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

[ChrizLoud]

There is no backlight issue with Big Sur and never has been since it has been included it to the micropatcher and later to OCLP. But what do I know?

Backlight control works yes, but it not possible to get the screen as bright as with the old GPU installed. The steppnig mod does not seem to work in BigSur because of security issues (kext signing etc i guess?)

Im using PatchedSur

 

[overshoot]

Hi,

I just got a GTX660M GPU for free and I wanted to upgraded my old 27" Late 2009 iMac with it.
That GPU is the one on the 27" Late 2012 iMacs so no issue with drivers obviously.

However what about the OC loader?! Will it be able to recognize the card and give me a bootscreen?
I understand that I won't be getting backlight control though.

I've found some Bios dumps made from this iMac but it is apparently missing the EFI part.
Is that something that can be added these days with the knowledge gotten with the newer 7XX series?

Thanks!

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Backlight control works yes, but it not possible to get the screen as bright as with the old GPU installed. The steppnig mod does not seem to work in BigSur because of security issues (kext signing etc i guess?)

Im using PatchedSur

There we have it. Patched Sur is the single not working patcher. Use OCLP or iMac micropatcher. I spend so much time into making both things work, it is more than disappointing when people ignore this work and then claim a (non existing) problem.

I maintained a recommended patcher list for nine month now on the first post. Patched Sur was *never* on this list for obvious reasons.

 

[dksp]

Hello to all. I need some help.

I have an iMac 21.5" mid-2010 with a flashed K2100M card. It is running up-to-date High Sierra together with Catalina Loader (0.5.9) on a USB thumb drive for Brightness Control. For this to work I disabled SIP and haven't re-enabled it.

So now I wanted to upgrade to Mojave using the new OCLP made available recently. Thank you already for that ! But I can't get it to work ("…cannot be installed on this computer" message). Here is what I did (tried several times with and without resetting PRAM in between):

• I have one 1 TB SSD int he Mac and currently one partition/container for High Sierra (Macintosh HD). Within Disk Utility, I created a second APFS container on this disc for Mojave.
• I then followed the instructions (https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher/) for installing the OCLP and the Mojave Installer on a 32 GB SD card (with the patcher setting for Metal NVidia support).
• I then started from that SD card (after removing the Catalina Loader thumb drive). Within the Open Core boot picker, I chose the Install Mojave drive.
• The installer booted (white Apple Logo and progress bar on black screen), which took quite some time. Then it rebooted a lot faster and got to the Mojave installer menu.
• When I chose Install Mojave option, it did its thing and showed the available drives, but all were greyed out. Including the fresh Mojave partition I made earlier. Clicking on any drive showed a pop-up: "This version of macOS 10.14 cannot be installed on this computer."

Within the Open Core Legacy Patcher app, I saw a mention "Target OS 11.0". Is this why it doesn't work for Mojave?


Thanks for your advice.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Hello to all. I need some help.

I have an iMac 21.5" mid-2010 with a flashed K2100M card. It is running up-to-date High Sierra together with Catalina Loader (0.5.9) on a USB thumb drive for Brightness Control. For this to work I disabled SIP and haven't re-enabled it.

So now I wanted to upgrade to Mojave using the new OCLP made available recently. Thank you already for that ! But I can't get it to work ("…cannot be installed on this computer" message). Here is what I did (tried several times with and without resetting PRAM in between):

• I have one 1 TB SSD int he Mac and currently one partition/container for High Sierra (Macintosh HD). Within Disk Utility, I created a second APFS container on this disc for Mojave.
• I then followed the instructions (https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher/) for installing the OCLP and the Mojave Installer on a 32 GB SD card (with the patcher setting for Metal NVidia support).
• I then started from that SD card (after removing the Catalina Loader thumb drive). Within the Open Core boot picker, I chose the Install Mojave drive.
• The installer booted (white Apple Logo and progress bar on black screen), which took quite some time. Then it rebooted a lot faster and got to the Mojave installer menu.
• When I chose Install Mojave option, it did its thing and showed the available drives, but all were greyed out. Including the fresh Mojave partition I made earlier. Clicking on any drive showed a pop-up: "This version of macOS 10.14 cannot be installed on this computer."

Within the Open Core Legacy Patcher app, I saw a mention "Target OS 11.0". Is this why it doesn't work for Mojave?


Thanks for your advice.

Whenever changing OC version you need a PRAM reset to get rid of the settings of the old versions. Try this before booting into OCLP OpenCore of your new SD card.

 

[dksp]

Danke Ausdauersportler.

I did reset PRAM before booting from the SD card. And since it didn't work, I even tried without resetting PRAM. If all the other steps seem correct to you, I will go though the whole process again. There must be a problem somewhere.

Maybe it is a problem with the two APFS containers on the same disk?
Or is it because SIP is disabled? Does it have to be enabled during installation?

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Danke Ausdauersportler.

I did reset PRAM before booting from the SD card. And since it didn't work, I even tried without resetting PRAM.

If all the other steps seem correct to you, I will go though the whole process again. There must be a problem somewhere.

Maybe it is a problem with the two APFS containers on the same disk?

The current recommendation is to separate different macOS versions in separate partitions, but from my experience you can have APFS High Sierra, Catalina and Mojave in one partition using different containers.

Never, never use Big Sur in the same partition with former macOS versions. It always needs a separate one. And if you want to be 100% sure use different partitions for different macOS versions in any case.

There might be another problem with stock OCLP spoofing. Currently it supports only Big Sur installations. To install all macOS versions (Mojave and Catalina) I changed this single setting manually on my systems:

Key: PlatformInfo->SMBIOS->SystemProductName
Type: STRING
Value: iMacPro1,1

Additionally you have to disable SecureBootModel only while creating the EFI folder (there is a method to avoid this but this would be more complicated to explain and I never did it myself, it is on the todo list). Doing this you can boot the older macOS versions, too. This is more an Apple bug than an OpenCore special corner case.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

News of another successful update via OCLP.
iMac 12,2 with Quadro K3100M.
From 11.2.3 to 11.3 update went smoothly just like what supported macs do - this is insanely great!

Screen flickering on max brightness still persists but screen is great with upto 75% brightness and it is way better than what I have with Patched Sur which was I think only arounf 50% or 60% max brightness.

Another thing I noticed in disk utility is the presence of another container (com.apple.os.update...) inside my boot partition. It shows as a system snapshot. Is it normal?

There should be no 75% brightness issue. Check the K3100M BIOS download page, follow the instructions to find out your panel type and report it back. The maximum brightness is lower than with the older ATI cards, but where are you using your display? At the beach?

The snapshot is fine and please leave it as it is! You may use bigger search engines to find out more about Apples Big Sur disk layout and the use of snapshots.

 

[Tomvreugdenhil]

imac 21.5 2011 with k2100m flashed using Linux USB method
successfully installed OCLP on the USB drive
and Catalina on internal SSD using EFI on USB.
have Win 10 on separated SSD
everything was running ok for a couple of days, but today built in microphone just stopped working both in MacOS and Win10
PRAM reset didn't help
might it be just kind of software issue? anybody faced with it?

I had a similar problem after installing Big Sur using the OCLP where programs could not ask for access to my microphone and camera. I found out that while creating the OpenCore EFI folder the setting about SIP was turned off. I made sure that it was turned on and created a new OpenCore folder saved to my USB drive and booted it from the new OpenCore USB. When booted I could get programs to access the microphone and camera again and the problem was gone, afterwards I used the stock settings in the OCLP builder to again recreate a new OpenCore EFI folder with the SIP setting back to default and the microphone and camera still work without any problems. Maybe this does the trick for you too.

 

[dksp]

The current recommendation is to separate different macOS versions in separate partitions, but from my experience you can have APFS High Sierra, Catalina and Mojave in one partition using different containers.

Never, never use Big Sur in the same partition with former macOS versions. It always needs a separate one. And if you want to be 100% sure use different partitions for different macOS versions in any case.

There might be another problem with stock OCLP spoofing. Currently it supports only Big Sur installations. To install all macOS versions (Mojave and Catalina) I changed this single setting manually on my systems:

Key: PlatformInfo->SMBIOS->SystemProductName
Type: STRING
Value: iMacPro1,1

Additionally you have to disable SecureBootModel only while creating the EFI folder (there is a method to avoid this but this would be more complicated to explain and I never did it myself, it is on the todo list). Doing this you can boot the older macOS versions, too. This is more an Apple bug than an OpenCore special corner case.

Thank you for those details. I will try out this evening, when back at home.

 

[junley4]

There should be no 75% brightness issue. Check the K3100M BIOS download page, follow the instructions to find out your panel type and report it back. The maximum brightness is lower than with the older ATI cards, but where are you using your display? At the beach?

The snapshot is fine and please leave it as it is! You may use bigger search engines to find out more about Apples Big Sur disk layout and the use of snapshots.

Thanks for the clarification regarding the system snapshot.
As of now, my machine is perfectly usable, it is doing great actually and I dont need brightness level higher than 70% inside my room. Just now, I ran unigene heaven and at 50% brightness, the screen flickers, the flickering goes away when i dropped the brightness to around 40%. Tomorrow I am planning to try @nikey22's v4 rom for K3100M (mine has bfr memory) and see if it fixes the issue.

By the way, I got the same panel as the test machine of @nikey22 as seen in the attached picture.

 

[ChrizLoud]

There we have it. Patched Sur is the single not working patcher. Use OCLP or iMac micropatcher. I spend so much time into making both things work, it is more than disappointing when people ignore this work and then claim a (non existing) problem.

I maintained a recommended patcher list for nine month now on the first post. Patched Sur was *never* on this list for obvious reasons.

I really appreciate the time you put into making 100% full brightness control working for 2011 iMacs in the micropatcher... But... its not as easy to install as "Patched Sur". I prefer a graphical interface since im not used to need to use the "Terminal"

With "Patched Sur" Brightness control works but its not that bright as in high sierra with modified stepping in kext.
I guess this would be an "easy" fix to include in "Patched Sur" and would really help out the community that want to run Big Sur but have no terminal knowledge. Its still useable but when the sun is shining it can be hard to see the screen.

If you tell me that micropatcher gives me this and also fixes the annoying 16-bit color bug after boot (fixed by choosing sleep and wait for the screen to go black than just click the mouse) i might pull out the good old terminal and give it a try 🙂

 

[herrdude]

I really appreciate the time you put into making 100% full brightness control working for 2011 iMacs in the micropatcher... But... its not as easy to install as "Patched Sur". I prefer a graphical interface since im not used to need to use the "Terminal"

With "Patched Sur" Brightness control works but its not that bright as in high sierra with modified stepping in kext.
I guess this would be an "easy" fix to include in "Patched Sur" and would really help out the community that want to run Big Sur but have no terminal knowledge. Its still useable but when the sun is shining it can be hard to see the screen.

If you tell me that micropatcher gives me this and also fixes the annoying 16-bit color bug after boot (fixed by choosing sleep and wait for the screen to go black than just click the mouse) i might pull out the good old terminal and give it a try 🙂

When you use OCLP, it's not really using the terminal with command lines. You start up the application and then choose the appropriate numbers (usually 5 for patcher settings, 4 for metal card, 2 for Nvidia, 1 for build Opencore, and 3 for install on USB (then choosing the appropriate partition).

It's pretty easy, really.

 

[GerrryLee]

Hi, I want to share that my iMac 12.1 32GB ram, i7-2600s, 8.5TB on Fusion drive with nvidia K1100m and OCLP, upgraded to 11.3 via OTA without any problem.

For those of you wondering about the Fusion Drive (mine with 500GB SSD and 8TB mechanical), it works very well even the performance is slightly better than with the separate drives (based on the results of the Black Magic Speed Test). The boot time is 36 seconds and the shutdown time is 12 seconds.
They have done great work with the OCLP. It is a wonder. Thanks

 

[Ausdauersportler]

I really appreciate the time you put into making 100% full brightness control working for 2011 iMacs in the micropatcher... But... its not as easy to install as "Patched Sur". I prefer a graphical interface since im not used to need to use the "Terminal"

With "Patched Sur" Brightness control works but its not that bright as in high sierra with modified stepping in kext.
I guess this would be an "easy" fix to include in "Patched Sur" and would really help out the community that want to run Big Sur but have no terminal knowledge. Its still useable but when the sun is shining it can be hard to see the screen.

If you tell me that micropatcher gives me this and also fixes the annoying 16-bit color bug after boot (fixed by choosing sleep and wait for the screen to go black than just click the mouse) i might pull out the good old terminal and give it a try 🙂

No, I will not waste my lifetime into this Patched Sur development. Using OCLP we have now for the very first time in three years back the situation to install and upgrade using Apples own installation and software upgrade process. No need for a non standard graphical interface and a non standard process. This idea was always a crutch!

You missed the complete last four weeks on this thread?

P.S.:
Funny to ask me for another free pint of community support beer just because your are not willing to change a system.

 

[PaDa23]

So I have a last question: The HD 6970M 1GB or 2GB is very expensive. The cheapest option is from Ali ... Are these cards 100% original by Apple? And new (they advertise them as new)? And do they work like Plug&Play?

I'm just thinking about the selling process in 2-3 years. In my view buyers want a non-modified iMac, because imagine I'm selling this iMac with a K3000M or x and then after 1-2 days the buyer says "omg i updated it (or whatever) and now its not working!!!111 black screen!" ...

Maybe in the future the 6970M (orig. Apple) will be half the price ... But after 10 years they still are so expensive ...

 

[Ausdauersportler]

So I have a last question: The HD 6970M 1GB or 2GB is very expensive. The cheapest option is from Ali ... Are these cards 100% original by Apple? And new (they advertise them as new)? And do they work like Plug&Play?

I'm just thinking about the selling process in 2-3 years. In my view buyers want a non-modified iMac, because imagine I'm selling this iMac with a K3000M or x and then after 1-2 days the buyer says "omg i updated it (or whatever) and now its not working!!!111 black screen!" ...

Maybe in the future the 6970M (orig. Apple) will be half the price ... But after 10 years they still are so expensive ...

Surprisingly nearly all users here started with a GPU dead iMac. These ATI cards have an average life time of a few years (if new, and I doubt there are new ones from Apple available somewhere today).

Using any NVIDIA or AMD replacement gives you the same and more functionality, it will be no problem to patch a black screen away, but it would be impossible to patch a dying 6970M away. The modern AMD (Polaris and Ellesmere) cards have no black screen issue at all.

You are hunting ghosts...

 

[herrdude]

So I have a last question: The HD 6970M 1GB or 2GB is very expensive. The cheapest option is from Ali ... Are these cards 100% original by Apple? And new (they advertise them as new)? And do they work like Plug&Play?

I'm just thinking about the selling process in 2-3 years. In my view buyers want a non-modified iMac, because imagine I'm selling this iMac with a K3000M or x and then after 1-2 days the buyer says "omg i updated it (or whatever) and now its not working!!!111 black screen!" ...

Maybe in the future the 6970M (orig. Apple) will be half the price ... But after 10 years they still are so expensive ...

Here is my answer: who cares?

Why would you spend that much money to be stuck at HS and with a card that will surely die again?

 

[Airknight]

Next time make some more pictures and describe the process, this is a real nice finding! Would love to add it to the first post.

Have fun!

thanks. Still got the open 2011 to go to the trash can.I'l try to re-assemble it with the 2009 parts and make pictures. the route is pretty vice-versa.

Edit:
The process is as follows for 2009 ->2011.

1. remove all the black tape on the top (screwed on) part of the screen. At the edges you cut the silver tape just enough to be able to fold the the top part (approx. 10 cm) open. (In step 4.)
2. disconnect all connectors from the board.
3. Remove the 4 philips screws that connect the cover to the screen. After that best ask a buddy for a extra hand.
4. lift the cover approx. 10 cm.let your buddy keep it up, or place a wig. You'll need both hands at the next step.
5. underneath you find 2 pc-boards, attached to eachother with 2 parallel flatband cables. very thin, so i guess delicate too. Simply use both you thumb nails (or 2 spludgers) to lift the darkgrey clamp to release the flatband cable. (see picture, i'll make better ones)Do the same with the other one. the board you have to swap is now disconnected. But it is still glued to the lcd.
6. gently wiggle the board in parallel direction with the flatband cables untill it comes loose and exchange it for the right one.
7. Assembly the same way around back.
8.transfer the temp sensor +cable and the other (6_pin?) cable from your old screen. Backlight cable is the same and can stay on the screen ofcourse.

That's roughly it.

 

[Airknight]

I've always wanted to try a 21.5" (09/10) LVDS cable to test this on a 27" 2009-2010 lcd to 2011 logic board without any disassembly or swapping boards.
Don't know if it would be long enough though.
View attachment 1764079

Was my first guess too, but then I still had to re-route rebuild the other cables, including going from flatbed to normal wire for the v-synch cable. This was way more easy!

 

[emdirector]

MAJOR UPDATE 3: IT'S WORKING!
EFI was outdated and caused Linux not to DHCP for some reason! I solved this issue by installing High Sierra on to SSD using USB adapter using my other iMac5K. After plugging it back into SATA in 2011 iMac, I enabled shared desktop in Sharing Settings in macOS and put SSD into 2011 iMac. It surely booted and I confirmed old EFI firmware. Updated EFI by installing security updates from AppStore. You can confirm your EFI firmware using tool SILENTKNIGHT (google it). Booted into Linux USB after 5 consecutive PRAM resets (5 chimes in a row), DHCP and SSH worked almost instantly (I think i had to press ENTER blindly 3 times).
NOTE: I think on older EFI, the fans were spinning like crazy during Linux session, after update, they do not. In macOS I still prefer to use Macs Fan Control app.


ORIGINAL MESSAGE: I'm having hardest time. For many hours been trying to figure it out. Read this thread's wiki multiple times....
iMac (27-inch, Mid 2011) - 3.4 GHz Intel Core i7.
Modding to have GTX 880M. Pulled everything out, modded the GPU cooler and X-bracket with Dremel, applied k5 pro thermal paste, installed 880, refreshed CPU paste, put everything back together.. And black screen!!! I can boot into High Sierra and remotely connect to it (screen sharing), control macOS at 1280x1024. I even ran benchmark Unigine Valley, it runs!
I cannot for the love of anything, get it to DHCP in Linux USB stick. Tried 4 USB sticks, SD card. Tried the blind method of turning on DHCP (hit N, then hit ENTER 5 times, etc), tried following along on my other iMac5K. It just doesn't get the IP address. Tried 3 different routers, factory reset them. DHCP has been randomly issued IP address a few times, but it wouldn't let me SSH into it (or even ping) - saying host is not available or timeout. Tried USB-ETH, tried TB-ETH. Nothing. iMac5K works (has screen that I can see) it shows up in the router devices list. The 2011 DOES NOT! Remember, it runs macOS fine, gets IP, there is GPU acceleration, but NO IMAGE on screen.
Help please... I don't know if the GPU is somehow faulty or if something is wrong with Ethernet...
Note: 2 out of 4 LEDs on logic board are on when iMac is powered on.

UPDATE 1: I had outdated EFI firmware, doing software update over screen sharing updated it to the latest 87.0.0.0.0 will test LINUX next.

UPDATE 2: Booted into Linux USB after 5 PRAM resets (5 chimes in a row), now it shows up on router and has PINGable IP. Trying to FLASH NOW

 

[dksp]

The current recommendation is to separate different macOS versions in separate partitions, but from my experience you can have APFS High Sierra, Catalina and Mojave in one partition using different containers.

Never, never use Big Sur in the same partition with former macOS versions. It always needs a separate one. And if you want to be 100% sure use different partitions for different macOS versions in any case.

There might be another problem with stock OCLP spoofing. Currently it supports only Big Sur installations. To install all macOS versions (Mojave and Catalina) I changed this single setting manually on my systems:

Key: PlatformInfo->SMBIOS->SystemProductName
Type: STRING
Value: iMacPro1,1

Additionally you have to disable SecureBootModel only while creating the EFI folder (there is a method to avoid this but this would be more complicated to explain and I never did it myself, it is on the todo list). Doing this you can boot the older macOS versions, too. This is more an Apple bug than an OpenCore special corner case.

So… thank you! It worked using an APFS container for Mojave. And applying both suggestions, so I can't tell if it was System ProductName or SecureBootModel. But after booting with those both settings, it let me chose the drive for installing Mojave. Installation went fine without any problems.

But… when booting Mojave with the OCLP generated SD card, I didn't have brightness control. I checked and had to disable SIP again, but still no brightness control. The iMac was running very hot, with the PSU Primary at 70° for example.

When booting the Mojave installation with the Catalina Loader (the one I use for High Sierra), Brightness Control was back again, the iMac was running a lot cooler… but no Wifi instead!

So right now I am back to High Sierra with the Catalina Loader.

One thing I noted about brightness control (with Catalina Loader) is, that with High Sierra the screen is quite dark (even if I got used to it). I would say around 50% max. brightness. But with the Mojave installation and the same loader, the maximum screen brightness is normal, just like it should be.

 

[PaDa23]

Surprisingly nearly all users here started with a GPU dead iMac. These ATI cards have an average life time of a few years (if new, and I doubt there are new ones from Apple available somewhere today).

Using any NVIDIA or AMD replacement gives you the same and more functionality, it will be no problem to patch a black screen away, but it would be impossible to patch a dying 6970M away. The modern AMD (Polaris and Ellesmere) cards have no black screen issue at all.

You are hunting ghosts...

Here is my answer: who cares?

Why would you spend that much money to be stuck at HS and with a card that will surely die again?

The point is that I will be very familiar with my non-original card: What patches I need, what to press and not press, why the brightness behaves that way, etc. When which error could appear and what I have to do then.

But if a buyer then changes anything and plays around the card might not work with the iMac anymore.

I just wanted to ask you if you have installed cards that really work flawlessly as if they were " intended " by Apple. And whether the thing must not be treated like a raw egg.

You surely want to sell your iMacs later.
If it is possible to install a AMD/nVidia card idiot-proof then everything is good. 🙂

 

[Ausdauersportler]

The point is that I will be very familiar with my non-original card: What patches I need, what to press and not press, why the brightness behaves that way, etc. When which error could appear and what I have to do then.

But if a buyer then changes anything and plays around the card might not work with the iMac anymore.

I just wanted to ask you if you have installed cards that really work flawlessly as if they were " intended " by Apple. And whether the thing must not be treated like a raw egg.

You surely want to sell your iMacs later.
If it is possible to install a AMD/nVidia card idiot-proof then everything is good. 🙂

Please check the first post and the guides we made there. This complete operation is as idiot-proof as changing a dying ATI card. Since we got OCLP working the rest is playing with a Lego set for children under six years, unless you can read.

You cannot sell an iMac with an macOS version without any support (High Sierra)! In less than a year you will face the first security aware websites not willing to connect to an older unsupported version of Safari, what will happen in 3 years when your ATI is dying, again?

We do not need to sell this solution to you. The market has already decided for you. GPU cards listed on post #1 became rare and expensive, no turnaround visible at the horizon.

If you love your old ATI so badly my personal advice:
Panta Rhei - „Denn alles muß in Nichts zerfallen, Wenn es im Sein beharren will“

 

[herrdude]

The point is that I will be very familiar with my non-original card: What patches I need, what to press and not press, why the brightness behaves that way, etc. When which error could appear and what I have to do then.

But if a buyer then changes anything and plays around the card might not work with the iMac anymore.

I just wanted to ask you if you have installed cards that really work flawlessly as if they were " intended " by Apple. And whether the thing must not be treated like a raw egg.

You surely want to sell your iMacs later.
If it is possible to install a AMD/nVidia card idiot-proof then everything is good. 🙂

Godspeed.