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

[FlorisVN]

I wonder if/when we can perhaps get a bootrom mod for the 2011’s to support Ivy Bridge cpu’s.

I remember in the past that Nick was working on this, but he fell of the earth ?..

 

[TAPKAE]

How did you apply the currently VBIOS ROM on your card? The process could be the same, except using the K2100M_EG2.rom. If you previously used the clip method to flash it, then I would suggest you explore the linux method (well documented on page 1) to avoid the need to disassemble everything.

See the 5th "Spoiler":
Questions and Answers. > Q3: Flash VBIOS? How do I do that?

Note: You shouldn't need to SSH from another system (for the screen already works), though it could be a good learning experience if you have not done that before.

I hired a tech to do this last year when I was only then wrapping my head around the fact this whole thing could be done at all. He did the reading here and elsewhere and he made his best guess with the purchase of the card and somehow came up with the unlikely Elpida variant. He had told me there was some compromise with the VRAM but it was just a happy thing to have the thing working at all as a proof of concept so I just took it as one of those odd compromises you'd expect in off the beaten track mods like this. He did the flashing. I just picked up where he left off and did the OS installs and the venturing into the world of dosdude patchers, and later OCLP a few months ago, and even last week installing Mojave onto the same drive where High Sierra, Catalina, and Big Sur are. Mainly to know I can.

In a parallel effort, I'm now up against the fact my i7 iMac GPU took a dump on the other machine, and so it's back into learning or relearning and comparing what the first mod was like with what can be done with the prospective second mod. There's just been a lot of cross-referencing and relearning lately as the entire topic came to the fore again.

But on the i5 this sub-thread is about, I guess you're saying I could make the Linux thumb drive and just boot from that and do the flashing all on the modded machine (i5) which in every way is up and running and has been doing great for a year.

On the i7, very likely that would be the learning moment for doing the SSH method.

Thanks.

 

[StephN999]

I wonder if/when we can perhaps get a bootrom mod for the 2011’s to support Ivy Bridge cpu’s.

I remember in the past that Nick was working on this, but he fell of the earth ?..

iMac 2011 (see more) UEFI Firmware Mod

This is a Wiki post with information collected from the entire thread. Before you post, please read this first. This thread is for supporting iMac 2011 Firmware (BIOS) mods. Some patches may work on other same era Macs. Look at description inside individual posts for detailed information...

forums.macrumors.com

Bonjour,

I'm still waiting for help, it's not for lack of trying, I would hope for help from people more qualified than me.

have a nice day

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Thank you!

Shall I wait for OCPL 0.3.2 first, prepare new MacOS installer based on 0.3.2 and then reinstall BigSur using that media?
Or may I just use my "old" usb stick prepared with 0.3.1, reinstall BigSur without any postinstall patches and when available copy new OpenCore 0.3.2 to EFI?

Hi!

Follow exactly the steps I described. You will not have an EFI boot picker with the new card, you cannot chose and boot an USB unless the new OpenCore is working. So it has to be installed on your internal disk in advance before you have the new card installed.

Alternative:
You may create an OC recovery CD as described on the first post using the same AMD GCN setting available with OCLP 0.3.2. You can force boot it pressing C and have a boot screen.

This is the best thing doing in advance. You can test it in advance with your old card (successfully booting into it will show the OpenCore 0.7.5 tag in the lower right corner on the boot screen).

Later I will post a new short doc about using OCLP 0.3.2. TUI to select the AMD GCN CPU type support.

 

[cyxoe]

davidg5678
and
Ausdauersportler,

thank you once again for the heads-up.
The GPU is still on the way, so I will wait for OCLP 0.3.2 and new documentation from Ausdauersportler.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

davidg5678
and
Ausdauersportler,

thank you once again for the heads-up.
The GPU is still on the way, so I will wait for OCLP 0.3.2 and new documentation from Ausdauersportler.

You have everything - the updated older post just reflects what I already wrote you here before.

 

[panduhsaur]

I have a 12,2 that I have upgraded with a K3100M and have had similar problems. Sleep is intermittent at best and some times if the power goes off I have a hard time getting the system to start again. I've not gone into figuring out what exactly is wrong as others have this same configuration with no issues.

First, turn off sleep. yes you will consume a bit more power but so what. you can let the screen saver kick on and put the screen to sleep but just don't sleep the machine. that "solves" the sleep issue.

Second, when the power goes off I've found that (1) leave the power on without trying to power up the machine for about 5 minutes before you try. The success rate is much higher and (2) it may take a dozen or so pushes on the power button to get it to power up.

Sometimes my machine will sleep and will easily power up, sometimes it won't. I suspect that there is some kind of race condition in the system that is hit and miss. I really don't feel like taking it apart so I'm just leaving it on and on that rare occasion where the power in the house goes off I deal with it.

Did you ever figure out a work around? or what is causing this? I have a k4000m in my 12,2 and it's like 100% of the time it's unable to come back up after it goes to sleep. And I'm on High Sierra

If you haven't found a work around, do you just shut off the computer every time? I've also noticed I have to mash the power button a few times for it to start up as well.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Did you ever figure out a work around? or what is causing this? I have a k4000m in my 12,2 and it's like 100% of the time it's unable to come back up after it goes to sleep. And I'm on High Sierra

If you haven't found a work around, do you just shut off the computer every time? I've also noticed I have to mash the power button a few times for it to start up as well.

Hi!

There is no solution known but you can do something to analyze the problem. Run the HW Monitor and report back all temperature sensors.

If you have more sensors reporting the 129C than GPU an GPU environment than you might just face some SMBUS conflict that confuses the SMC and causes booting trouble.

You can try an SMC reset each time before booting (wall plug pull for 15s).

 

[edwardgeo]

Hello!

If someone is interested in Thunderbolt 1 research, welcome to research thread:
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...d-life-research-notes-boardviews-etc.2326937/


If we can solve firmware limitations (whitelist), that dongles could be very useful for making PCIe X1 cards for old macs, or even MXM portable accelerators.

 

[panduhsaur]

Hi!

There is no solution known but you can do something to analyze the problem. Run the HW Monitor and report back all temperature sensors.

If you have more sensors reporting the 129C than GPU an GPU environment than you might just face some SMBUS conflict that confuses the SMC and causes booting trouble.

You can try an SMC reset each time before booting (wall plug pull for 15s).

Attached are my temps. The only thing that looks outside of the norm is the GPU itself showing -

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Attached are my temps. The only thing that looks outside of the norm is the GPU itself showing -

We have several similar reports of problems like this. Mostly with K3000M, K4000M, K5000M, K3100M, and GTX780M, GTX880M - just to name a few - mostly in iMac12,2 systems.

This does not look like a software problem since other users have fully working cards. You either have a partly broken card or a modified or non standard card - these cards have been used by multiple OEM vendors and may have unknown differences compared to Dell or HP cards.

In some cases those cards were working fine in iMac11,1 models.

I am sorry, there will be unlikely a solution for those problems unless we donate @nikey22 all these different cards and models to play with it 🙂 And even than time is a limited resource.

My advice: Get another card.

 

[ailik]

Hi, wanted to ask...
So if my gpu doesn't show temp, its not normal?
It works fine though.

 

[xbox3605]

W

Well,

how can I be of any help here? User claims to have followed the docs to the letter, nevertheless something is broken! Have five of those identical cards, the procedure has been tested by me several times with several cards in all 27 inch iMacs.

- so I ask you to repeat the whole procedure of installing OpenCore using OLCP to your internal HDD
- it will not be necessary to alter the plain new config to get the boot screen working. The settings are just necessary to get the external display working (pikera) and change the name to R9 M280X (rebuild device tree).

BTW:
- we asked all users to take pictures of the card and post them in case of trouble
- we asked users to save the original vBIOS of the new card in case of trouble
- the screen shot you were posting had clearly not applied the OpenCore settings as described, you would have seen a R9 M280X GPU....
- disable system sleep, do not even send the iMac to sleep using the Apple menu item
- OCLP tries to disable a non existing iGPU in your XEON based system

Please give it at least a try and report back.

Hi. I try my best still don’t work. Is recognised only if I put that code line. After restart is not recognised anymore.. by the way boot screen not working at all..

 

[TigerA]

Hi. I try my best still don’t work.

What still doesn't work?

Is recognised only if I put that code line. After restart is not recognised anymore.

What is recognised and what code did you put in, and to where?

by the way boot screen not working at all..

It's expected that the macOS default EFI boot screen does not work for your card. Only the OCLP will provide a simulated EFI picker, provided the OCLP has been installed to your disk first (run the OCLP app and select #1, then #2 and pick a boot up disk EFI partition).

 

[xbox3605]

What still doesn't work?


What is recognised and what code did you put in, and to where?


It's expected that the macOS default EFI boot screen does not work for your card. Only the OCLP will provide a simulated EFI picker, provided the OCLP has been installed to your disk first (run the OCLP app and select #1, then #2 and pick a boot up disk EFI partition).

Hi, if you go on about this mac is showing AMD Radeon HD 8xxx 2 GB, after create the oclp and modify the config adding this code :

<key>PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1,0x0)/Pci(0x0,0x0)</key>
<dict>
<key>shikigva</key>
<integer>80</integer>
<key>unfairgva</key>
<integer>1</integer>
<key>rebuild-device-tree</key>
<integer>1</integer>
<key>agdpmod</key>
<string>pikera</string>
</dict>

save and reboot again is reading the video card amd radeon r9 blabal but only once after restart is not showing anymore.. boot screen still do not show is booting oclp on internal hard drive still nothing, when is with oclp is showing the cpu xeon and video card AMD Radeon HD 8xxx 2 GB without oclp is showing i5 ..i dont know if you understand me but the oclp was 100% installed correctly, or video card is defect or is something wrong with oclp and catania

 

[Ausdauersportler]

save and reboot again is reading the video card amd radeon r9 blabal but only once after restart is not showing anymore.. boot screen still do not show is booting oclp on internal hard drive still nothing, when is with oclp is showing the cpu xeon and video card AMD Radeon HD 8xxx 2 GB without oclp is showing i5 ..i dont know if you understand me but the oclp was 100% installed correctly, or video card is defect or is something wrong with oclp and catania

These GCN cards are really difficult in iMac12,x - you can easily crash the system when entering sleep state needing a PRAM or SMC reset on boot, or both.

After installing the vBIOS from my post and with OpenCore installed you will get a boot picker unless you have disabled it for some unknown reason. You need to check this setting before rebuilding OpenCore using the TUI version of OCLP.

Which GPU was installed before?
How did you install Catalina? With the old card installed?

 

[xbox3605]

These GCN cards are really difficult in iMac12,x - you can easily crash the system when entering sleep state needing a PRAM or SMC reset on boot, or both.

After installing the vBIOS from my post and with OpenCore installed you will get a boot picker unless you have disabled it for some unknown reason. You need to check this setting before rebuilding OpenCore using the TUI version of OCLP.

I installed your vbios 3 times erase & install with usb programmer on windows laptop

Which GPU was installed before?
How did you install Catalina? With the old card installed?

With the original vCard but I don’t apply any patch for it. So is nothing to do with that and also was a clean install
Ps: pram and smc still the same I’ve done it more than 10 times pram unplugged from the iMac the power cord all usb out more than 30 seconds still nothing

 

[Ausdauersportler]

I installed your vbios 3 times erase & install with usb programmer on windows laptop

With the original vCard but I don’t apply any patch for it. So is nothing to do with that and also was a clean install
Ps: pram and smc still the same I’ve done it more than 10 times pram unplugged from the iMac the power cord all usb out more than 30 seconds still nothing

Than your card is a different model or just broken. Since you made everything according to the books we should stop investigating it further.

Sorry about that.

 

[Pacific1972]

MXM 3.0 to PCI-E Adapter (up to 100cm) on AliExpress available !​

AliExpress

ADT-Link Official Store​

😉🙂😉

 

[joevt]

MXM 3.0 to PCI-E Adapter (up to 100cm) on AliExpress available !​

View attachment 1926611
View attachment 1926612


AliExpress

ADT-Link Official Store​

😉🙂😉

The description says PCIe 3.0 x4 but the cable is wider than that. The picture of GPU-Z says PCIe 1.1 x16 which has similar bandwidth to PCIe 3.0 x4 which is maybe what they meant. Does it mean that it can't do PCIe 2.0 or 3.0? GPU-Z has a button to start 3d rendering which should make the GPU switch from PCIe 1.1 idle speed to PCIe 3.0 if possible.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

When already talking about shopping:

Recently I noticed a price drop of used Elgato Thunderbolt 2 docks down to 60-70 EUR from 200+ one year ago on eBay Europe/Germany. Got one and have now USB3 support and I found at least that one of my experimental cards provide three display support on an iMac12,2 using one directly connected port and another via the thunderbolt 2 dock.

Have another i-tec Thunderbolt 2 dock which works with this three display setup as well while failing to connect any USB devices to the USB3 bus (may by a hardware issue with this particular dock or model).

 

[joevt]

When already talking about shopping:

Recently I noticed a price drop of used Elgato Thunderbolt 2 docks down to 60-70 EUR from 200+ one year ago on eBay Europe/Germany. Got one and have now USB3 support and I found at least that one of my experimental cards provide three display support on an iMac12,2 using one directly connected port and another via the thunderbolt 2 dock.

Have another i-tec Thunderbolt 2 dock which works with this three display setup as well while failing to connect any USB devices to the USB3 bus (may by a hardware issue with this particular dock or model).

Thunderbolt 2 docks can only connect one display. You need a second Thunderbolt 2 dock to connect a second display in the same Thunderbolt chain. That's one reason to get a Thunderbolt 3 dock - so you can connect two displays to the same dock (also, they have 10 Gbps USB and USB-C). I think a Thunderbolt 4 dock could work with a Thunderbolt 2 Mac if you're running Big Sur (but I think I've only seen one person try this). But you have a Thunderbolt 1 Mac (Thunderbolt 4 dock doesn't work with my Thunderbolt 1 2013 iMac).

What's the USB controller in the Elgato and the I-tec? Usually Fresco Logic FL1100 is used in Thunderbolt docks.

 

[Pacific1972]

AMD FirePro W6170M - Update iMac 27" 2009​

After a weekend of Tests and Blackouts (of me and the video card 😄😄 )
I have edit the MXM port of the card and disable the SMB-DAT Line 32 -
(on the Top of the Video card its Pin #16) - for disabling SMBus
thermal problems with same-adress resistor CPU on iMac A1312 (2009):

SMB-DAT disable to avoid same adress problems with Thermal sensors
of GPU and CPU - explore MXM sheet for 100K resistor on MXM-line #32.

Preparation of W6170M:

After a new install of High Sierra I got some first Benchmarks...
(use HWMonitor / MacsFanControl):

Benchmark 1920x1080 - compareable with GTX860M ?

Benchmark 2560x1440

...comparing these Video Card with old HD6750 it's nearly 3 times
faster than ATI HD6750 😄😄😄 - MacsFan was a little bit louder...

MacsFan: ODD 3500 / HDD 3500 / CPU 2000

Info only - please make a second install with Big Sur & OCLP
on a separate SSD - the OCLP often only show Bootscreen if you
have something to pick 😉 ... !!!

Attn: perhaps I edit this post later... the Metal Monster runs...

 

[dfranetic]

I have edit the MXM port of the card and disable the SMB-DAT Line 32 -
(on the Top of the Video card its Pin #16) - for disabling SMBus
thermal problems with same-adress resistor CPU on iMac A1312 (2009):

View attachment 1927095
SMB-DAT disable to avoid same adress problems with Thermal sensors
of GPU and CPU - explore MXM sheet for 100K resistor on MXM-line #32.

Do I see this correctly? You removed the SMB-DAT pad entirely? Or is it just such color of ‘nail polish’ over it?

Anyway, this proves that there is a problem with some SMBus device on the card. The high fan speed is probably a consequence of the fact that no IC on the card can be accessed via SMBus…

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Thunderbolt 2 docks can only connect one display. You need a second Thunderbolt 2 dock to connect a second display in the same Thunderbolt chain.

Tried this particular thing because all iMac replacement GPU break the ability to connect two external display directly to the iMac12,2 mid 2011. The only way to get this back is using a dock.

What's the USB controller in the Elgato and the I-tec? Usually Fresco Logic FL1100 is used in Thunderbolt docks.

Both docs report to used the FL1100 driver. But the i-tec is still failing (tried at least four different iMac12,2) to use the USB3 bus. At the same the I had connected an SSD drive to the Elgato.