Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Status
The first post of this thread is a WikiPost and can be edited by anyone with the appropiate permissions. Your edits will be public.

KennyW

macrumors 6502
Sep 5, 2007
452
389
The GPU die temperature sensor problem!
You all know that none of the modifies BIOS versions for the Metal GPUs listed in the table on page #1 is able to provide the internal GPU temperature back correctly to by used by the iMacs internal Apple SMC software to control the (ODD) fan according to the GPU internal temperature.

To address this issue we recommended strongly to use a free software called Macs Fan Control.

A different solution has been described several times now and last week and was in the mood to reopen my iMacs again and did this simple mod.

I (carefully) separated the ODD temp sensor using my finger nails and placed it on the back side off the GPU sink (side by side with the sink temperature sensor). Then I used a simple and cheap two component epoxy alike glue and fixed the little sensor. During the first experimental phase I used just a 3M or Tesa strip to hold the sensor in place.

Just cut off the two cables in the near the sensor and exchange the cable ends with the plugs connecting the same colors simply together (grey to grey and black to black). So you can easily connect the original heat sink sensor to the ODD connector in the logic board and vice versa.

Doing this you have a working fan control again even when doing system upgrades or during the start phase. As you may have noticed the Macs Fan Control used before is a user land application and it is only working after primary login to your account.

I attached some pictures showing the Macs Fan Control in automatic (i.e. SMC) mode under full Valley load (WX4170) and the hardware mod.

Note:
Please use Macs Fan Control (or a similar software) in any case as a fall back if the replaced internal sensor fails of the glue does not hold it properly. It is a nice tool to monitor what is going on internally.
Very smart move šŸ‘

Tonight when I was rearranging all the cables inside my iMac, I saw the ODD sensor cable now attaching to the back of the case without much function and thus use heat tape to attach it to the X-brace of the card back. But your idea is much better :)
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ausdauersportler

sergiodadi

macrumors member
Jan 23, 2020
58
79
Nice, France
Hello,

Thanks everyone for all the posts in this thread. Here a abstract of what i have done to change my graphic card for my Imac 27 " mi 2011:

I have buy a Dell AMD card WX4130:

43 new card.jpeg

44 new card.jpeg


I disassemble my Imac:


20-2 Changement disque 4 To - 2.jpeg

I change the graphic card:

25 demontage.jpeg

47 pate thermique.jpeg


I add a piece of copper between the core and the heatsink.

As @KennyW , I removed the LCD panel, disconnected all internal SSDs, connected the Linux Flash USB drive to one of the USB port, and the miniDisplayPort to an external monitor , to my surprise, the external monitor lighted up with the Linux OS.
I flash the card:

48 VBIOS old.jpeg


49VBIOS flash.jpeg


Here is the "About display" under High Sierra:
42 About new card sous High Sierra.jpeg

After the change of graphic card, i upgrade from High Sierra to Catalina with dosdude1 patch and Catalina Loader 0.6.2
81 Catalian  patcher .jpeg

Here is the "About display" under Catalina:

80 About Catalina.jpeg

Next project: try Big Sur on a test USB SSD drive ;)

Thanks @Ausdauersportler @dosdude1

Version en franƧais sur un forum franƧais ici :)

Best regards,
 
Last edited:

KennyW

macrumors 6502
Sep 5, 2007
452
389
Tonight also explore another AMD card, the RX480 4GB.
The card component layout looked the same as the WX7100.
Confirmed that there is NO need to do any heatsink modification to hold the card, except for the need of a copper plate over the GPU for better temperature coupling with the 3-pipe heatsink.

Like my prior WX4130, it can boot directly into Catalina to external display WITHOUT flashing with the aid of the OpenCore Catalina Loader. Full metal support and Hardware acceleration in VideoProc are also present. It runs hot, probably at full speed without downclock to control its power consumption. It is recognized as RX580 with the WX4130 config.plist.

RX480 pre-flash.png

It was then flashed with the WX7100_GOP_4GB.ROM by the Linux Flash USB drive. I change the conflg to WX7100 in OpenCore Loader. It is shown as RX470. Strange.

RX480 post-flash.png

Is there a way to show the correct chipset of RX480 and how ?
Is it only a cosmetic issue or would it affect the graphic card detection in games or the like ?

Benchmark:

RX480 metal.png

RX480 opengl.png

Almost twice the metal score of WX4130 but comparable OpenGL performance.

Cheerio.
 
Last edited:

Ausdauersportler

macrumors 603
Nov 25, 2019
5,000
5,804
Someone has tried a CPU benchmark with Mojave, Catalina, Big Sur OS?

I've this result on my iMac 27" 2011 i7-2600 3.4Ghz on Catalina (and also Big Sur).

View attachment 1669289

From Geekbench results seems very poor compared to original iMac 2011 i7 benchmark.

So I'm try to understand if my CPU is a bit tired šŸ˜„ or can be a normal result on non "typical" OS.

Thanks for report :)
Measure the real time, do not watch the numbers. And it is off topic :)
 

Ausdauersportler

macrumors 603
Nov 25, 2019
5,000
5,804
Hi everyone! Has someone got a success with fixing backlight stepping in Big Sur?
This was the third or fourth time you asked this and you still ignore all answers:

Please use the micro patcher to install Big Sur on you iMac 2011, the fix has been included there.
Alternatively you may read the post where you got the K3100M BIOS from and do the fix yourself.
 

Ausdauersportler

macrumors 603
Nov 25, 2019
5,000
5,804
Hello,

on my Imac 27 " mi 2011 I have changed my graphic card with a Dell WX4130 an I have installed Catalina with Catalina Loader 0.6.2 , all is OK (you can see my post here) and SIP is disabled.

Now , I try to install Big Sur on a SSD USB disk with micropatcher.

I create the USB key without error message with the last Big Sur package:

View attachment 1670465

View attachment 1670466

View attachment 1670469

When I boot (with my SD card "Catalina loader 0.6.2"), i have the 2 icons "Install macOS Big Sur" and "EFI Boot". I select the "EFI Boot" and the iMac power down .

I reboot and i select the "Install macOS Big Sur" and i have the prohibited/no-entry sign (circle with a line). As described, i try 4 or 5 times to reboot with "EFi Boot" but each time after, I have the prohibited/no-entry sign for "Install macOS Big Sur".

do i have to reboot efi more times or does anyone have an idea of the problem ?

Thank you for your help,

Serge
THIS IS OFF TOPIC HERE - please, please use the correct thread and do not clutter the GPU one with Big Sur installer problems.

Try to use another config.plist (NVIDIA) on the Catalina Loader and move possible on to 0.6.3. This will give you the boot screen, but does not spoof the iMacPro1,1 ID. You can change back to the AMD config after installation and patching, in fact you have to change back or there will be no screen output.

EDIT:
I have flashed all my AMD systems with EG BIOS versions to have the native EFI boot screen on a second display. This makes all installation issues disappear. The OC emulated boot screen caused so many problems while doing initial tests with the Big Sur installer.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Nguyen Duc Hieu

sergiodadi

macrumors member
Jan 23, 2020
58
79
Nice, France
THIS IS OFF TOPIC HERE - please, please use the correct thread and do not clutter the GPU one with Big Sur installer problems.

Try to use another config.plist (NVIDIA) on the Catalina Loader and move possible in to 0.6.3. This will give you the boot screen, but does not spoof the iMacPro1,1 ID. You can change back to the AMD config after installation and patching, in fact you have to change back or there will be no screen output.
EDIT : Sorry, I will repost my question and your answer to the good thread and after i will delete the bad post on this thread
 
Last edited:

tuzmaster

macrumors newbie
Aug 4, 2020
14
13
Russia
This was the third or fourth time you asked this and you still ignore all answers:

Please use the micro patcher to install Big Sur on you iMac 2011, the fix has been included there.
Alternatively you may read the post where you got the K3100M BIOS from and do the fix yourself.

Excuse me, but I've done every step from the tutorial and no luck. Please check my terminal window, have you any ideas?

Š”Š½ŠøŠ¼Š¾Šŗ эŠŗрŠ°Š½Š° 2020-11-17 Š² 17.51.48.png
 
  • Like
Reactions: iPlasm

Ausdauersportler

macrumors 603
Nov 25, 2019
5,000
5,804
1st:
You ran this patch-kext.sh obviously command several times, this is not a good idea. To revert to the original state if something has happened use the patch-kext.sh -u and then patch again.

2nd:
There is an obvious error within the patch-kext.sh script and you can even read it:
INSTALL_BACKLIGHT: command not found.

Solution: Wait until micro patcher 0.5.2 has been released or use the attached corrected version or edit patch-kext.sh and replace line 692 with this line

Code:
            INSTALL_BACKLIGHT="YES"

3rd:
Use this thread for Big Sur questions, this is surely not about the GPU....

EDIT:

Attached you will find the latest version of the patch-kext.sh and two experimental (not mandatory) new add ons to be saved into the kexts folder on you Big Sur USB installer.
 

Attachments

  • patch-kexts.sh.zip
    10.4 KB · Views: 92
  • CoreBrightness.framework.zip
    697.8 KB · Views: 104
  • AppleGVA.framework.zip
    1.9 MB · Views: 78
Last edited:

KennyW

macrumors 6502
Sep 5, 2007
452
389
I look into the original BIOS of the RX480 mobile (R9 M480), which should be a Polaris10 GPU. However, it got a Polaris20 GPU vBIOS and displayed as RX580 mobile, a Polaris20 GPU ! That seems strange to me for the changing identity of the GPU. The no. of pipelines (shaders) for both RX580M and RX480M is 2304.

The new mac vBIOS adapted from WX7100, a Polaris12 GPU, turned the RX480 mobile into a RX470 mobile, which is also a Polaris10 Pro GPU but with reduced pipeline of 2048. I guess the reduction in power consumption of the GPU is achieved via probably a reduction of the active pipelines as well as lowering the core frequency +/- memory speed. Just curious on that.

The WX4130 is based on either the Polaris10/20 with 640 shaders, like the older RX450.
The WX4150 is based on either the Polaris11/21 with 896 shaders, like the older RX460.
The WX7100 is based on either the Polaris10/20 with 2304 shaders, like the older RX480 or the newer RX580.

Just some info I dig from Internet. For some unknown reason, my RX480 card after flashing is recognized as RX470 instead of RX580 which was shown in the attached pictures of the mac vBIOS in the initial post.

P.S. My further research revealed that the RX480 is so close to the RX580 that people have found ways to flash the former to the latter for sale. That may be why the card got the RX580 BIOS before my flashing.
 
Last edited:

Ausdauersportler

macrumors 603
Nov 25, 2019
5,000
5,804
I look into the original BIOS of the RX480 mobile (R9 M480), which should be a Polaris10 GPU. However, it got a Polaris20 GPU vBIOS and displayed as RX580 mobile, a Polaris20 GPU ! That seems strange to me for the changing identity of the GPU. The no. of pipelines (shaders) for both RX580M and RX480M is 2304.

The new mac vBIOS adapted from WX7100, a Polaris12 GPU, turned the RX480 mobile into a RX470 mobile, which is also a Polaris10 Pro GPU but with reduced pipeline of 2048. I guess the reduction in power consumption of the GPU is achieved via probably a reduction of the active pipelines as well as lowering the core frequency +/- memory speed. Just curious on that.

The WX4130 is based on either the Polaris10/20 with 640 shaders, like the older RX450.
The WX4150 is based on either the Polaris11/21 with 896 shaders, like the older RX460.
The WX7100 is based on either the Polaris10/20 with 2304 shaders, like the older RX480 or the newer RX580.

Just some info I dig from Internet. For some unknown reason, my RX480 card after flashing is recognized as RX470 instead of RX580 which was shown in the attached pictures of the mac vBIOS in the initial post.
Please give @internetzel time to fix this. We are aware of the differences.

There are really more important developments on the table right now. But I can tell you that my RX480 did not run with higher core/memory frequency - crash on boot. We tried this ...

The current WX4130 BIOS enables all 896 shaders and the is the reason why you see no or only a small difference compared to the WX4150.
 

internetzel

macrumors 6502a
Apr 29, 2015
591
757
I look into the original BIOS of the RX480 mobile (R9 M480), which should be a Polaris10 GPU. However, it got a Polaris20 GPU vBIOS and displayed as RX580 mobile, a Polaris20 GPU ! That seems strange to me for the changing identity of the GPU. The no. of pipelines (shaders) for both RX580M and RX480M is 2304.

The new mac vBIOS adapted from WX7100, a Polaris12 GPU, turned the RX480 mobile into a RX470 mobile, which is also a Polaris10 Pro GPU but with reduced pipeline of 2048. I guess the reduction in power consumption of the GPU is achieved via probably a reduction of the active pipelines as well as lowering the core frequency +/- memory speed. Just curious on that.

The WX4130 is based on either the Polaris10/20 with 640 shaders, like the older RX450.
The WX4150 is based on either the Polaris11/21 with 896 shaders, like the older RX460.
The WX7100 is based on either the Polaris10/20 with 2304 shaders, like the older RX480 or the newer RX580.

Just some info I dig from Internet. For some unknown reason, my RX480 card after flashing is recognized as RX470 instead of RX580 which was shown in the attached pictures of the mac vBIOS in the initial post.
I'll be working on the RX480 VBIOS soonā„¢.
But I'll stay with the WX4150 for "development" because it's much easier to revive the iMac when bricked by a faulty VBIOS on that card model.

You can verify the number of active shaders (and core and memory frequencies) when booting into windows and running GPU-Z there. But you'd probably have to flash a GOP VBIOS in order to get the Windows AMD drivers working.
 

Rassmusen

macrumors newbie
May 19, 2020
10
8
Hi

I do not understand this post. After GPU swap I can install High Sierra all the time on any modded iMacs using my prepared USB installer.

But in most case I am going straight ahead to Catalina and now Big Sur all the time...

What is difficult to achieve or watch is the iMac firmware upgrade without the Apple GPU since the very special EFI code showing this on screen does not exist on the new VBIOS of the Kepler or Polaris cards. But it works in general with a mainly black screen causing a load beep tone at the end. Just give it some time and most importantly install all High Sierra upgrades, the firmware upgrade is included in these updates, not in the base installer.
Just to report I was successful in installing HS and then it installed the 2020 security update which got me the new firmware 87.0.0.0.0. I had to completely rebuild the USB drive to resolve whatever was causing the no boot situation. The firmware update did show on-screen even with my upgraded 860m with new BIOS so was never an issue of a black screen. Once I got the firmware updated the Big Sur install went without a hitch. Posting from it now. Thanks for all the replies and for keeping me motivated to try again.
 

tuzmaster

macrumors newbie
Aug 4, 2020
14
13
Russia
1st:
You ran this patch-kext.sh obviously command several times, this is not a good idea. To revert to the original state if something has happened use the patch-kext.sh -u and then patch again.

2nd:
There is an obvious error within the patch-kext.sh script and you can even read it:
INSTALL_BACKLIGHT: command not found.

Solution: Wait until micro patcher 0.5.2 has been released or use the attached corrected version or edit patch-kext.sh and replace line 692 with this line

Code:
            INSTALL_BACKLIGHT="YES"

3rd:
Use this thread for Big Sur questions, this is surely not about the GPU....
OMG!!! It's working now!!! Finally!!! God bless you man))
 

AppleNL

macrumors newbie
Nov 17, 2020
2
3
Hi guys first time posting on this forum. I've been checking this thread for a long time now. Its really amazing that we are now able to replace the problematic Radeon videocards! Almost ready to purchase a new Nvidia Kepler card. I noticed that on the ROM posts for the K3100M and K4100M a Vbios is mentioned. Is it really necessary that a GPU card needs to have this same Vbios in order to get it work on my iMac 2011?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ausdauersportler

Ausdauersportler

macrumors 603
Nov 25, 2019
5,000
5,804
Hi guys first time posting on this forum. I've been checking this thread for a long time now. Its really amazing that we are now able to replace the problematic Radeon videocards! Almost ready to purchase a new Nvidia Kepler card. I noticed that on the ROM posts for the K3100M and K4100M a Vbios is mentioned. Is it really necessary that a GPU card needs to have this same Vbios in order to get it work on my iMac 2011?
Possibly you missed the main point, this is all about creating the correct BIOS for those cards. Check the first post, again! Each card has itā€˜s own BIOS.
 

AppleNL

macrumors newbie
Nov 17, 2020
2
3
Possibly you missed the main point, this is all about creating the correct BIOS for those cards. Check the first post, again! Each card has itā€˜s own BIOS.
I am well aware that the BIOS need to be changed, I however thought that there are different kinds of K3100M cards as the ROM post specifically mentioned the vBios:

- GPU Variant: N15E-Q1-A2
Dell K3100M vbios: 80.04.B0.00.0A
HP K3100M vbios: 80.04.CD.00.0A. PN: 744354-001

Because of this I thought the card originally needed to have this vBIOS. But I now understand that this is not necessary.
 
Last edited:

Pascal Baillargeau

macrumors 6502
Mar 4, 2019
342
304
France
Tonight also explore another AMD card, the RX480 4GB.
The card component layout looked the same as the WX7100.
Confirmed that there is NO need to do any heatsink modification to hold the card, except for the need of a copper plate over the GPU for better temperature coupling with the 3-pipe heatsink.

Like my prior WX4130, it can boot directly into Catalina to external display WITHOUT flashing with the aid of the OpenCore Catalina Loader. Full metal support and Hardware acceleration in VideoProc are also present. It runs hot, probably at full speed without downclock to control its power consumption. It is recognized as RX580 with the WX4130 config.plist.

View attachment 1669513

It was then flashed with the WX7100_GOP_4GB.ROM by the Linux Flash USB drive. I change the conflg to WX7100 in OpenCore Loader. It is shown as RX470. Strange.

View attachment 1669514

Is there a way to show the correct chipset of RX480 and how ?
Is it only a cosmetic issue or would it affect the graphic card detection in games or the like ?

Benchmark:

View attachment 1669544

View attachment 1669545

Almost twice the metal score of WX4130 but comparable OpenGL performance.

Cheerio.
 

KennyW

macrumors 6502
Sep 5, 2007
452
389
I'll be working on the RX480 VBIOS soonā„¢.
But I'll stay with the WX4150 for "development" because it's much easier to revive the iMac when bricked by a faulty VBIOS on that card model.

You can verify the number of active shaders (and core and memory frequencies) when booting into windows and running GPU-Z there. But you'd probably have to flash a GOP VBIOS in order to get the Windows AMD drivers working.
That's good to hear.
I am not a Windows guy and thus can only help you to test in OSX.
Modding vBIOS is a "dark art" mastered by few, and the forums in Netkas.org are enlightening to me :)

From the ROI perspective, I do think the AMD series, especially the WX41xx, would be the best in term of power consumption, speed, metal support, hardware acceleration and no need for heatsink modding, but the main problem is the unpredictability of its compatibility since there are so many versions. I got a limited few for testing and the -00_02 V343 v1.1 seems to have the highest chance of working from all the posted photos and my own testing, be it a Green or Blue card, much less for those without the version no. or v1.0 cards.

The RX480 is less expensive than the WX7100 in eBay with predictable function since there is only one version of the card in the market. And they appear to be new rather than the often old worn ones of WX41xx. It supports external display directly without flashing, but would need Mac vBIOS to tame its power consumption or will overheat. One good point is that there is NO need to do any heatsink modding in contrast to the nVidia Quadra series. I do think there is a good future for it in our iMacs.
 
Last edited:

lee5434

macrumors newbie
Nov 4, 2020
6
0
You have to use the USB installer as the Recovery Drive for Catalina. I ran into the same problems trying to get into the recovery partition while the startup drive is set to Catalina. I did however find out that if I have Mojave set as my startup drive, I can use the recovery partition there and it works fine to do the csrutil disable/enable just fine for Catalina. I also have a 2011 27" iMac with a K4100M. Pretty happy with it.
Thank you so much for the information.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.