iM 4,1-14,4 iMac 2011 Maxwell and Pascal GPU upgrade

[macfev]

Ok some new info about P4000.

Tried to flash vbios from P4000 max-q which has lower tdp. Flashing worked but after installing nvidia driver it had some freeze from time to time and was stuck around 600mhz clock. This is propably not having optimus support? So came back with no success.

I am testing now core clock 1797mhz with TDP limit 112W. Max temp is about 75-76. Lower TDP helps to keep this baby under 80 degrees. So finally 112W is my sweet spot.

 

[79bass]

I all, thanks for this great resource forum!
I have successfully installed and flashed a quadro m2000m on my old imac 2011 (27").
I was quite lazy on setting up OpenCore before, when I could actually see a starting menu, also because I can't really wrap my head around it.
So now the computer boots blindly with grub2 to linux, and I can work on it via ssh, but no screen ever .
I don't understand why it's so hard to make an opencore EFI. it's 2 days I read how/what kexts I need, what's correct ACPI options I need, and the documentation are so redundant that is confusing. It seems so hard for something that boots almost fine out of the box (I just need it to start with the ReloadOptionROM to somehow reload the nvidia rom at boot and turn the display on?).
It feels overkill, so now I'm second guessing if I'm doing something wrong.
I don't have macOS at all in this machine, just linux. I was planning to make this blasted opencore EFI and either boot from an USB or move the EFI folder (when it work) into the main disk.
Is really everyone using this OC thing with maxwell GPU? all iMac are the same-ish (given the year-period and screen size), so there should be some sort of predefined OC efi bundle, right?

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

I all, thanks for this great resource forum!
I have successfully installed and flashed a quadro m2000m on my old imac 2011 (27").
I was quite lazy on setting up OpenCore before, when I could actually see a starting menu, also because I can't really wrap my head around it.
So now the computer boots blindly with grub2 to linux, and I can work on it via ssh, but no screen ever .
I don't understand why it's so hard to make an opencore EFI. it's 2 days I read how/what kexts I need, what's correct ACPI options I need, and the documentation are so redundant that is confusing. It seems so hard for something that boots almost fine out of the box (I just need it to start with the ReloadOptionROM to somehow reload the nvidia rom at boot and turn the display on?).
It feels overkill, so now I'm second guessing if I'm doing something wrong.
I don't have macOS at all in this machine, just linux. I was planning to make this blasted opencore EFI and either boot from an USB or move the EFI folder (when it work) into the main disk.
Is really everyone using this OC thing with maxwell GPU? all iMac are the same-ish (given the year-period and screen size), so there should be some sort of predefined OC efi bundle, right?

It will be much easier if you were a newbie and use OpenCore Legacy Patcher.
I would do like the following:
Make a High Sierra volume, install OCLP EFI manually (to match with iMac 2011 and Quadro M2000m on High Sierra volume.
Transplant the High Sierra disk to iMac 2011, boot it up to verify all things works.
Now start creating Linux USB installer and/or Linux volume. It will be the best if Linux volume can be on a physically separated disk, so you can have the Opencore boot menu, select to boot to Linux or HighSierra at will.
Then run OCLP again and patch the OC EFI to the Linux disk before removing the High Sierra disk.

I still have an iMac 2009 with M4000m running High Sierra. (OCLP patching is a must with Quadro M series)

 

[79bass]

It will be much easier if you were a newbie and use OpenCore Legacy Patcher.
I would do like the following:
Make a High Sierra volume, install OCLP EFI manually (to match with iMac 2011 and Quadro M2000m on High Sierra volume.
Transplant the High Sierra disk to iMac 2011, boot it up to verify all things works.
Now start creating Linux USB installer and/or Linux volume. It will be the best if Linux volume can be on a physically separated disk, so you can have the Opencore boot menu, select to boot to Linux or HighSierra at will.
Then run OCLP again and patch the OC EFI to the Linux disk before removing the High Sierra disk.

I still have an iMac 2009 with M4000m running High Sierra. (OCLP patching is a must with Quadro M series)

thanks!
well I’m sort of a newbie on this, I really gave up on having macOs on this, since not even Slack or telegram have supported app to run on it 😅.
Windows (which last time I actually used it was on version Windows XP) unsurprisingly also worked very poorly, and very poor user experience too: I spent a couple of days figuring out drivers and stuff. I still have goosebumps if I think of unraring drivers found on random places, I thought in 20 years it improved.. it didn’t…
And finally, it had no audio (I know I need OC for that)!
Linux on the other hand, worked 100% from the start, without effort.

I see, given your suggestion, I’ve swapped back to the old radeon card, and I’ll wait for some cables and adapters, since there is only the original 3.5” hdd, I can place an additional ssd instead of the dvd, but I need a 13 to 22 pins sata adapter (I’ll swap the 3.5” to 2 ssd if the new gpu turns out to work )

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

thanks!
well I’m sort of a newbie on this, I really gave up on having macOs on this, since not even Slack or telegram have supported app to run on it 😅.
Windows (which last time I actually used it was on version Windows XP) unsurprisingly also worked very poorly, and very poor user experience too: I spent a couple of days figuring out drivers and stuff. I still have goosebumps if I think of unraring drivers found on random places, I thought in 20 years it improved.. it didn’t…
And finally, it had no audio (I know I need OC for that)!
Linux on the other hand, worked 100% from the start, without effort.

I see, given your suggestion, I’ve swapped back to the old radeon card, and I’ll wait for some cables and adapters, since there is only the original 3.5” hdd, I can place an additional ssd instead of the dvd, but I need a 13 to 22 pins sata adapter (I’ll swap the 3.5” to 2 ssd if the new gpu turns out to work )

If you have a USB enclosure for your SSD, then you can install High Sierra on the USB enclosure SSD; while Linux to the HDD while waiting.
Remember that you need to run OCLP manually to select the correct configuration.

I still remember that when I first install the flashed M4000m to my iMac 2009; it was terribly sluggish due to lack of driver for the Quadro (old OCLP version didn't integrated nVIDIA drivers). I had to search nVIDIA website for that Mac OS driver. I still keep a link to that correct driver in this thread.

 

[79bass]

If you have a USB enclosure for your SSD, then you can install High Sierra on the USB enclosure SSD; while Linux to the HDD while waiting.
Remember that you need to run OCLP manually to select the correct configuration.

I still remember that when I first install the flashed M4000m to my iMac 2009; it was terribly sluggish due to lack of driver for the Quadro (old OCLP version didn't integrated nVIDIA drivers). I had to search nVIDIA website for that Mac OS driver. I still keep a link to that correct driver in this thread.

I actually have a usb 2.5" enclosure... but it's IDE!! that alone should give you a hint about how old am I .

But what should I expect? I had no screen ever with the m2000m GPU, not juts at boot, but ever even after loading the nvidia drivers.
With a different driver in macOS should I expect the screen to turn on? I thought it needs to load/reload the GOP on boot to actually ever work, there is no post boot procedure to turn the screen on. is that correct?

With further reading of the various mods in the thread, as soon as I find a T1000 in Europe at an affordable price, I'd go for it, it seems to just works without OC/OCLP and it only requires a simple hardware mod (and it would extend immensely future life of the machine, as it's a 2019 card, with most of modern protocol supported... even the linux open source drivers might be enough for gaming -NVK seems to work well with Turing GPUs-)

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

I actually have a usb 2.5" enclosure... but it's IDE!! that alone should give you a hint about how old am I .

But what should I expect? I had no screen ever with the m2000m GPU, not juts at boot, but ever even after loading the nvidia drivers.
With a different driver in macOS should I expect the screen to turn on? I thought it needs to load/reload the GOP on boot to actually ever work, there is no post boot procedure to turn the screen on. is that correct?

With further reading of the various mods in the thread, as soon as I find a T1000 in Europe at an affordable price, I'd go for it, it seems to just works without OC/OCLP and it only requires a simple hardware mod (and it would extend immensely future life of the machine, as it's a 2019 card, with most of modern protocol supported... even the linux open source drivers might be enough for gaming -NVK seems to work well with Turing GPUs-)

You need OpenCore patch, regardless the OS intended to run on your iMac. (Opencore EFI in this case acts as the BIOS setting in Windows/Linux PCs).

Please refer to the below link for more detailed explanation why you need it.
Your iMac is a 2011 model thus the post is the exact match.
Eventually, I would not suggest installing a fresh Linux on your iMac, because:
1. It's too difficult without a bootscreen.
2. Linux boot management will mess-up with Mac OS boot management=> catastrophy.

iMac 2011 Maxwell and Pascal GPU upgrade

iMac Quadro P3000M & P4000M roms: - Enables the internal display - Enables GOP boot-screen - Brightness control with OpenCore - Full Boost clocks in MacOS & Windows - Power Limit increased (with AfterBurner) Sadly there is still no certificate hacked nvflash for Pascal, so patched roms must be...

forums.macrumors.com

If I would ever want to run Linux on an iMac, I would do as follows: (I'm not sure if it works)
1- Install Linux to a drive (SSD or HHD) on another PC. Make sure it's a GPT partitioned volume.
2- Erase the Linux boot management part. (i.e remove the Linux Boot Directory, or better yet, delete all files on the EFI partition)
3- Patch the OpenCore EFI (that matches with iMac 2011 and new GPU) to that Linux disk. The Opencore EFI control the boot management.
4- Transfer the disk (with Linux and OC patched EFI) to iMac 2011 and upgraded GPU.

If it doesn't work, you need to adjust step 3- above.
3-1 Create a USB installer of Mac OS; (you will need a USB flashdrive, or a USB enclosure with SATA disk, IDE box might not work)
3-2 Patch OC EFI to the USB installer High Sierra or Monterey. (Manually configure it to match with iMac 2011 and the upgraded GPU). Edit the Config.plist file to get the OC menu last a bit longer than default.
3-3 Test run the USB installer on your iMac 2011 (to see if you can get to the OC bootmenu)
3-4 Then copy the whole EFI partition to the Linux drive.
Note: Do PRAM reset before booting the iMac with only the Linux drive plugged in.