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

[sieuwe01]

Buy an Nvidia card if you want to use Windows or an AMD card if you target is macOS.

You need to Boot OpenCore to enable the internal screen and I am quite not sure if you really got this.

Make sure that after pram reset the High Sierra SSD boots - change sata cables to change boot order.

Use OpenCore on the Catalina loader or install it to the boot disk following the Dortania docs - all described on the first post.

I replaced the original wx4130 with my old graphics card. With the display working I installed OpenCore on a usb drive. After that I was able to boot from that usb drive and boot into high sierra. Also I reinstalled windows just to be sure.

After replacing the original card with the wx4130 I was greeted again with only a black screen. I hear the fans ramp up and I see the imac in team viewer. However I cant connect to it. The only thing I can do is connect to it using ssh. But after a 1 or 2 minutes the imac shuts down automatically. I am also not able to boot into windows.

What have I done wrong?

thanks

Sieuwe

 

[internetzel]

Ciao, scusa se rispondo solo ora, intendo comunque che sono arrivato a questo punto e non posso andare avanti. dove sbaglio? questa è la prima volta che faccio una cosa del genere. Ho anche provato la chiavetta sull'altro Mac e funziona bene.

You seem to have to put "./" before "nvflash_linux".

 

[internetzel]

I replaced the original wx4130 with my old graphics card. With the display working I installed OpenCore on a usb drive. After that I was able to boot from that usb drive and boot into high sierra. Also I reinstalled windows just to be sure.

After replacing the original card with the wx4130 I was greeted again with only a black screen. I hear the fans ramp up and I see the imac in team viewer. However I cant connect to it. The only thing I can do is connect to it using ssh. But after a 1 or 2 minutes the imac shuts down automatically. I am also not able to boot into windows.

What have I done wrong?

thanks

Sieuwe

Did you install Windows in UEFI or BIOS booted mode? OpenCore cannot boot BIOS booted Windows.

 

[xbox3605]

Can someone post his bootrom from a working 2011 with k3100m to test it and see at lest if changing the bootrom it fix this behavior, Many thanks!

 

[sieuwe01]

Did you install Windows in UEFI or BIOS booted mode? OpenCore cannot boot BIOS booted Windows.

I used this windows installer so I am not sure. https://forums.macrumors.com/thread....1596614/page-191?post=28253271#post-28253271 . I was however too boot from it earlier but this was without OpenCore.

I have flashed the rx560 2gb rom file to the card. Does this one work with high Sierra? I want to try to update to Big Sur and use the latest OpenCore Catalina loader from here https://forums.macrumors.com/thread....1596614/page-347?post=28769981#post-28769981 using my original card . Then switch cards and use the linux usb with amd flash to flash the card. this is because I saw a user here that has used a wx4130 with a 27' 2011 iMac which was running Big Sur and latest OpenCore version.

Thanks

Sieuwe

 

[internetzel]

I used this windows installer so I am not sure. https://forums.macrumors.com/thread....1596614/page-191?post=28253271#post-28253271 . I was however too boot from it earlier but this was without OpenCore.

I have flashed the rx560 2gb rom file to the card. Does this one work with high Sierra? I want to try to update to Big Sur and use the latest OpenCore Catalina loader from here https://forums.macrumors.com/thread....1596614/page-347?post=28769981#post-28769981 using my original card . Then switch cards and use the linux usb with amd flash to flash the card. this is because I saw a user here that has used a wx4130 with a 27' 2011 iMac which was running Big Sur and latest OpenCore version.

Thanks

Sieuwe

I don't know that Windows package but from its name I've got the impression that it's legacy BIOS booted. No way to boot into that using OpenCore.
That ROM has worked for me on High Sierra - but your iMac shutting down after some time makes me think that there's something wrong with your WX4130. Did you put a copper shim between your heat sink and the GPU die?
On the other hand maybe it's just that your specific iMac and/or your specific card don't play well together; you would know if you put that card into a 2010 or late 2009 iMac.

 

[sieuwe01]

iI don't know that Windows package but from its name I've got the impression that it's legacy BIOS booted. No way to boot into that using OpenCore.
That ROM has worked for me on High Sierra - but your iMac shutting down after some time makes me think that there's something wrong with your WX4130. Did you put a copper shim between your heat sink and the GPU die?
On the other hand maybe it's just that your specific iMac and/or your specific card don't play well together; you would know if you put that card into a 2010 or late 2009 iMac.

Just checked and the windows is lagacy bios. 2011 imacs dont support uefi right? Or is this supported because of opencore?

I also put a copperplate between the wx4130 and heatsink. When my windows was working the temps were low.

That is what I find wierd. I dont think my card is broken because I was able to succesfully boot and use windows 7 with the wx4130 after flashing it. But I now cant even get back to that anymore.

I think the best thing to do it install windows 7 in uefi mode and make it bootable with opencore with the old gpu. Then install the new gpu and try reflashing the card.

Is there also a EG bios version of the wx4130?

Also what opencore version did you use with high sierra?

Thanks

Sieuwe

 

[The_Croupier]

That is what I find wierd. I dont think my card is broken because I was able to succesfully boot and use windows 7 with the wx4130 after flashing it. But I now cant even get back to that anymore.

Don't rule out your card being faulty. A week after installing my 700m i got this:

Best way to diagnose it is to try it in another same spec iMac.

I hope for your sake it is a user error causing your issue but really this can be a pretty random game we play.

 

[The_Croupier]

Thought I'd share my CL OpenCore microSD slim adaptor set-up to clean up the look of my iMac running the 770m

It's only $1.50 shipped from AliExpress, China to AU in 10 days. If you want to get real fancy you could spend 20 X more on the BASEQI 303A adaptor that sits totally flush or the Transend Jet Drive (bit of a overkill at 64gb)

Before

After

 

[xNuGGax]

You have to flash, clip will unlikely work since the cards has a WSON type chip, so use the Linux method. Everything is described in detail on the very first post of this page, including the usual problem that you will experience a black screen without a proper BIOS (Q2 of the FAQ). This is the normal case.

So just go back and read carefully and plan your actions according to the information given. There is even a short plan provided....

Finally today i made GPU upgrade using manual you are notice me. Thank you a lot for sending me in correct way...

 

[passatgt]

The "Dell RX 560 2GB.ROM" should support Elpida EDW4032BABG 1.35V VRAM - but my testing card had Samsung VRAM, so I can't tell whether or not it really works.
Did you try booting in the iMac with the original VBIOS installed? Could you upload the original VBIOS?
Are the chips of said type?

If I remember correctly the cards that don't work at all didn't even let the iMac make the boot chime, so there's still hope.

Thanks!

So i flashed with the 2gb rom and it does boot now. Shows up as an RX 460:

Is there any bios i should try that could utilize the remaining 2gb of memory? I think it is a 4gb card, because the flash tool indicates this:

Old Product Name: Dell/Compal Crane 15 BaffinM GL Pro A1 GDDR5 4GB 300e/300m

 

[sieuwe01]

Thanks!

So i flashed with the 2gb rom and it does boot now. Shows up as an RX 460:

Is there any bios i should try that could utilize the remaining 2gb of memory? I think it is a 4gb card, because the flash tool indicates this:

Old Product Name: Dell/Compal Crane 15 BaffinM GL Pro A1 GDDR5 4GB 300e/300m

Wow you have a wx4130 working in a 2011 iMac? I am trying to do the same but I am having a hard time. Could you summarize the steps you have taken? And what opencore version are you running?

Thanks

Sieuwe

 

[StephN999]

Bonsoir,

I think that unfortunately it is the lottery with these cards.

ps: I consider myself lucky with mine.

 

[passatgt]

Wow you have a wx4130 working in a 2011 iMac? I am trying to do the same but I am having a hard time. Could you summarize the steps you have taken? And what opencore version are you running?

Thanks

Sieuwe

No opencore yet, just flashed the card with the 2gb bios and booted up into high sierra just fine with an external screen(i didn't tried it with an internal yet).

 

[sieuwe01]

No opencore yet, just flashed the card with the 2gb bios and booted up into high sierra just fine with an external screen(i didn't tried it with an internal yet).

And how did you flash the card? Using bootcamp or Linux usb or something else?

thanks

Sieuwe

 

[passatgt]

And how did you flash the card? Using bootcamp or Linux usb or something else?

thanks

Sieuwe

Used the linux USB. The trick for me to get it to work was to connect the ethernet cable, boot into high sierra with a working card, go to settings / network to get the IP address. Turn off, replace GPU, remove SSD and wait a minute or two and ssh into the iMac using the IP address that was displayed in high sierra. It was still not displayed on my router admin page, but i could connect with ssh. And i just flashed it based on the instructions.

 

[sieuwe01]

Used the linux USB. The trick for me to get it to work was to connect the ethernet cable, boot into high sierra with a working card, go to settings / network to get the IP address. Turn off, replace GPU, remove SSD and wait a minute or two and ssh into the iMac using the IP address that was displayed in high sierra. It was still not displayed on my router admin page, but i could connect with ssh. And i just flashed it based on the instructions.

Thanks for the short instructions! Will try it tomorrow.

Greetings

Sieuwe

 

[internetzel]

Thanks!

So i flashed with the 2gb rom and it does boot now. Shows up as an RX 460:

Is there any bios i should try that could utilize the remaining 2gb of memory? I think it is a 4gb card, because the flash tool indicates this:

Old Product Name: Dell/Compal Crane 15 BaffinM GL Pro A1 GDDR5 4GB 300e/300m

I've many times seen that string containing wrong information. In this case for example 300e/300m is supposed to mean a base frequency of 300 MHz for both RAM and GPU, but the information in that string is wrong most of the time.

You'll know the capacity of your RAM by searching for the exact type printed on the chips. For example searching online for the datasheet of Elpida EDW4032BABG reveals that those are 4 Gbit chips. So it's four times 4 Gbit, giving 16 Gbit in total. 8 Bits are one Byte so four of those chips have a capacity of 2 GB.

 

[Pascal Baillargeau]

I replaced the original wx4130 with my old graphics card. With the display working I installed OpenCore on a usb drive. After that I was able to boot from that usb drive and boot into high sierra. Also I reinstalled windows just to be sure.

After replacing the original card with the wx4130 I was greeted again with only a black screen. I hear the fans ramp up and I see the imac in team viewer. However I cant connect to it. The only thing I can do is connect to it using ssh. But after a 1 or 2 minutes the imac shuts down automatically. I am also not able to boot into windows.

What have I done wrong?

thanks

Sieuwe

In first Post:

''Q1: I get a black or blank screen on boot, how to fix?

A: Sierra and later has been causing "black screen" issues for many folks. This is caused by a lack of kext initialization due to a lacking board-id in the AppleGraphicsControl.kext (short AGC). A patched AGC kext and a further explanation can be found HERE, thanks to @highvoltage12v. Please look and the next question and link to get the installation guide, needed. Using some Nvidia cards in late 2009 iMac causes extra pain. The internal LCD will come up only after installing the patched AGC and booting into the newly patched MacOS. The BIOS versions will need a fix to come around this additional problem.''

Try to connect an external screen on TB2 via hdmi, vga, dvi converter and boot HS, you should have display on this external screen, normally.

Windows 10 UEFI works.

Also, have you updated your iMac to latest firmware before tweaking?

 

[splifingate]

luck

Regards, splifingate

 

[The_Croupier]

If anyone is interested I have updated and modified the awesome grml-linux vbios flash boot disk that @xanderon shared with the macrumors community.

The changes include adding amdvbflash, thanks to @Ausdauersportler add-on, all the current ROMS from post 1 and a local Backup directory to store your backed up original ROMS directly on the Bootable USB using the persistency function in grml as default.

By doing this the directory structure has changed so please see the detailed guide below on instructions for using this modified bootable USB.

Create your USB using my modified @xanderon boot disk and connect to your target machine via SSH as outlined in @xanderson post HERE.

At root type:

lsblk

This will list list your mounted disks and is important as this disk order may change, sda/sdb/sdc, depending on what disks you have connected, how fast they are loaded by GRML etc, therefore the path to your working directory may change. You will see a example of this if you look at my terminal.txt file, I flashed 1 AMD and 1 NVIDIA GPU on seperate Macs.

In terminal copy the path to the root of your Flash USB, Example:

/lib/live/mount/persistence/sdd2

cd paste and add /flash to get to the directory:

cd /lib/live/mount/persistence/sdd2/flash

Press enter, you will now be in your working directory.

root@grml ~ # /lib/live/mount/persistence/sdd2/flash

In this example I will be using amdvbflash to backup and flash my stock AMD apple vbios.
1st - lets look at the working directory:

ls

2nd - Verify your adapter is recognised:

./amdvbflash -i

3rd - save a backup of your original bios to the Backup folder on your USB.

./amdvbflash -s 0 Backups/Original_Vbios.rom

4th - Verify the bios is saved to your Backups folder:

cd Backups
ls

Now if your paranoid that when you shut down your bios will be gone you can stop, shutdown and actually check the USB drive Backups folder.

5th - flash new bios for example:

./amdvbflash -f -p 0 AMD/WX4150_GOP.ROM

WARNING: There is no pause asking you if you wish to continue as in nvflash so make sure you have your backup and are flashing the correct ROM.

You will be greeted with some code similar to this verifying the process is complete:

AMDVBFLASH version 4.71, Copyright (c) 2020 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.

Old SSID: 0B00
New SSID: 0B00
Old P/N: 113-C29609-103
New P/N: 113-C29609-103
Old DeviceID: 6720
New DeviceID: 6720
Old Product Name: Apple K62 Blackcomb XT C29609/C29611 GDDR5 64Mx32 2GB
New Product Name: Apple K62 Blackcomb XT C29609/C29611 GDDR5 64Mx32 2GB
Old BIOS Version: 013.011.000.020.017256
New BIOS Version: 013.011.000.020.017256
Flash type: M25P10/c
Burst size is 256
20000/20000h bytes programmed
20000/20000h bytes verified

Restart System To Complete VBIOS Update.

Shutdown and hope for the best

shutdown now

For NVIDIA cards the process is the same but the nvflash_linux commands will be different see my attached Terminal example.txt if you need more info. Also attached a quick visual guide and both Nvidia/AMD flash tools help text.

Enjoy.

 

[Umarx]

If I understand correctly the backlight is working for you indicate you're seeing OpenCore's boot screen, right? Be sure you are using the correct plist (i.e. AMD) and turn verbose mode on within plist too, so you can see where it is stopping. Booting from there with a macOS install stick to see if that will load, for perhaps it is just an issue with what you are booting from the SSD/HD.

Hi BB,

The backlit is working only with OpenCore USB and giving choices to boot from or fallback Catalina loader. Upon selecting the internal main SSD boot which has High Sierra updated to the latest Security Update, it shows boot progress bar till it reaches about 70%, and boom the screen goes off. To get back I have to reboot. (No external screen is working on either of the lightning ports)

Earlier today:
I reflashed the vBios on the card again and scrutinized all steps in 1st and second attempt and they are identical and the card is recognized as:
=======================================
root@grml /lib/live/mount/medium/flash # ./amdvbflash -ai
AMDVBFLASH version 4.69, Copyright (c) 2020 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.

Adapter 0 SEG=0000, BN=01, DN=00, PCIID=67EF1002, SSID=17B01028)
Asic Family : Polaris11
Flash Type : M25P40/c (512 KB)
Product Name : Dell/Compal Crane 15 BaffinM GL Pro A1 GDDR5 4GB 300e/300m
Bios Config File : SWBRT986.001
Bios P/N : P/N Not Available
Bios Version : 015.050.000.000.000986
Bios Date : 09/04/16,01:28:0
ROM Image Type : Hybrid Images
ROM Image Details :
Image[0]: Size(60416 Bytes), Type(Legacy Image)
Image[1]: Size(59392 Bytes), Type(EFI Image)
root@grml /lib/live/mount/medium/flash # ./amdvbflash -f -p 0 Dell_RX_560_2GB.ROM
=======================================

Edit: I used the copper shim 15mmx15mm 1mm thick and used MX4 for the shim and gpu. (not much heat on the body sensed after 15minutes of operation behind GPU)

How do I activate verbose mode within the plist?

I am making another boot drive for the test you have asked for, which system should I choose High Sierra or Dosdude Catalina (if that's possible)

 

[OnawaAfrica]

Q1: Do we really need a heat sink mod with the WX7100 on the 3pipe sink or the WX4170 on other an MXM-B type sink?

Attached you will find a picture of a (not working) WX4170 and a sink - I marked the area possibly to be modified red and put green marks on the coils which may get into direct contact. It may work without grinding, since we have so many problems with WX7100 cards I would simply avoid any source of trouble. Alternatively you may use tape to isolate possible areas of contact (I use tape even with MXM A cards).

Some recent posts (October 2020) came up with successful installation of the WX7100 on an 2011 MXM-B sink without any modification.

11/01/2020: Installed another WX7100 on the 6970 heat sink and there is no contact. At the red marked edge there is 0.5mm distance between coil and sink, close, but this should work without

Q2: Do we need a special installation of the WX4130/WX4150/WX4170?

The WX4170, WX4130 and WX4150 offer another problem. The GPU is flat, does barely get into contact with the copper part of the sink and needs an additional copper plate to bridge this gap (size 15mm x 15mm x 1mm). Put it directly on the CPU using thermal paste on both sides to guarantee optimal heat transfer from the GPU to the copper plate and down to the heat sink.

The success of this operation can be checked by running a Unigine Valley benchmark and observing the temperatures of the graphics card (Grafikkarte) and the GPU Heat sink (Grafikkarten-Kühler). The difference should be less than 10C. This nearly perfect example I got after a 30 minute Valley run: 48C on the card and 46C on the sink using Macs Fan Control to control the ODD fan according to the GPU heat sink temperature (range 35C-55C).

Using the same WX4130 in a different iMac gave me a better benchmark result and a difference of 54C for the card and 52C for the sink running the fan at 2286 rpm - the difference is only 2C. Looks pretty perfect to me

Q2: Do we need a special installation of the K610M?

Yes, depending on the heat sink you may need a 0.5mm or sometimes 1mm plate to avoid contact of cards components to the sink.

P.S.:
Using a thinner plate of 0.5mm gave me a 10C difference, using no copper plate a 20C difference and GPU temps above 70C.

about the K610m I dint add any copper plate and my gpu is usaly at around 45 - 50c idling (its hot here in Mombasa, Kenya with Ambient Temp around 35-37c)

 

[Ausdauersportler]

about the K610m I dint add any copper plate and my gpu is usaly at around 45 - 50c idling (its hot here in Mombasa, Kenya with Ambient Temp around 35-37c)

We have 5 iMac and 8 heat sink designs. You can ignore the docs and live with it, but you cannot claim that it is a good design or that it will work for each other model and each heat sink.

But: It needs only a single case where such a copper plate avoids a short or helps to keep the temps down.

 

[OnawaAfrica]

We have 5 iMac and 8 heat sink designs. You can ignore the docs and live with it, but you cannot claim that it is a good design or that it will work for each other model and each heat sink.

But: It needs only a single case where such a copper plate avoids a short or helps to keep the temps down.

I didn't wanted to offend u I just asked about it. I dint claim its good or not good design. thank u for pointing out that there are 5 different Macs with 8 heatsink designs I want aware of that there are that many options.