non-working brightness control under Kubuntu (display run at max brightness)

View attachment 918144
I assume you can’t get these values with the 300 MHz core clock. So you finally got a higher performance from this card. One could assume that some of your problems are related to the particular MacOS setup, too. Try to get Windows installed and rerun tests.
 
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nathansz

macrumors 65816
Jul 24, 2017
1,268
1,452
I also followed @highvoltage12v 's guide to install the kexts to get sleep and airplay back - however, and that is my problem, the iMac crashes when he has been sleeping for too long or while waking up from sleep...

my iMac with 770m does the same thing. it can wake from a short sleep but after 3 hours or so it will crash trying to wake. I spent a lot of time trying to troubleshoot, including doing fresh installs and carefully following @highvoltage12v guide more than once, but could never get it to work so I now just have it set to never sleep

I think it may for me be a hardware issue since the machine also will not wake from sleep in high Sierra but I've tried changing battery and switching power supply and 8 different sticks of ram and none of those solved it

I have other theories but they are pure speculation so probably not helpful
 
Last edited:

sparky720John

macrumors member
Apr 26, 2020
44
10
this may be a dumb question,

but everyone thats gotten a card working, are your processors the I7 or do we have anyone running them succesfully on an I5 processor?

if its all I7 it maybe one issue that is stopping me from getting the card to work with the power issue? I have the I5 2600s 2.7gig processor, and wonder if i can upgrade it to an I7 to make it better or if the power would change for that too?
 

RRPC

macrumors member
Mar 15, 2020
80
48
this may be a dumb question,

but everyone thats gotten a card working, are your processors the I7 or do we have anyone running them succesfully on an I5 processor?

if its all I7 it maybe one issue that is stopping me from getting the card to work with the power issue? I have the I5 2600s 2.7gig processor, and wonder if i can upgrade it to an I7 to make it better or if the power would change for that too?
Pascal have a i7 2600.With a wx7100.

And as I said. Little bit up.
Today I run a test. And the power draw from start up. (Full off)
Is 100watt. With 32gb ram, i7 2600, original GPU. And mechanical drive.

The only 2 thing that I can think of is right now.

1, The mechanical drive puls a lot of current to spin up the drive.
And maybe the wx7100 also, so the PSU shots in protect mode. Or can't provide the current. (Exceeds)

2, just faulty cards. What is odd because to me it looks like all sellers are saying, test 100% before shipping.

My best guess is. Try to boot the mac with the opencore on a SD card. An boot of that while no HDD / optical drive is connected.
If that's working. Than we can say for sure that you can only run a wx7100 if you have installed a SSD and removed the optical drive and HDD and replace it with a SSD

I also try to be certain to find the root of why some user's have luck. And some don't.
But it could be that there is a brief moment of high amps (exceeding the 29 amps maximum proving according to the writing on the PSU back.
 

sparky720John

macrumors member
Apr 26, 2020
44
10
Pascal have a i7 2600.With a wx7100.

And as I said. Little bit up.
Today I run a test. And the power draw from start up. (Full off)
Is 100watt. With 32gb ram, i7 2600, original GPU. And mechanical drive.

The only 2 thing that I can think of is right now.

1, The mechanical drive puls a lot of current to spin up the drive.
And maybe the wx7100 also, so the PSU shots in protect mode. Or can't provide the current. (Exceeds)

2, just faulty cards. What is odd because to me it looks like all sellers are saying, test 100% before shipping.

My best guess is. Try to boot the mac with the opencore on a SD card. An boot of that while no HDD / optical drive is connected.
If that's working. Than we can say for sure that you can only run a wx7100 if you have installed a SSD and removed the optical drive and HDD and replace it with a SSD

I also try to be certain to find the root of why some user's have luck. And some don't.
But it could be that there is a brief moment of high amps (exceeding the 29 amps maximum proving according to the writing on the PSU back.

I can definitely agree with you on all of that,

I have my system setup with all SSD drives, no mechanicals, only one thats mechanical is the DVD drive, but when setting it up i had everything disconnected, i followed Nicks advice to and did a simple test of pulling everything even the video card to reset the NVRAM, got the chimes, and everything no screen or video plugged in, accomplished the NVRAm reset, powered off without the heatsink or backplate to the video card I plugged it in hit the power button to fire up and nothing, a split sec of fan spin and nothing else, no post or diagnostic lights moved,

apart from the fact the seller was saying this was brand new in the advertising really does upset me that we all have to go through this to get legit working cards.
Im going to try and send this back and hope eBay will honor this or the seller will honor returning it. Im not expecting them to send me another replacement, but if they do that would be nice, or i'll get a cheaper version and see if that works.

I was hoping for AMD so that it would last longer as it seems apples turning to AMD cards
 

erihp

macrumors 6502
Apr 21, 2020
280
226
The following is a vbios ROM for: Nvidia Quadro K610M

K610M:
MXM-A (3.0) bus interface, low powered card at TDP 30W.
It is a drop-in fit for the 21.5" iMac and 27” iMac heatsinks.
It is based on the GK208 GPU Kepler 2.0 architecture.
Metal supported.

I put this together only because there are now a few members on here that have one and it is relatively cheap to purchase for the moment.
It is based on Nick [D]vB's ROMs. All credit to him.
I have not had a chance to test it fully, but I can confirm brightness control will work with Opencore implementation on High Sierra 10.13.6.
Bootpicker menu is also available ofcourse.

This card should be added to our database of working GPUs.
Enjoy.

Huuuuuge!
Many thanks!
 

roscho

macrumors member
May 17, 2020
59
39
Switzerland
I assume you can’t get these values with the 300 MHz core clock. So you finally got a higher performance from this card. One could assume that some of your problems are related to the particular MacOS setup, too. Try to get Windows installed and rerun tests.

You are right!
I checked it with phoronix-test-suite, valley and heaven monitoring clocks and temps with
watch -n 1 sudo tail -n 15 /sys/kernel/debug/dri/1/amdgpu_pm_info (watch out, the folder is 1 and not 0 as in severeral web guides, maybe due to HD2000 ?)

CPU clock rises definitely above 1000MHz.
With time, benchmark becomes choppy with dropping framerate, most likely caused by reaching the GPU thermal limit (techpowerup BIOS specs) of 90°C.

So at least for Linux performance I have to recheck thermal paste / K5 / fans to lower the temps or even try a little undervolting (GPU runs with 850mV).

As soon as this is resolved, I will head back to MacOS to see the effects...

Thanks Pascal and Ausdauersportler!
 
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MikkelF

macrumors newbie
May 22, 2020
20
3
You cannot install and inject at the same time, boot will fail. This is true for other extensions, too.
I never mixed install and OC injection of the same kexts.
But right after the GPU conversion the system wouldn't boot. Then I disabled Lilu+WEG in OC and everything was fine.
Because of this I thougnt that the warning against Lilu+WEG were more general.
Then during this debate I re-enabled them and everything was still fine so it was probably just a coincidence.

Please make a signature and add your hardware and software config - it is a pain getting all info from a bunch of pictures from several posts distributed over a lot of pages...
Roger on the Signature

Correct permissions on AppleGVA: (It cannot hurts)
sudo chmod -R 755 /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/AppleGVA.framework (THEN ENTER)
sudo chown -R 0:0 /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/AppleGVA.framework (THEN ENTER)

Reboot.

Well it works now...somehow it startet working after the 5th consecutive reboot.
But may I ask to the meaning of the snb-platform-id...it's the framebuffer, right?
I've found websites suggesting 10000300 for desktops and 00000100 for laptops.
What exactly does it mean to when the value is 3000030?
 

stephengrenfell

macrumors member
May 2, 2020
45
25
France
I have my system setup with all SSD drives, no mechanicals, only one thats mechanical is the DVD drive, but when setting it up i had everything disconnected, i followed Nicks advice to and did a simple test of pulling everything even the video card to reset the NVRAM, got the chimes, and everything no screen or video plugged in, accomplished the NVRAm reset, powered off without the heatsink or backplate to the video card I plugged it in hit the power button to fire up and nothing, a split sec of fan spin and nothing else, no post or diagnostic lights moved,

I had the same symptom with a GTX780m. Plugged it in, 1st diagnostic led lights up, hit the power button and nothing, just a split sec of fan spin and nothing else, no other LEDs lit up". But for me an external screen worked fine. I took it apart several times to check GPU card seated correct etc.. but always the same. Original HD6790m (after being baked in the oven) worked fine.

Otherwise wrt wx7100 and why some have success others don't.

If there is problem caused by a brief moment of high amps, maybe not all PSU / on board voltage regulation on logic board, can cope with this due to aging of components etc.. , some components age better than others….

Different PSU may show up something or not. Voltages for logic circuitry (incl GPU card) are regulated on the logic board and there are separate voltage regulation for different parts of the logic board, so reducing SATA devices power draw may throw up something or not.

To reduce power drawn from logic voltages supply. If you have not already tried. Try with minimum memory slots occupied and minimum USB power usage (i.e. powered hub if using external HDD).

Hope it helps.
 

Pascal Baillargeau

macrumors 6502
Mar 4, 2019
342
304
France
You are right!
I checked it with phoronix-test-suite, valley and heaven monitoring clocks and temps with
watch -n 1 sudo tail -n 15 /sys/kernel/debug/dri/1/amdgpu_pm_info (watch out, the folder is 1 and not 0 as in severeral web guides, maybe due to HD2000 ?)

CPU clock rises definitely above 1000MHz.
With time, benchmark becomes choppy with dropping framerate, most likely caused by reaching the GPU thermal limit (techpowerup BIOS specs) of 90°C.

So at least for Linux performance I have to recheck thermal paste / K5 / fans to lower the temps or even try a little undervolting (GPU runs with 850mV).

As soon as this is resolved, I will head back to MacOS to see the effects...

Thanks Pascal and Ausdauersportler!
It's a good news, it's not a hardware problem.

(I think you mean 'GPU clock')

Avoid to reach the GPU thermal limit is necessary here. As heat build up GPU throttle down trying to stay within power limits and animation become choppy, stuttering. I changed thermal paste two times before succeeding to avoid this problem.
Be sure to put K5 generously to fill the gaps between ram chips, VRM chips and heatsink. For the GPU thermal paste i ended up using GC-extreme Gelid, which works very well. Grizzly’s Kryonaut paste is recommended too on first post.
To be short, especially with these cards (WX7100, GTX780M) we need to evacuate the more heat we can.

On software side, with Macs Fan Control, for instance, you can index HDD and ODD fans on GPU heatsink readings.
[automerge]1590307940[/automerge]
Well it works now...somehow it startet working after the 5th consecutive reboot.
But may I ask to the meaning of the snb-platform-id...it's the framebuffer, right?
I've found websites suggesting 10000300 for desktops and 00000100 for laptops.
What exactly does it mean to when the value is 3000030?
It's a headless framebuffer.
 

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Pascal Baillargeau

macrumors 6502
Mar 4, 2019
342
304
France
Just a thought, about shorts.
Be sure back of the graphic card is electrically isolated from backplate. Better to say it twice than not saying it. :)
 

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MikkelF

macrumors newbie
May 22, 2020
20
3
You're right, i have not tried...
Ok, now I have tried....before with 30000300 I got 980/23.4 FPS in valley bench.

With snb=00000500 H.264 appear to be supported but the Valley benchmark hangs half way through.
No errors were reported in the GVA debugger and GPU was still at 100 % although the benchmark was stuck.
(This happened 3 times in a row and I did not reboot between these 3 tries but of course I rebooted whenever changing snb).

Then I tried 10000300 (not headless). That also worked, I got 1232/29.4 FPS.
Then reverted back to 3000300 and got a similar 29,9/1253 in the benchmark

All in all a bit confusing...in all cases GPU usage was about 100 % and CPU roughly 20 % during the test.
I would have liked to bring back som conclusive results but I gess the only thing to learn is that there are still many unknowns.

Thank you guys for helping out and making this conversion possible :)
 

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Vego17

macrumors newbie
May 8, 2020
18
10
Not a good sign. I had a brief discussion with @Ooze, who explained that he had the same problems when he attempted the first boots with the wx7100. So couple of tips he gave me based on his experience. (I know that some might have had an easier journey with the card)

1. NVRAM reset while you have a working computer. That is before tou disadsemble to put the WX7100 in.

2. SMC resets - several of them - take the plug out for long time (over night even - I am not sure if that is going to really help but he explained that eventually was able to turn the iMac on after several attempts of these attempts)

3. Use only one RAM stick - this should probably be done on the board recommended slot (I still did not search which one should it be but usually boards have slot recommendations for one, two or 3 slots.

4. Use only one drive (preferably SSD) in SATA 0 position - disconnect all other storage devices. ooze did it with Windows but I cannot say if that makes a difference.

5. Make absolutely sure there is no short on the heatsink. (My experience with 4170 taught me to use a little bit of electrical tape on the components left of the GPU when looking at it from the top.

Don’t give up. Specially with the resets and taking the cable out. It should be that once you will be able to start it will remain stable.

One more thing. Ooze was starting with Dell vbios (one that came with the card and remoted in to flash). I believe that once you are able to boot with the card in, it should be fairly easy to progress.

I am still waiting for my card replacement so will do all these things later. Holding fingers crossed for you.

Just did everything from the list and still no results. It's just like the imac don't want to accept the GPU no matter what, which is really weird if you consider that it starts even without gpu connected, but it doesn't with it inside, like
a donor rejecting an organ.

Tomorrow I will try to restore original bios and try again, if that doesn't work I will just leave the imac without plugging it for few days and try to launch it, as from my experience with laptops sometimes the things like "laptop doesn't start after tearing apart" etc. tend to repair themselves with time, you just left broken laptop on the counter without battery, then suddenly after few days you put battery in and it works.


Just a thought, about shorts.
Be sure back of the graphic card is electrically isolated from backplate. Better to say it twice than not saying it. :)
I've tried to run the gpu with old black isolation, or even without the backplate, with black tape etc and it sadly doesn't change anything (at least in my case).
 
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Ausdauersportler

macrumors 603
Nov 25, 2019
5,001
5,807
my iMac with 770m does the same thing. it can wake from a short sleep but after 3 hours or so it will crash trying to wake. I spent a lot of time trying to troubleshoot, including doing fresh installs and carefully following @highvoltage12v guide more than once, but could never get it to work so I now just have it set to never sleep

I think it may for me be a hardware issue since the machine also will not wake from sleep in high Sierra but I've tried changing battery and switching power supply and 8 different sticks of ram and none of those solved it

I have other theories but they are pure speculation so probably not helpful
The one situation where I did not get the machine to sleep was using a damaged 780M. When installing the card everything went fine on the external display. Problems came up when checking it with the internal LCD installed (low benchmarks), no sleep, and finally after a while it did not work with the internal LCD at all. So you may face a situation in the middle of my short journey with this card? Later @snam11 found out by visual inspection that my card is missing some caps on the GPU and on the backside...

Probably the best way to do an graphics card change is to update the MacOS to High Sierra including the latest patches and firmware updates until you get into a state where the (old) system using the original graphics adapter is running stable. Check out all features like sleep, etc.

You should also be able and willing to do a SMC reset and a PRAM reset, probably before installing the new card. I do it rarely, but sometimes it is necessary.

Then you change the graphics adapter and check it. Spend time on the hardware installation, especially on the heat sink preparation avoiding any contact of components and the sink. You need probably use the grinder/dremel more than you like. Having a badly installed card will make all you efforts going south...

High Sierra should boot, sleep should work out of the box, now run benchmarks and compare results with others published here.

In this scenario you can easily identify problems caused by a defective graphics card or a bad installation. Low benchmarks, boot issues, not detected cards, no sleeping, and more.

When you are sure to have a fully working card with High Sierra you can move on to install Mojave or Catalina and OpenCore, if necessary.
 
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