iM 4,1-14,4 2011 iMac Graphics Card Upgrade

[Ausdauersportler]

After some time I did some more experimenting with my K3000M cards and there is already a Bios here: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread....1596614/page-436?post=29239859#post-29239859 but i got some problems with that Bios. It is working, even native Backlight control without any mods necessary. But I got some strange effects. First of all the K3000M is a 2GB Card, with this Bios makes it a 4 GB card. Next the shadows looks strange, see attached image (not the Moree effect, but the strange Colors). Also the shadows of windows (not the OS but those windows in OSX, macOS) got strange shadows. It seems if it missing colors.

Maybe there is a mix up with the K3100M. Just because:

Known working GPUs:
-Dell K3100M vbios: 80.04.5A.00.01
-HP K3100M vbios: 80.04.33.00.2E


View attachment 1689424

Hi Roman,

long time no see. But did you really read the post @nikey22 made. All these problems are documented there. @passatgt posted recently a small app to fix the color problem. The BIOS problem (K3100M base) has to be solved by the BIOS makers here. It is a small wonder that I works...

Happy reading, there is some to catch up...

 

[kuoshen]

On the Big Sur thread there was this comment about the artefacts....

In Safari select Develop menu-->Experimental Features. Make sure 'VP9 decoder' and 'webRTC VP9 codec' are both checked.

Could you please post you working High Sierra 0.6.3 K111Nvidia config.plist. For a long time I had no such card to test myself.

For the green artefacts, I tried switching on both 'VP9 decoder' and 'webRTC VP9 codec' but they did not work for me. Still had the green artefacts. The strange thing is I can save the image and view it from Finder without the artefacts but when I use Safari (by setting the url to file:////Users/..../image.jpg), they are there again in Safari. I'll keep checking the Big Sur thread for more ...

Here is the config.plist file for OpenCore 0.6.3 to boot High Sierra with brightness control on my iMac 2011 27in.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

For the green artefacts, I tried switching on both 'VP9 decoder' and 'webRTC VP9 codec' but they did not work for me. Still had the green artefacts. The strange thing is I can save the image and view it from Finder without the artefacts but when I use Safari (by setting the url to file:////Users/..../image.jpg), they are there again in Safari. I'll keep checking the Big Sur thread for more ...

Here is the config.plist file for OpenCore 0.6.3 to boot High Sierra with brightness control on my iMac 2011 27in.

Thanks!

EDIT:

Uploaded a new version of the archive with a new file called config.NVIDIA.HS.plist.

Note:

In future I will only provide Big Sur capable versions of the config files. There is no need to support and unsupported macOS High Sierra with new OpenCore versions. The current one is good enough.

 

[velvet_man]

Have added a 0.5.9 archive to my Catalina Loader post - please check this out. Just replacing the EFI folder on your current loader and renaming the config.plist file should do the job with High Sierra. No internal modifications of the config files, please. If your start this you are on your own.

Thank you, Ausdauersportler! That worked!

One more question, though. The first time I rebooted with the 0.5.9 EFI, it booted with backlight all the way through but brightness control did not come on. I remembered reading something about using Control+Enter to select the drive at boot, so I rebooted again holding Option, picked Catalina Loader, then picked my Macintosh HD drive using Control+Enter and that's when it worked. So my question is, should I use the hold Option then Control+Enter every time I boot?

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Thank you, Ausdauersportler! That worked!

One more question, though. The first time I rebooted with the 0.5.9 EFI, it booted with backlight all the way through but brightness control did not come on. I remembered reading something about using Control+Enter to select the drive at boot, so I rebooted again holding Option, picked Catalina Loader, then picked my Macintosh HD drive using Control+Enter and that's when it worked. So my question is, should I use the hold Option then Control+Enter every time I boot?

Please read the guide @herrdude made and which is linked in the first post in the OC section.

 

[velvet_man]

Please read the guide @herrdude made and which is linked in the first post in the OC section.

Thanks again! That will be next on my To Do list.

 

[Roman78]

Hi Roman,

long time no see. But did you really read the post @nikey22 made. All these problems are documented there. @passatgt posted recently a small app to fix the color problem. The BIOS problem (K3100M base) has to be solved by the BIOS makers here. It is a small wonder that I works...

Happy reading, there is some to catch up...

Strangely I don't have those problems using the HP Bios. Maybe its possible to use that Bios as source.

I did not read al post, i just downloaded the bios and flashed it.

 

[kuoshen]

@MirComputers
You are correct! Good observation. I've correct the timings for the K3100M now and uploaded a new set of ROMs. The TDP should always be higher than the 3D and Boost, respectively.

The memory overclock on the K2100M was made by the slv7 group. If it's too aggressive, you can always down-regulate it and test stability. I have 3 K2100M cards on 3 separate machines and while they run hot, they don't seem to crash. Your mileage may vary.

@nikey22, I have one of the K2100M with Elpida memory chips and HW monitor reports GPU core at 810 MHz and GPU memory at 4.01 GHz. Does that sound right?

 

[MirComputers]

It is good that we have another member who is apt in vBIOS modding.
Perhaps you can make the changes and test and share with users or the developers first before release.

I read that some new HP cards have their vBIOS in the HP laptop BIOS and not on the card as you said.
But doesn't GPU-Z give you the information you need on the GPU ?

NO, gpuz is not showing any info on the memory type on this card, because it has no vbios. Also, i can read memory tables from AMD roms with the bios editors, but i do not think kepler / maxwell bios editor have that feature , so even if can extract the vbios from the full HP Bios image , it would probably be useless. I guess i will need to take the zbook 17 g2 apart .

I will test the rom myself when i have the occasion, as now i have no 27 inch in the lab .

 

[Lxixboss]

Hi all,
I hope this is in the right thread. If it is not, I hope someone will steer me straight.
I have a 2011 Imac 12,2 - 3.4GHz i7 etc. Like always, the ATI card died so I flashed and installed a Quadro K1100M using the excellent information on this site and the life-saving ROM produced by Nick(D)vB. I have no brightness control and no external monitor and I can live with that (Open Core looks too daunting right now). I have found, however, that there is another problem. When I wake the computer up from sleep or if I reboot it, it reboots to a black screen. I have turned off sleep so that is no longer a problem but rebooting is. The only way I have found to get around it is to hold down the Option key after the boot chime which gets me to the boot selection screen. From there, it boots and runs fine in either Catalina or Windows 10. While I have done a lot of reading on this site and others and have even learned to use a CH341A programmer to flash the cards in my two Imacs (this one and another 2011 with a GTX765M), I cannot say that I have read all 457 pages so I may have missed the answer to this very problem. Thanks in advance!

 

[Pascal Baillargeau]

Hi all,
I hope this is in the right thread. If it is not, I hope someone will steer me straight.
I have a 2011 Imac 12,2 - 3.4GHz i7 etc. Like always, the ATI card died so I flashed and installed a Quadro K1100M using the excellent information on this site and the life-saving ROM produced by Nick(D)vB. I have no brightness control and no external monitor and I can live with that (Open Core looks too daunting right now). I have found, however, that there is another problem. When I wake the computer up from sleep or if I reboot it, it reboots to a black screen. I have turned off sleep so that is no longer a problem but rebooting is. The only way I have found to get around it is to hold down the Option key after the boot chime which gets me to the boot selection screen. From there, it boots and runs fine in either Catalina or Windows 10. While I have done a lot of reading on this site and others and have even learned to use a CH341A programmer to flash the cards in my two Imacs (this one and another 2011 with a GTX765M), I cannot say that I have read all 457 pages so I may have missed the answer to this very problem. Thanks in advance!

You can flash from Windows10.

 

[passatgt]

Hi all,
I hope this is in the right thread. If it is not, I hope someone will steer me straight.
I have a 2011 Imac 12,2 - 3.4GHz i7 etc. Like always, the ATI card died so I flashed and installed a Quadro K1100M using the excellent information on this site and the life-saving ROM produced by Nick(D)vB. I have no brightness control and no external monitor and I can live with that (Open Core looks too daunting right now). I have found, however, that there is another problem. When I wake the computer up from sleep or if I reboot it, it reboots to a black screen. I have turned off sleep so that is no longer a problem but rebooting is. The only way I have found to get around it is to hold down the Option key after the boot chime which gets me to the boot selection screen. From there, it boots and runs fine in either Catalina or Windows 10. While I have done a lot of reading on this site and others and have even learned to use a CH341A programmer to flash the cards in my two Imacs (this one and another 2011 with a GTX765M), I cannot say that I have read all 457 pages so I may have missed the answer to this very problem. Thanks in advance!

About brightness control, if you don't want to use OpenCore, use my app instead: https://github.com/passatgt/imac-pwm-control - this will look like a native brightness control(keyboard f1+f2 works, displays the UI too like native controls), but it will just dimm the colors to simulate brightness change.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Hi all,
I hope this is in the right thread. If it is not, I hope someone will steer me straight.
I have a 2011 Imac 12,2 - 3.4GHz i7 etc. Like always, the ATI card died so I flashed and installed a Quadro K1100M using the excellent information on this site and the life-saving ROM produced by Nick(D)vB. I have no brightness control and no external monitor and I can live with that (Open Core looks too daunting right now). I have found, however, that there is another problem. When I wake the computer up from sleep or if I reboot it, it reboots to a black screen. I have turned off sleep so that is no longer a problem but rebooting is. The only way I have found to get around it is to hold down the Option key after the boot chime which gets me to the boot selection screen. From there, it boots and runs fine in either Catalina or Windows 10. While I have done a lot of reading on this site and others and have even learned to use a CH341A programmer to flash the cards in my two Imacs (this one and another 2011 with a GTX765M), I cannot say that I have read all 457 pages so I may have missed the answer to this very problem. Thanks in advance!

You found all pitfalls existing by just ignoring the first post of this thread. You need open core, your need the sleep patches with Catalina and you possibly need also the patched AGC to avoid the black screen. Cannot help you if you will not read.

Please add a signature, too!

 

[Pascal Baillargeau]

I cannot say that I have read all 457 pages so I may have missed the answer to this very problem.

 

[Pascal Baillargeau]

First post is the control tower. From there you will be directed to all mandatory posts. No need to read everything, but you can!
And yes, i almost forgot, populate your signature!

 

[Pascal Baillargeau]

Maybe it should become a rule, not only a recommendation, to have a signature. This way everybody knows the hardware and software characteristics of a system, characteristics that will be shown on every post. So it's easier for other people in this thread to help. And for people in demand of help, to recieve help.

 

[Lxixboss]

About brightness control, if you don't want to use OpenCore, use my app instead: https://github.com/passatgt/imac-pwm-control - this will look like a native brightness control(keyboard f1+f2 works, displays the UI too like native controls), but it will just dimm the colors to simulate brightness change.

Thank you very much. I had used « Shades » in High Sierra but it will not install in Catalina.

 

[nikey22]

@deniss1711
-Good point about the K3000M timings, I will de-tune them slightly to get less crashes. There will of course be some experimentation to get the best scenario, but I will work on them. I've already updated the ROM to lesser clocks speeds.

@Schprecher
- You are correct, addressing higher than 2048Mb on the K3000M causes a crash. An example is fullscreen playback of 1080p videos on youtube or any other OpenGL games. I'm hunting for the cause of this misreading of the vram.

@MirComputers
-I agree 1900Mhz seems more reasonable. Quadro cards are different in their tolerance than the GTX cards. So yes, it takes so experimenting to get them right. I've never been a big fan of overclocking mem vram. Unfortunately, if we increase MHz, we need a little corresponding boost in voltage. Again, everyone's recipe and results for this will be different.

@kuoshen
- I'm not surprised that Eplida based K2100M have faulty readings. The original bios wasn't designed for them! I am creating a K2100M_Eplida based rom soon for testing. Please check your About screen and report to us what it shows. I would like some volunteers who own a K2100M-eplida card to test it.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Short update on iMac Late 2009 to Mid 2011 patching:

With the help of @hvds and @Pascal Baillargeau I could solve the Night Shift problem in my fork of the @Barry K. Nathan patcher.

Using the --ns with the patch-kext.sh call installed the @jakeluke patched CoreBrightness.framework and works now on my iMac together with Safari and Mail and....

Since my fork is just an enhanced version of the stock patcher it should work for all other users and their supported machines, too.

It needs the "amfi_allow_any_signature=1" added to the boot-args in NVRAM! All 0.6.3 OC config files made for Big Sur are aware of this.

 

[deniss1711]

Hi,
found this on my way to understand more of the nvidia VBIOS architecture for my K3000M 2GB.
https://github.com/NVIDIA/open-gpu-doc, not 100% save but I would expect this to be at least a part of the description of the control structures for nvidia GPUs of multiple generations (only had a short look on the tables but does match for FF B8 42 49 54 aka BIT_HEADER in my BIOS).
Will have further research on the control data of the default output port of the GPU, since this might be the issue with my Dell BIOS not showing a boot screen (works well, except bootscreen).

 

[deniss1711]

-Good point about the K3000M timings, I will de-tune them slightly to get less crashes. There will of course be some experimentation to get the best scenario, but I will work on them. I've already updated the ROM to lesser clocks speeds.

Thank you for reducing the clock speeds for this cards, I will update the card and report changes.

 

[MirComputers]

@dosdude1 Catalina Patcher 1.4.4: Install to disk with late 2009 and mid 2010 models

The Catalina Patcher has a method to install a downloaded and patched image directly onto the running system for a while. Unfortunately you cannot get around the automatic patching using this method. This ends up on the late 2009 and mid 2010 models with getting the unwanted und unnecessary Legacy Video Patch installed.

There is a way to modify the Patcher in a way to avoid the installation of this Legacy Video Patch. Take a look at the attachments, there is the location of the plist file named macmodels.plist documented and I added an already modified plist file. You just need to replace this or delete the lines within the red circles. Basically you get the same settings as for the 12,1 and 12,2 models from mid 2011.

Of course you need this patch to be applied to the patcher each time you download the patcher again. So keep this patcher until @dosdude1 publishes a new one. I have checked the functionality out by now on a single late 2009 system! This is nice short cut avoiding the creation of endless series of (sometimes not working) USB installers.

To open the contents of the @dosdude1 patcher file (which is in reality a folder) just right click on the file and chose open "show package contents". If you have never done such a patching have fun!

Please report success or errors...

EDIT:

Recently @bcdc13 found out how to enable the watch unlock with Catalina and WiFi upgrades. The secret is to disable the installation of the legacy wifi patch the same way I disabled the legacy video patch. I have added new plist files for disabling the video patch and a second version to disable both legacy wifi and legacy video. Simply delete the entries within your own @dosdude1 installer.

Hello, i think you can also modify a pre-made Catalina USB Patched by going into the USB Root CatalinaInstaller⁩ ▸ ⁨Applications⁩ ▸ ⁨Utilities⁩ ▸ ⁨macOS Post Install⁩ ▸ ⁨Contents⁩ ▸ ⁨Resources⁩ and find the macmodels.plist inside

 

[MirComputers]

Seeking for Beta Test Users (Package Installer)

( iMac 2009-2011 AGC, FakeSCM, Lilu, WhateverGreen, AppleBacklightFixup installer)
​

Attached you will find the a kernel extension package installer currently working on Sierra 10.12 and later. SIP needs to be disabled. Boot into recovery, start Terminal app, enter csrutil disable and reboot directly into your macOS and install the package.

It will patch the current installed AppleGraphicsControl (AGC) as described in this post addressing the black screen issue and install the AppleBacklightFixup needed for ++ type Nvidia cards side by side with the @vit9696 Lilu and Whatevergreen. As an option you can have the FakeSMC extensions get installed.

The NVIDIA ++ cards are this running with a BIOS from @nikey22 and marked in the table on post #1 as type ++.

After starting the Apple package installer (double click) you can choose the destination and select the packages to be installed according to your wishes. For this reason I separated the complete sets in several subsets. You can use the installer to patch AGC (this will be done in any case), and install addionally BacklightFixup, FakeSMC, and WhateverGreen/Lilu. You have to select at least one kernel extension to be installed. Only the FakeSMC is really optional.

FakesSMC will be needed b the HW Monitor app to provide full details on all sensors available on your system.

What will this package installer do:

1. Patching AppleGraphicsControl AGC (all iMacs, Nvidia card users, only)
2. Nvidia BacklightFixup (all iMacs, NVIDIA ++ cards users, only!
3. FakeSMC Package (all iMacs, all graphics cards)
4. vit9696 WhateverGreen and Lilu (all iMacs, all graphics cards)

Supported hardware:

iMac 11,x (Late 2009 and Mid 2010) with NVIDIA Kepler GPU
iMac 12,x (Mid 2011) with NVIDIA Kepler GPU

Supported MacOS:

macOS Sierra 10.12.1 up to macOS Catalina 10.15.7
do not use with macOS Big Sur!


Recipe:

Disable SIP (Mojave and Catalina will have this done), download package, double click, enter password if asked for, select disk and your extensions to be installed, finish installation and reboot.

Attached you will find some selections screen shots. You can use the installer to select a single package only.

Have fun and please report back!

Notes:
12/07/2020: Late Nikolaus gift, new package installer and deinstall package

I am still facing issues while using this guide - i have a 2009 model with k2100m with Catalina installed using dosdude modified installer.

But i have to clear NVRAM every boot, otherwise it just boots to black screen. I had no problem when using High Sierra with the same card.
This seems OPPOSED to the reported issue (PRAM RESET causing black screen, not curing it) - is this some part of the dosdude patch i do not understand?

I do not understand what interaction is causing this issue. I still can't understand if the kext installer for whatevergreen/lilu in this post is compatible with opencore install i'd like to accomplish later (still did not manage to navigate to the myriad files scattered around ... but that's next on the list).

I always thought the boot picker showing up at was related to bootrom / vbios interaction, so why do i need to do a pram reset to see it?

With the kext installer i have it working in the same way as unmodded vBios , the screen comes up halfway through the boot process as the video drivers are loaded.

I think i can help troubleshooting and testing a lot of stuff on this thread ( hope i did already with the bios and catalina usb installer mod hints ) as i have a huge love for restoring old HW and under lockdown i'm resurrecting all these imacs i have around - it's just that the way information is presented makes it very hard to understand how things actually work.

 

[BadBiscuit]

@deniss1711
-Good point about the K3000M timings, I will de-tune them slightly to get less crashes. There will of course be some experimentation to get the best scenario, but I will work on them. I've already updated the ROM to lesser clocks speeds.

@Schprecher
- You are correct, addressing higher than 2048Mb on the K3000M causes a crash. An example is fullscreen playback of 1080p videos on youtube or any other OpenGL games. I'm hunting for the cause of this misreading of the vram.

@MirComputers
-I agree 1900Mhz seems more reasonable. Quadro cards are different in their tolerance than the GTX cards. So yes, it takes so experimenting to get them right. I've never been a big fan of overclocking mem vram. Unfortunately, if we increase MHz, we need a little corresponding boost in voltage. Again, everyone's recipe and results for this will be different.

@kuoshen
- I'm not surprised that Eplida based K2100M have faulty readings. The original bios wasn't designed for them! I am creating a K2100M_Eplida based rom soon for testing. Please check your About screen and report to us what it shows. I would like some volunteers who own a K2100M-eplida card to test it.

Great news. Do consider me a volunteer. I have a K2100M eplida card installed in “Scrappy” waiting and ready to try it, and a K3000M in “Velma” should you need a beta tester for updates to that. Thank you so much!

 

[Lady Titan]

nikey22​

hi! please tell me whether information was published about solving the problem with the depth of the frame buffer?
for GTX880m

thank you!