Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
iM 4,1-14,4 iMac 2011 Maxwell and Pascal GPU upgrade
- Thread starter G3llings
- WikiPost WikiPost
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
- Status
There is no driver for macosx for Turing generation. OpenCore can patch the newer versions of macosx (like Ventura) so the old Kepler nvidia cards continue to work but there never was a driver for turing cards so there is no way to make hw acceleration work in macosx with Turing cards...
For backlight "control", @dfranetic developed an add-on PCB to enable it and keep a 50% duty cycle, much better than the "always on 100%" that the simple wire mod provides. While originally developed for AMD cards, it has been tested to work fine on Nvidia RTX too. There are full details about it on @Ausdauersportler github.I find it really amazing that a failed sensor on a 12 year old apple motherboard stopped the non-supported card from boosting...
So for anyone who wants to boost this incredible old machine with a ray-tracing capable card - it works like a charm. Only thing required is the hardware backlight mode which is really simple. You lose backlight control so the display will get quite hot but at this point of the machines life - it's really nothing to worry about. I hope to squeeze a couple of Fortnite seasons more until the machine finally crashes and burns.
Maybe I'll manage to put in the Ada Lovelace card in future. If I do - I'll let you bunch know how it goes but I expect it to work similar to this card.
If you have any questions or want me to run any specific benchmark - let me know. I'll do my best to reply as soon as possible.
Yep, that should work fine and provide full brightness control.
It uses the iMac infrared usb port to connect to the esp32 serial port and send the command that sets the brightness percentage.
If you have micropython experience, it should be easy to skip the serial part and upgrade the code to create a webserver that receives the brightness setting using json, or start a BLE/UART service and control the brightness using some free ble/uart app from your phone
Yep, that should work fine and provide full brightness control.
It uses the iMac infrared usb port to connect to the esp32 serial port and send the command that sets the brightness percentage.
If you have micropython experience, it should be easy to skip the serial part and upgrade the code to create a webserver that receives the brightness setting using json, or start a BLE/UART service and control the brightness using some free ble/uart app from your phone
LOL
I'm not really a micropython guy but I'm sure I'll find my way. Controlling brightness from the phone would be hilarious...
Hi, just posting my M3000M , if someone can mod for the internal Screen, as bootscreen is showed by opencore.
I installed W10 and the results are still disappointing.
I reinstalled the original Techpowerup bios ( 183206.rom), the results on UnigineValley are the same as with the modified bios. So it's my card that's faulty, Merry Christmas!
Attachments
Last edited:
Поставил в биос 1070, есть такая проблемаI put 1070 in your BIOS, such a problem was flashed on 125 w the card does not work on gjkye.hellp please
Attachments
Does the 765M count as an M series card? I'm not being snarky, I really want to know, now that I need to update my OS and don't have a boot screen....
It is an NVIDIA Kepler card and you will find a custom iMac vBIOS with boot screen support on this thread, search the NVIDIA table on the first post.
This thread here (as the name implies) is in particular about NVIDIA Maxwell (M) and Pascal (P) and Turing (T) cards to be used in iMacs - all these families had never native macOS driver support. The once natively supported Kepler cards are handled in the other thread.
First update to High Sierra latest and greatest to get all firmware upgrades.
Last edited:
You Xeon CPU is not boosting and stays at low clocks, Time Spy CPU score should be close to 3000, not 1443:
Probably the GPU is ok, your problems seems the CPU, maybe a missing temperature sensor or some problem with logic board install.
If you mean adding EnableGop to get native bootscreen without OCLP/Opencore, give this a try:
@terabay I followed your guide and SLH's config.plist mods on an iMac12,1 (with m0bil's bootrom mods from another thread) w/ P3000 to install Ventura / Sonoma.
Ventura / Sonoma runs glitchy/choppy as if I have no hardware accel at all, but Geekbench OpenCL score is respectable (Geekbench 6 OpenCL scores about ~30000 for Monterey | Ventura | Sonoma).
The same computer setup runs smoothly in Monterey. The valley score in Ventura / Sonoma was underwhelming (<1000) compared to Monterey (~2400) eventhough the same version of NVIDIA Web drivers 10.33 are loaded.
I'm using OCLP 1.3 w/ SLH config mods to install then apply WiFi and NVIDIA root patches.
1. Do you have any acceleration issues with M5000M in Ventura?
2. Have you benchmarked valley score above 2000 in Ventura?
3. Can you identify under System Information > Software > Extensions which of the NVIDIA kexts are loaded for the M5000M?
Attachments
I replaced my p5000 with a 1070 with the 125w bios. Score went up a few hundred but I am still not hitting the numbers I should even though card is as cool as can be. Vrel is still a perf cap reason in gpu z.
Psu? Logicboard? Anyway to test what my issue might be?
Edit:
So I have another identical imac that already had a 1070 in it for some time. It scores just fine and even hits 6000 on occasion in timespy when oc'd.
I just ran concurrant furmark 1440p tests and the imac that is under performing maintained board powerdraw above 100 but never went above 110. The imac that is performing as expected had power draw bounce around a lot between 60+ to 129ish. The under performing imac scores a little better in furmark by about 100 points.
Running a bench mark on both machines in tiny tinas wonderlands on medium settings, the under performing machine was down 20+ fps from the other 1070 imac and 10ms slower. Voltage was pegged at about 1.05 volts where as the better performing 1070 imac as at .9 volts. Third image is the gpu-z from that test. Constant vrel. Windows says my dx12 is current.
I'm wondering if I can run apple hardware test via usb since I do not have mac os installed any longer on either machine.
![Screenshot (1).png]( "Screenshot (1).png")
![Screenshot 2024-01-10 183916.png]( "Screenshot 2024-01-10 183916.png")
![Screenshot 2024-01-10 203412.png]( "Screenshot 2024-01-10 203412.png")
Psu? Logicboard? Anyway to test what my issue might be?
Edit:
So I have another identical imac that already had a 1070 in it for some time. It scores just fine and even hits 6000 on occasion in timespy when oc'd.
I just ran concurrant furmark 1440p tests and the imac that is under performing maintained board powerdraw above 100 but never went above 110. The imac that is performing as expected had power draw bounce around a lot between 60+ to 129ish. The under performing imac scores a little better in furmark by about 100 points.
Running a bench mark on both machines in tiny tinas wonderlands on medium settings, the under performing machine was down 20+ fps from the other 1070 imac and 10ms slower. Voltage was pegged at about 1.05 volts where as the better performing 1070 imac as at .9 volts. Third image is the gpu-z from that test. Constant vrel. Windows says my dx12 is current.
I'm wondering if I can run apple hardware test via usb since I do not have mac os installed any longer on either machine.
Last edited:
Strange problem, have you got same cpu, maybe some different firmware patches ?
Yes, you can run apple hardware diagnostics booting from usb, there is some github repository you can download them and then create a bootable usb.
I recently got my lab iMac gtx1070 gpu broken while doing some testing
so it'll take a few weeks until I receive a new one from china. Also take a look at nvidia driver version on both machines, and take care to reboot after updating them, that's how managed to break my gpu...
Well, I managed to toast my gtx1070 gpu while doing some cpu and gpu overclocking tests
While not usual, here is the story so nobody repeats the same error.
Two things went wrong:
- During extreme testing, I leave the odd temp sensor cable disconnected so ODD fan can ramp up to 3800 rpm
- After updating Nvidia driver MacsFanControl looses temp reading from the card, until next reboot.
So, I updated Nvidia driver and launched gpu benchmark without rebooting, leaving computer unattended. Since MacsFanControl did not get gpu temp, it kept odd fan at lowest speed while gpu benchmarked. After a few minutes computer hard shutdown. Results:
![1704974567103.png]( "1704974567103.png")
![1704974585515.png]( "1704974585515.png")
Expensive lesson learned. Always reboot after Nvidia driver update and it may be better to keep the ODD sensor connected and relocated to the GPU heatsink (while not providing 3800 rpm speed, it may have saved the card).
While not usual, here is the story so nobody repeats the same error.
Two things went wrong:
- During extreme testing, I leave the odd temp sensor cable disconnected so ODD fan can ramp up to 3800 rpm
- After updating Nvidia driver MacsFanControl looses temp reading from the card, until next reboot.
So, I updated Nvidia driver and launched gpu benchmark without rebooting, leaving computer unattended. Since MacsFanControl did not get gpu temp, it kept odd fan at lowest speed while gpu benchmarked. After a few minutes computer hard shutdown. Results:
Expensive lesson learned. Always reboot after Nvidia driver update and it may be better to keep the ODD sensor connected and relocated to the GPU heatsink (while not providing 3800 rpm speed, it may have saved the card).
Limited software based solution or How to use Macs Fan Control:
Always, always let the ODD fan depend on the GPU heat sink temperature, never on the GPU temperature. The former reflects the real heat dissipated from the GPU into the sink which needs to be transported out of the iMac using the radiator above the DVD drive.
Optimal hardware based solution:
Relocate the DVD drive temp sensor and glue it directly onto the GPU heat sink. Starting at 55C the ODD fan will ramp up and this will happen SMC controlled whenever the iMac is turned on. It does not depend on a user land application (like Macs Fan Control) after successful booting up. It will work in any case, even during long lasting macOS or Windows update sessions.
Always, always let the ODD fan depend on the GPU heat sink temperature, never on the GPU temperature. The former reflects the real heat dissipated from the GPU into the sink which needs to be transported out of the iMac using the radiator above the DVD drive.
Optimal hardware based solution:
Relocate the DVD drive temp sensor and glue it directly onto the GPU heat sink. Starting at 55C the ODD fan will ramp up and this will happen SMC controlled whenever the iMac is turned on. It does not depend on a user land application (like Macs Fan Control) after successful booting up. It will work in any case, even during long lasting macOS or Windows update sessions.
Same cpu, cloned windows + efi install. I think I even have copied firmware from one machine to the other as I remember doing that but that could have been another logic board. Haven't done any patches.Strange problem, have you got same cpu, maybe some different firmware patches ?
Yes, you can run apple hardware diagnostics booting from usb, there is some github repository you can download them and then create a bootable usb.
I recently got my lab iMac gtx1070 gpu broken while doing some testing
I swapped psus, not the psu. I did ram test, not the ram. I swapped gpu's, not the gpu. I replaced the psu cable, that solved the perf cap vrel but it did not solve performance issues.
I spent hours trying to copy and read firmware today (in case my memory is bad and its not copied over) could not get the ic to detect after a couple hours of attempts. Clip is good though because I did vbios change on the p5000 in hopes of selling it in between attempts.
All thats left is something wrong with the logic board. Going to swap that out and see if it solves it. There is no other component I can swap to see if its the issue. Except the cpu (or inverter board?) But that seems bonkers. Both are i7 2600.
I think I know why my cards have not been running like they should but I am unsure how to fix it.
In cpu-z my Current Link Width is x1 with max supported as x16. The imac that runs correctly both width and supported are x16.
The bios date on the x1 is 4.10.18, the bios date on the better one is 6.14.19. Booting high sierra from usb on my x1 width imac and going into updates doesn't show me any updates for firmware, just a security update.
I don't know if the x1 width is because of a cpu/pin issue or if its a firmware issue.
In cpu-z my Current Link Width is x1 with max supported as x16. The imac that runs correctly both width and supported are x16.
The bios date on the x1 is 4.10.18, the bios date on the better one is 6.14.19. Booting high sierra from usb on my x1 width imac and going into updates doesn't show me any updates for firmware, just a security update.
I don't know if the x1 width is because of a cpu/pin issue or if its a firmware issue.
Thanks m0bil, but like my modded bios , GOP OK but imac 12,2 internal screen never activated on high Sierra after booting, except when acceleration is desactivated.
Could some share what mod is used on nvidia Vbios to activate it, as on internet , can only find explanations for Ati cards?
That makes sense, a reduced link width will slow gpu performance. The gpu PCIe bus is directly connected to the cpu, so a faulty cpu could be the cause, but my guess is that it may be a firmware issue. The link is initialized in the firmware PEI phase, so having an old firmware version may provide more basic and slower link configuration.
Latest firmware for iMac 12,x is version 87.0.0.0.0
If you don't plan using macOS, you can simply test this by copying firmware from faster iMac to slower one (firmware contains iMac serial number and logic board serial number, but they are only used by macOS/iCloud, Windows will ignore them).
