I did just backed my first iMac 2010 EMC2398 AMD GPU. And guess what? I did worked for me!!’ Great!!’ I did had a problem with Back Screen of Death. No pixel, no lights, nothing!!’ Only fins noises, and two Green LEDs on the Motherboard. I did clean inside, and took all the dust from the fins. And nothing, it was so bed!!’ And cooking the Apple GPU was just perfect to get it working properly. I did use a very cheap Termal Paste, it cost me U$1,00. Crazy that was the only one I could get near my house during the pandemic social isolation. Let’s see how long it may survive!!’ Congratulations for you videos!!’ By the way!!’ I did had a problem with my HDD and I went forma SSD and the iMac did start to get very strange behavior like your today. After a lot of research I could find the perfect solution in the iFixit chat. I did add a Transistor 2N3904 in the HDD Termal Sensor. So I am positive the might have any clue or troubleshooting issue that might be just something to look deeper to find a simple and inexpensive solution. Good luck and Keep Safe!!’ God bless us all!!’
As a tech for 25 years, you first shot yourself in the foot by not letting the fans max out. You choose lower noise than cooling performance. The computer was overheating and it shut itself off to protect itself from permanent damage. Uninstall that dumb fan controlling software to allow Mac to cool itself as it pleases, and embrace that jet engine fan noise with no shutdown. If it where to happen again, you can't expect a 2009 chassis, airflow, or fan to cool a beast of a video card. add a fan/more cooling. And great channel!
Thank you for your comment. One thing you didn't mention was my repasting. The seller in Hong Kong repasted the 6970M horribly, and my repaste job helped out quite a bit. Using a fan control app over the past several months, in combination with room A/C when needed, has prevented sudden shutdowns from occurring. I should add that I was able to achieve this with all 3 internal fans set to 2000rpm. They are not maxed out. Using 2000rpm keeps the acoustics to ear-friendly levels, and again, I've not had shutdown issues even with my son running his games. Maxing out the fans would be better still, and some people may not care about the louder sound in the case. Thanks again for watching and commenting!
@@JDW- Oh your repasting was excellent, much needed necessary fix of course! First thing that should've been done! trust no one! But 2000rpm will obviously not cut it for iceland 4k videos. Since the users aren't into that kind of thing, your past several months have been fine. The card really is a success, you should recommend now, especially when normal people don't limit fan rpm. cheers!
Mark, from your just add a fan or more cooling comment, I'm going to assume your 25 years of experience doesn't include cracking open too many imacs. Experience can help or hinder. Apple's design philosophy is very different than, say, Dell. Elegance is high on the priority list, and fan noise is not elegant. If you're confident he was limiting rather than boosting his fan speeds, you're assuming things. Experience doesn't tell me he should uninstall that dumb fan controlling software, it tells me he should of installed it a long time ago. Live and learn. And by the way, all 27" non-tapered edge aluminum imacs have the same cooling capacity, so yes he can reasonably expect an '09 to cool like a 2011 (the latter has better thermal monitor/manage capability, but running higher fan speeds makes this point moot).
What I have to say is a little long so please be patient. So, Friday afternoon I was checking some email on my 2011 27" iMac when the screen flickered and went to black. I didn't know what was happening. I tried to reboot. It went to the startup screen with the Apple logo. Stayed on that for what seemed like forever, went totally white and shut down. It restarted itself up, crashed and continued to repeat until I held the power button down to stop it. My thermal paste had never been replaced. I knew I had a heat problem and researched possible fixes. I found your first "bake" video. I watched it. I then watched your second. I honestly hoped I would not have to bake my graphics card. Well, I did some more research and kept coming back to your video. I thought... what have I got to lose? So, last night I baked my graphics card. I repasted my GPU. As it hadn't been done in over nine years, I also repasted my CPU. I used K5 Pro on the GPU memory chips and K4 Pro on the GPU and the CPU. I cleaned everything thoroughly as a big part of my problem was it was filthy inside. Took my time putting everything back together. Got the display connected back in and put in one screw. Plugged it in and my heart was pounding with uncertainty as I turned it on. The screen went white. The Apple logo came on. I waited for what seemed forever as the bar under the apple crawled along. Then it stopped halfway and hung there. It stayed there, midway long enough for me to think of my next steps to take because it didn't work...maybe remove the graphics card, rebake or replace it. Did I fail? Was my whole weekend wasted, working on my iMac in vain? No. The screen went black. Then back to white with no Apple logo. Then... my wallpaper! Slowly icons appeared and a message telling me I had shut my computer down "because of a problem", and did I wish to restore my web pages. I put in the remaining screws for the display, cleaned the display glass and reinstalled it. Eventually all was right again. However, my machine doesn't seem to get as hot as it was and my sparkling clean fans are almost completely silent. I don't know how long this is going to last and quite frankly, I'm a little nervous about working my machine too hard now but of course, only time will tell. I hate to think of this incredible computer as having an expiry date because it just performs so damn well. But, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it and bake that card again! Thank you so much for your incredibly detailed and informative videos! People just like me really do appreciate them!
I loved reading your success story, Barry. Congratulations! I must admit, it is scary the first time after your bake and you find things taking so long it looks like the machine is frozen up and you don't know what to do. Then the joy takes over when you finally see that glorious desktop again! Feel free to keep me informed on how well your machine is doing over time. Best wishes to you and your newly resurrected iMac!
I have attempted to bake the video card yesterday and put the whole computer back together. The problem that emerged was that even though the computer started up (startup sound occurred) the screen stayed pitch black. I tested whether it was due to the screen brightness but that was nog the issue. Is it possible that I screwed up the video card somehow? My best guess was that the LCD wires weren't connected properly but I reconnected those and the problem still wasn't solved. Have you heard about problems like this before? Any indication towards a possible source would be much obliged. Thank you for your videos and advice so far, they were really helpful for doing this whole endeavour!
Thank you for sharing your experience. I read and reply to every comment under all my videos, so I know from experience that a few people have reported what you have said -- a black screen after baking and reassembly. In the vast majority of those cases though, it was either a broken cable or a cable that wasn't perfectly secured into its mating connector. In some rare cases, it was a matter of the bake not working, usually because the card was too far gone for the bake to work. You said you reconnected the "LCD wires" which I assume means "the two flat ribbon cables that you must disconnect before you can remove the LCD panel." It could be you still did not reattached them correctly or it could be another cable that you accidentally disconnected. Sorry for the trouble, you should remove the display, then check all connections other than the display, then carefully reattach the display again and make sure the connectors are in good shape with all their pins intact. That is especially important for the upper left ribbon cable, which often breaks off at the tip. If there is an intermittent connection in any wire of those cables, you would see a black screen.
Many thanks to JDW for posting these videos. They have been enormously helpful to me over the years. Unfortunately, my 27" mid-2011 iMac's 6970M video card died again, just three months after the last bake and this time I decided to replace the whole computer. Here's a brief history of my video card repairs: 2017: GPU resoldered by eBay vendor; applied thermal paste as described in first bake video and reinstalled video card July 2019: repaired as described in second bake video March 2020: repaired as described in third bake video June 2020: repaired as described in the fourth bake video Just prior to the last failure, I started monitoring the GPU temperatures more closely using the XRG app and noticed it was hovering around 130℉ before it died. I had been using smcFanControl since 2017, but I may not have set the default speed high enough to prevent these failures.
James, I am sorry to hear your 3rd bake didn't last long, but as my own bake experience shows, I'm not surprised. I can see from your data that your 1st and 2nd bakes lasted quite a while. My own 1st bake lasted a mere 4 months, most likely due to an inferior thermal paste job, but my 2nd bake made it all worthwhile as I got 2 years and 9 months from that. I suspect your 4th bake will last a very short time, as that is what happened after my 3rd and 4th bakes, prompting me to get a new card (swapping my 4850 for a 6970M). 130°F = 54°C which is not hot for any component inside the iMac. When it comes to this era of iMac, I personally define "hot" as getting into the 70°C to 100°C range (158°F ~ 212°C). So your fan speed didn't have anything to do with it. These cards do not have eternal life after the bake. Some people like to argue semantics screaming, "It's NOT a 'fix'!!" That contention is true and false, depending on your own understanding of reality. As for me, I understand that the word "fix" means, "fixed until it breaks again." Think about a washing machine dying. You call the repair guy who "fixes" a motor which caused the problem. A few years later that same motor dies again, but not due to anything the repair guy did wrong. He indeed fixed your washing machine, but that part simply did not last (perhaps because the design of that motor was flawed like the GPU of these video cards) and therefore the fix didn't last. Its the same with a "cure." Cures for disease are not eternal insofar as the human body doesn't have eternal life. You may have been cured of cancer, but you will still die at some point. So even though I don't go around preaching the bake as a "fix" I am not afraid of that word when it comes to the video card bake, knowing that no fix lasts forever, and especially not on these cards. Some people prefer to call the bake a "bandaid," but I dislike that term because it undermines the usefulness of the bake and misleads people into thinking it probably wouldn't be worth their time. Your case somewhat parallels my own on that the first couple bakes really do show that the time, effort and small expense was worthwhile. But at some point, as you and I both found out, the bake will no longer work (i.e., the video card can no longer be fixed, repaired, brought back to life, etc.), and then you must either opt of a new iMac like you did or get another card, whether of the same time or a different card that is compatible, like I did by going with a 6970M. Lastly, to anyone buying a new Mac these days, I would like to mention 2 things: (1) Intel iMacs currently being sold do not have the video card problem described in my videos and are very fast and worth the money in my opinion. (2) Apple released its M1 silicon in 2020 that is blowing expectations out the door. iMacs with that chip will likely come later in 2021. Apple will support Intel iMacs for several more years, but Apple Silicon is the wave of the future. Despite the fact Intel caters to Windows, I still feel that Intel will ultimately be undermined as a company if they don't change their chip game plan in a major way over the next year and a half. Apple is triggering a mass move to ARM. Thank you for sharing your story, James. You made a good run of it. Enjoy that new iMac!
I picked up a 2009 iMac 27 with an i7 for stupid cheap with a bad 4850. I ordered a 6970 card for it (I'm in no rush to get it running) and I've found a liquid GPU block that will fit in the limited space, it will take a slight modification to the case as Ray Charles could see you can't put a pump and radiator inside of an iMac. I'm going to run the pump from USB on the iMac and the fan(s) powered externally, so I have that figured out. However, I know I'm going to have to do something with the sensor. Of course, the old heat sink will not be put back into the machine and I may find it necessary to come up with a new attachment point on the top end of the video card (time will tell) but I am looking for an opinion on where I should position the sensor on this little custom assembly. I do a little aluminum/stainless fabrication from time to time, so I'll have to build a little box to house my external components and slap an apple sticker on it so that it looks like it belongs and somehow was made that way. Do you mind sharing where you think the most effective position for the sensor would be? I am going to have to have my friend machine a thin little copper plate to make sure that the block also covers the memory chips, so perhaps somewhere on that? Also I'll gladly accept input on paste/pads for all the little necessary components.
Of course this little venture will probably yield some valuable experience when I get around to the planned monsterization of the 2010 Mac Pro I picked up for $35 (they thought it was a speaker, and they got no argument from me).
@@harrellmatt1 Some water coolers have thermal paste pre-applied, so you should check that. But I still recommend Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut for the GPU. For the memory chips, I have been recommending K5 Pro because there is a gap between the stock heatsinks and the top of those chips. If your custom solution has NO GAPS, then Kryonaut on the memory chips will work fine. But if there is any kind of gap at all, then Kryonaut is not made for that. K5 Pro is a thermal pad replacement paste made for gaps. I honestly have zero experience with water coolers, so the only advice I can give as to where a sensor should be applied would be the hottest part of the cooler. Many people actually forget to reconnect their sensor entirely after a bake, and they wind up having to use a fan speed app to control fan speed. The main problem with that is that you lack any information on the temperature of the GPU. So connecting a compatible sensor is always the best advice. But again, I do not know specifically where to connect it, other than to say you should connect it to the warmest part of the cooler.
@@JDW- The block I'll be using comes completely clean, there isn't actually a water cooled KIT available for this purpose that I know of. I'll anticipate K5 pro for the memory chips as I expect the same issue as the factory heatsink with gaps. The one thing I'm going to have to figure out that I really don't have a thought on is how to best mate the larger copper plate I'm going to have to attach to the block to cover the memory chips. I don't want to have much conductivity loss there either. Ideally none at all, but we don't live in an ideal world, so any thoughts you have in addition to Kryonaut is welcome. I'm thinking perhaps I should examine the location of the sensor on the current heat sink and attempt similar placement. I do intend to use the app you've discussed, not so much for fan control but for monitoring. I think I remember seeing temperature values in screenshots. I live in Hawaii, and even though my house is air conditioned now, I think we have relatively similar climates, so perhaps what I learn with this will be of value.
@@harrellmatt1 The memory chips don't get as hot as the GPU, which is why a lower thermal conductivity paste like K5 Pro or thermal pads work fine on those chips. You really are entering uncharted territory though with a custom water-cooled solution though because to my knowledge, no one has ever attempted that before. There is going to be some trial and error testing necessary to get it right. Indeed, I would suggest not to attempt it unless you have some experience with heatsinks and watercolors, and if you also have the desire to explore something new. What you are attempting is not guaranteed to produce satisfactory results.
@@JDW- It's my first time doing water cooling in a Mac. I've built a few high powered custom PCs over the years and chose water cooling. I used to love Fry's when I lived in California. I do like bouncing my thoughts off someone else with some knowledge of what they're speaking to. I've noticed several comments from people with 6970s with temperature related issues, and I know Apple changed the heat sink piping. I'd love to water cool the CPU as well, as that would help avoid future problems. In my reasoning, because of the form factor there isn't much way of additional heat displacement, one either has to force fans to run at a higher speed or begin to reduce or remove functionality (I've seen some people have removed the optical drive, for example). If I can move heat displacement to mainly external perhaps I can extend the longevity of the machine as a whole. I'm also hoping the experience with Mac architecture is helpful with future upgrades to the Mac Pro I mentioned. The other motivation for working out the water cooled thing is it seems like any video card put in these has issues that seem to be related to heat at least marginally, so any repair without addressing the heat issue effectively, is only extending the borrowed time. I don't anticipate it being a particularly cheap fix, but I do think I can get it done start to finish for less than $400 in parts and maybe avoid additional heat related hardware failures in the future.
Hi jdw, Clear story and detail. Well in order to keep the temperature inside the IMac down, I placed 3 heatsinks on the outside top of my IMac and right along the breezing gap on the top backside I put 5 12 volt minifans with a dimmer to suck out the heated air, as the IMac heated too much in my opinion. (58 degrees cenlcius.) This has been working fine for 5 years. Now my videocard is giving me 5 blue vertical lines. So time for me to put the oven on. My system: IMac 27, 3,4 G i7, 32Gig ram, 6970M, 1T SSD. This could solve you overheating as it will keep the temperature about 10 to 15 degrees. Cheers.
I look forward to hearing the result of your bake. By the way, I'd love to see some photos of all those fans! Feel free to post a link to your photo collection. (If you don't already have them online, I would suggest using Flickr or Google Photos since either will let you put the photos into an album and then create a sharable link. Or you could use DropBox or CloudApp or similar cloud service.)
Sorry to hear you still have a problem. I did find when researching the SSD upgrade for my iMAC mid 2011 i7 that the CD ROM drive blocks a lot of the air flow from the bottom right fan. The reviewer recommended removing the CD drive and in doing so was able to significantly reduce the GPU heat sink temperature. I note there is a similar fan/CD drive configuration on the 2009 iMAC. Also suggested taping over the CD ROM slot so as to maximise the airflow over the GPU heat sink.
Thanks for your vids. I have a mid 2011 with the dreaded 6970M. Replaced under warranty in 2016 but now stuffed. Reading your vids I conclude that a "new" one will only last 3 years thereabouts - but would take a risk with getting one that did not have the Apple firmware. Not worth getting erm "professionally" fixed. So will try the bake method. I have ordered Arctic Silver 5 and K5 Pro and a new vid cable as the cable got a bit bent when inserting on the m/b slot. I have read folks getting different video cards and flashing it with the Apple firmware. Beyond my abilities. And then those who are saying you still will encounter issues. If the bake works thats fine. Will scrap the iMac for parts once/if it fails and fork out the money on a new one. .
Thank you for your comment. My advice is to take care with Arctic Silver V. I used that after my 1st bake. The issue is that if you apply too much, the overspill will touch surrounding surface mount capacitors. Arctic Silver V is not electrically conductive but it is capacitive so overspill is a concern. Use it very sparingly. Probably the pea method in the middle would be best. As to K5 Pro though, overspill doesn't matter at all. Lastly, check the temperature of your oven with a turkey thermometer to confirm the temperature is correct and doesn't fluctuation too high. There have been a small handful of reports recently from people who had questionable oven temperatures that resulted in some of the square coils becoming desoldered. All said, if your oven can heat to a consistent 200°C, and if your little aluminum foil feet are all the same height to ensure the card rests as flat/level as possible, you should not have a problem. But make absolutely sure you put the component side of the board facing up. You should then be good to go.
Dear sir. You are an absolute champ! Would you recommend changing thermal paste also on CPU while doing the GPU bake process ? About to start my baking and was wondering whether worth doing it too.
Thank you for watching and for your kind words. To be honest, I never changed my CPU paste at all. The reason why is because doing the GPU alone takes a lot of your time. But it is possible to do both in the same day if you’re committed to doing it. Do you have to do it? No, as evidenced by the fact that I’ve never changed my paste and I have no CPU issues at all, nor any thermal issues. But is it a good idea in general if you have the time and desire to do it? Well of course yes. If you decide to do the CPU, I strongly recommend using Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut, as that’s just about the best CPU thermal paste out there. You can also use that on the GPU too, but be sure to use K5 Pro on the graphics card memory chips. Also, if you do decide to do the CPU too, I would recommend running some CPU temperature checks before you swap the paste and then after and see if it makes any difference for you. I’d love to hear your results.
@@JDW- Your answer matches your deep reputation as a true gentleman, with loads of patience, empathy, professionalism and love of what you do. You should be a teacher at univ or tech college 😊
Dear sir. I realize I forgot to put the foam back on the GPU frame and reassembled the part ! Do you think I might regret it soon ? Shall I make steps back and put the foam ? Thanks in advance.
Gabriel, don’t worry about the foam. I too have forgotten to put that back! I think the purpose is simply to prevent dust from collecting around the GPU chip. It’s not necessary. You don’t need to worry about it.
@@JDW- hello dear friend in my misery. After the bake 🍲♨️, I reassembled and plugged everything meticulously. But same symptoms when turning iMac on ie., blank screen, but this time with alternance logo 🚫 and logo Apple. Which means no cold bear as planned. For the record, I previously had the hard drive changed into SSD and screen replaced by repair shop. That's all I did externally. I also rechecked the plugging of my RAM cards...although not feeling the plugging sensation like for any other connector, the RAM cards were on right place after putting the little grid back with the 3 screws. Misery.
I apologize if this comment has been covered before - there are so many comments it is hard to search through them. I’ve watched most of the 2009 iMac graphics card baking videos and I question one thing you do in the disassembly and reinstalling the hear sink. You loosen the 4 Phillips screws on the heat sink side and you also remove the screws on the other side that appear to go into them. So I was wondering why did Apple use 2 sets of screws there? The only reason I could think of is that the screws on the heat sink side allow you to adjust the spacing between the card and the heat sink. If that is the case, I don’t think you should be messing with them unless you have a spec on how to adjust them. Does this make sense or am I missing something? I am about to order some k4/k5 pro to work on my son’s 2009 iMac so any advise on this step would be appreciated.
You are talking about what I show here: ruclips.net/video/v1DXBLkiqFM/видео.html It's been a while since I've removed that heatsink, but if memory serves correctly, I was not able to get the heatsink off merely by unscrewing and removing the 3 screws on the bottom. I had to unscrew those spring-loaded top screws as well. But all you need to do is just remove the 4 screws on the bottom and then see if you can separate the heatsink from the graphics card. If you can, then most likely you won't need to touch the spring-loaded screws. But there's nothing magical about the spring-loaded screws even if you are forced to loosen them. The springs merely help ensure you don't over tighten the screws. I simply screwed mine down as far as they would go, and I didn't use extreme force either, and I've never had an issue doing it like that. I therefore wish you the best in resolving the problem on your son's 2009 iMac!
23:37 That's the daily business and feeling of your AMD GPU! :D ;) Seriously, great video series about that well-known iMac graphics card issue. I like the personal and honest touch. Just wanted to add something about the GPU. I have heard many sources were recommending to use "newer" chips. There seem to be a better/more reliable chip series made in 2016 and 2017. Not sure about the codes/numbers on your old and current replacement card, but the leading 2 digits on your current card might be the manufacture date: 12
Oh.. also, have you tried "rednecking" the over heating??? I picked up (4) "brushless 5v USB fans " from AMAZON and some thin wire to hang them on the "exhaust" part of your Mac, and have it "SUCK" the air through, vs. "PUSHING" the air.. and the extra (4) fans have made a sizable difference in my heating issue. (NOTE: through trial and error.. I found that placing one of the fans on top of the "intake" vent.. actually causes the Mac to heat up faster..!! so I placed all 4 fans along the top of the Mac's slit/vent and my temps stay under 195˚
I just use a floor fan and good room air conditioning to keep everything as cool as possible, in addition to using a fan control app to boost the RPM speed of all three fans inside the iMac.
Hello. The smc fan control did nothing on mine. 2011 i7 same gpu as you have. The other program took control, but since your choices are static it is not a good idea to strain the machine. As the temperature climbs, the fans need a higher rpm. If your son is gaming, set the fan to 4000, and the gpu will survive. There is a pro version of the control which is talking to the fans I believe.
I just purchased a 6970 gpu pulled from a “tested” working 2011 imac. I installed it in my late 2009 27 inch imac running High Sierra following your great tutorials. Problem is it boots up to 50-60% and then restarts in a boot loop. Safe mode does not work and booting into recovery has the same problem. I read on other forums that High Sierra and 6970 on my imac might have problems. Do you know if this could be the problem other then it being another bad gpu? Or any suggestions?
Jeremy, MacOS High Sierra is not the issue because I still use that OS on all my Macs, including my late 2009 27” i7 iMac. If you didn’t pull your 6970M from one of your own 2011 iMacs, then I would consider that “pulled from a working Mac” description to be suspect. Maybe the seller meant the rest of the iMac worked but the graphics card didn’t? You never know with sellers in EBAY. Also, you really need to use the 6970M with the triple heat pipe heatsink it came with on the 2011 iMac to ensure adequate cooling, and even then if you find the card is getting too hot you will need to repaste it using the two type of pastes I recommend. If the seller insists the graphics card tested good, you can verify that claim by booting from an external drive that has a fresh install of High Sierra on it. That would eliminate your iMac’s drive or OS install as being the root problem. And if booting from an external drive works, then you need to reinstall High Sierra on your iMacs internal drive. Lastly, if the seller is based in Hong Kong or China, regardless of what their EBAY description said, you need to consider the card may in fact have been in a PC and flashed with firmware to work on an iMac. One commenter under my video said the card I have is one of those. He based that on the little red pieces on the component side which apparently are not present on an iMac version card. What this means is, if your card was flashed, it may have been improperly flashed and that could explain the problems you are seeing. Please let me known if this helps.
@@JDW- Thank you for responding. The seller did include the 3 pipe heat sink but you may be correct on your suspicion of "pulled from a working mac". He did offer a 30 day warranty but I'll try your other suggestions first just to make sure. Also thanks for confirming it's most likely not High Sierra. Fingers crossed I can get this working.
Nice Video. From what you are describing, the first heat sink installation was not that great resulting in rather poor heat conduction. This would explain the sudden temperature jump in the maximum heatsink temperature - the GPU (or memory) silicon temperature is still the same.The nasty shut-down could be the result of OSX trying to treat the card like the HD4850... There should be a shutdown log entry in system.log. What does it say?
The log does not contain anything specific because it is not a “shut down“ but rather a sudden “power-off.“ so the log of course only records things that were happening until the power off, and then it records the boot sequence after I press the power button to boot the machine. It is a complete loss of power, not a software shut down.
Also note that even though my machine is set to automatically power on and reboot after the loss of power, my iMac does not do that after these sudden power offs. It only does that if I yank the power cord. So even though this is a loss of power, it’s of a different sort.
Vey good detailed summary, thx! could be that after the best thermal pasting, I hear the 6970M takes a lot of power and instead of the normal thermal throttling, it shut the power off? Im subscribed for the great content!
Did you ever try using the old temperature sensor on the 6970? Perhaps the new one is different and reports higher temps than the old one. Or try without a temp sensor at all and see what happens. Also, try with Apple's fan settings.
I did not swap out temperature sensors. I only swapped out the card. The card is compatible with my model year iMac as per the fact it functions fine (even to this very day), so I am not inclined to doubt the readings its sensor gives to me within MacOS.
It sounds to me like CPU overheat, or voltage not stable to the cpu. Do you check the cpu temp during the test?. CPU over-temp and voltage anomalies always end in shutdown.
As i commented on your 2nd bake video, i baked my 6970M about 2 months ago. Because of Covid i started gaming on the 2011 iMac. To my surprise it could run CS:GO, wich is quite gpu intense. I also installed bootcamp and run cs:go from there as well, and noticed the game runs smoother on win than on osx. But on both platforms i reach 120+fps, wich is very good for a 9y old machine. Both OS run macsfancontrol with gpu temp set to max 55C. CPU is set to max. 65C. My hottest component now is my samsung ssd, wich will be fitted with heatsinks soon. Now the information that might interest you: i used thermal grizzly minus pads on the gpu memory chips and noctua NT-H1 paste on the gpu core itself. So far it keeps running, i will report back should it fail again. Good luck on finding the problem with your machine.
Thank you for watching and for your comment. I checked that other comment from you, but you did not clarify the model year of your iMac. It seems you are using a 2011 27" iMac with your 6970M, correct? If so, that would explain why you may be seeing something different than I am, since mine is a late 2009 iMac. As to your choice of using Thermal Grizzly (Kryonaut?) on the memory chips, there is a gap between the memory chips and the bottom of the heatsink, unlike the GPU which makes contact with the copper portion of the heatsink. The presence of that gap above the memory chips is why thermal pads or a thermal pad replacement paste like K5 Pro is typically used there. My fear is that putting something like Kryonaut on the memory chips would work acceptably for a time, but due to it being a liquidy paste that doesn't hold its shape over time, the thermal transfer would eventually diminish and potentially become a problem. I am curious about one thing on your iMac, if you wouldn't mind testing. If you set your fans to be system controlled, MacOS will run them at their base speed until your iMac gets quite hot. Under that condition, I am curious what the maximum "GPU Heatsink" temperature is on your machine, say after running a GPU-intensive game for 30 minutes or watching a 1440p video in FireFox. More to the point, does your 6970M's heatsink sensor report a temperature higher than 77°C, and can you sustain that higher temperature without problem?
JDW the products i used: Thermal Grizzly Minus Pad 8 - 120... www.amazon.de/dp/B00ZJSCQF0?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share Noctua NT-H1 thermal compound www.amazon.de/dp/B002CQU14A?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share I measured the gap between my heatsink and memory chips, and it was only 0,4mm. The pads are like a double sided tape with a sticky surface on both sides. The consistency is more like cheese than like paste if that makes sense. 😉 I’ll try and run cs:go for a while on standard fan speeds and report back on max temps.
@@d6pulse Thank you for confirming that you used thermal pads, not the paste, on the memory chips. Did you also apply that to the square coils as well? Those coils are usually pasted to the heatsink, in addition to the memory chips. As to why I chose Kryonaut paste over Noctua (and there is more than one type of Noctua paste, by the way), after having spent 3 weeks researching pastes about a year ago, I came to the conclusion that the best Noctua paste was pretty much on par with Kryonaut in terms of thermal performance, with most tests showing Kryonaut having a slight edge over Noctua pastes. Indeed, if you ever read anything negative about Kryonaut, it's usually from people who talk about the high cost of Kryonaut rather than its performance. There is one key consideration I have discovered from first hand experience with Kryonaut though. The manufacturer recommends the SPREAD method and is why Kryonaut includes the spatula. However, I've never been able to effectively spread it with the included spatula or an old credit card, and believe me I've tried. Most of the paste sticks to the spatula and all you are left with is a microscopically thin film on the surface of your chip. Pastes like K4 Pro, Arctic Silver V and even Noctua spread rather easily with a spatula -- almost as easy if you were applying hand cream. That is why I have to treat Kryonaut in a special way. My approach is to attempt the spread method with the spatula, which leaves only a microscopically thin film on the chip (pretty much no paste applied to the chip at all, but enough applied to make the chip look less shiny), and then I apply the Kryonaut in an X pattern as shown in my video. I like the X-patter based on dozens upon dozens of RUclips videos I've seen showing how that method, especially for non-square chips, spreads well edge to edge with no air bubbles. I used Kryonaut in a X-pattern on my 2015 15" MBP when I repasted that a year ago (I have a video on that). So far, there haven't been any issues. Lastly, thank you for sharing your "GPU Heatsink" temperature for your 6970M. It is interesting that 69°C is the maximum GPU Heatsink temperature you get. Again, I was able to measure about 77°C on mine when the sudden shutdown occurred. If you every see GPU heatsink temperatures of 77°C or higher on your machine in the future, please let me know if all is well or if some kind of trouble occurs. Thank you for all your feedback to date!
I hope you manage to find yourself a new iMac soon. You can pick up incredible deals if you look around! You know that anyway... :) But good luck and thanks for the updates!!
Actually, by keeping the internal fans running faster, and by keeping the room A/C turned on, I can avoid the high-temperature sudden shutdown problem entirely. The iMac is running fine. Honestly, the next iMac I buy will probably be an Apple Silicon version, assuming I have the money to do so. Since Apple just released a new Intel iMac, their silicon version probably won't come out until next year.
@@JDW- Exactly, you know whats coming, a complete overhaul of the current configurations... I will be watching and waiting to snipe cheap iMacs as we approach this transition. Honestly, I picked up a second hand MBP 13" for £250 and its been the best device for me in a long time. It's seems a good time to buy and sell the macs... I use the fan control app too, so i do agree, it helps keep all these devices running buttery. It should only be a matter of time before a Chinese company steps in and produces imitation replacement GPU's for these 09-11 iMacs... Or at least I hope! :'D Thanks again JDW and may you prosper!
Hi JDW and update on my 27" late 2009 iMac, like I told you in a previous comment I screwed up the large VLD connector on the motherboard to ripping half off when I was replacing back the screen. I was able to purchase on E-Bay a tested and working like new used motherboard after I gave the company my Serial No. so they would send me the right motherboard, today May 29th I got a like new board for less than $100 I will be installing after reviewing a few remove and install videos because of all the connectors and plugs that you need to keep track of. Will let you know if I get' er back up and running in the near future with the new motherboard as I have to install my CPU off the old board and the replacement GPU. To have it done by Apple Install I was looking at $250-$300 + parts. I saw you removed the motherboard in your 1st video bake which I hoping I will have the same luck you had without destroying the computer.
That's wonderful to hear, Robin! And my 1st Bake video is an important reference on how to remove and reinstall the entire motherboard. The main difference you will have is that you will also have to remove and then reinstall the CPU and its heatsink too. I am assuming your new board doesn't have the CPU on it, which is fine because your existing board does. If your new board does have the CPU, then it would be a matter of you repasting the CPU and applying the heatsink. That part is not shown in my video, but there are other videos on RUclips which do show that. Basically the work involved is similar to repasting the GPU, but there is less work for the CPU because it is only 1 chip, whereas there is the GPU and memory chips on the video card. Definitely do NOT use K5 Pro on the CPU. K4 Pro will work, as will something like Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut. So long as your past is less than 1 year old and made for CPU and GPUs it should be fine, but I always recommend non-conductive pastes to ensure any overspill won't cause problems elsewhere. You're probably OK on the CPU though. Just be very, very careful during assembly. There are many connectors. You don't want to break another one on your new board!
5/9/2020 Hi JDW, On my late 27" iMac i5 my first bake job lasted about a week using the same paste you used in your bake from Grease, running really great, booting up normal, heat within the normal range within the case, tried to see if I could boot from an external 2.5 drive with a bootable OS Sierra fresh install on it. It to booted up great but I did notice the fans were running slighting faster with the external drive it might be what caused the screen to go black. Before I try a second bake I purchased an ATI Radeon HD 5670 512 MB 661-5579 which I will try switching out and hook up an external monitor to see if it works and boots normally before replacing the iMac 27" screen. Will give you an update as to what happens still hate that thermal sensor that needs attaching to the backside of the motherboard, it definitely is a GPU overheating issue.
Robin, thank you for sharing those details. I am truly sorry to hear your bake lasted only 1 week. If you bake the card again and get only 1 week, then you're situation will parallel my own -- meaning the card is dead, and further bakes won't work. If you have that 5670 in your hands now, I would certainly encourage you to give it a try. I am still using my 6970M card, and to be honest, it hasn't triggered a shutdown since my video because I've not heated it above 77°C. It's still cool here in Japan, so I don't know what will happen during the summer months. Anyway, I look forward to hearing your feedback about the 5670 in your machine. If you find that it triggers a shutdown (sudden Power-OFF) when it gets too hot, it could be the thermal paste on the card is as bad as mine was, which means you need to repaste it and try again.
@@JDW- Ahhhh, Good news, bad news what I thought was going to be a 20 min job that was going great ended in disaster. I switched out the ATI 4850 (late 2009 iMac GPU) with a 5670 512MB GPU (mid-2010 iMac mode GPU) with heat sink and the 27" iMac was running great like normal. I used an external monitor to check to see if it would boot, it did before trying to replace the iMac 27" screen. The problem came when I tried to install the heavy screen as I had just finished installing all 4 cables back the standing computer screen tiled forward ripping the big cable destroying the big connector on the motherboard so no 27" screen. The sad part is the external monitor will boot up normal and everything seems to be working fine normal fan speeds. I may or may not use it with an external screen that way or the next project would be replacing the motherboard (depending on cost of a good used one) not something I really want to do. Hint for the day is lay computer down when replacing the iMac 27" screen.
@@rpdee7344 Robin, I am very sorry to hear that. But just to confirm, when your display fell forward, are you sure it did not also tear off that little ribbon cable in the upper left? When my display fell forward during my 2nd Bake (see my video about that), only the little ribbon cable in the upper left broke. I bought a replacement from AliExpress and all was well. It seems odd that only the big ribbon cable would have been damaged in the fall. In any case, please shoot me a photo of the damaged connector on the motherboard. Just upload your photo to Flickr or CloudApp or iCloud Photos or similar free sharing service, and then post the link to your photo in a new comment. I want to inspect the damage so I can better advise you.
@@JDW- The little cable is OK it pulled out OK, but the main connector for Video pulled itself off the motherboard and bent several of the copper pins and broke off a couple with the connector left at an angle, there is a shop oversea that will replace the connector, but if I can find a good used motherboard with all good connectors that is what I need, but dread having to taking it out with all the cables and connectors to it like you did in your first video bake. The computer itself is working fine with an external monitor, just wish it were the original screen, my screw up. In fact, I am typing this reply with the 27" iMac just with an external 17" monitor VGA screen, the temperature control seems to be working fine at monitoring and reducing the heat. I was watching a RUclips video game with lots of action to see if it would overheat like your son was able to do, but it stayed within normal ranges with the 5670 GPU card (Used GPU with heat sink and a shorter GPU card that replaces with no issues and tested to run for about $85 USA off of E-Bay) . I also have a late 2009 21" iMac and a 2011 Mac mini server to handle my computer and internet needs, just wanted to be able to use the better CPU and larger screen of the 27" iMac. My mess up should have laid the 27" iMac down when putting back the screen. Still have use of the 27" just not how I wanted to use it if needed.
@@rpdee7344 Well, I'm very sorry to hear that, Robin. That's unfortunately a problem I cannot easily remedy for you. The only way to avoid having to remove the motherboard would be to find a repair shop local to you that would take the entire machine. Not sure of that's possible with all the COVID-19 lockdown mayhem going on now.
I am still using the 6970M in my iMac. It's currently running fine, so you shouldn't necessarily rule out the 6970M for your 2009 iMac, so long as you repaste it and get the triple heat-pipe heatsink with it like mine. I give an update on my 6970M in my newer video here: ruclips.net/video/hldcyJ_qUD4/видео.html
Hi, I just discovered your channel and I'm gonna try to fix my GPU with your really helpful tutorials!. Now that I'm here I would like to suggest to not use that iMac for gaming anymore, there're some services available to use PC gaming from the cloud at a very reasonable price that your son can play with, he can play modern video games at the maximum settings, and the best thing is that it's just a stream service, that means the only thing your Mac is handling is a compressed video format streamed to your computer that he can control it instead of playing natively video games on your iMac, so it will probably last longer!. The companies that offer these services are Nvidia GeForce Now ($5/month), Shadow tech ($15/month), Stadia ($10/month) and I don't know if there're more companies in japan that offer this service but I'm sure you could look that up. Best wishes! (I apologize if I committed any grammatical mistakes but my English is awful)...
I look forward to hearing how your GPU repair goes! Thank you also for the suggestion for my son; however, about the only game he plays these days is Roblox!
Hi JDW, that's unfortunate to hear about the temp. and shutdown problems. Could you tell me if this upgrade will allow Windows in Bootcamp to run? Thanks.
You know, I've not used Boot Camp in YEARS! But I suspect you are using it to run games, right? If so, then heat might be an issue. Because like I said in my video, after I repasted, the unexpected power-off trigger temperature is 77°C on my iMac. Anything below that temperature is stable. The machine isn't running Windows currently in Boot Camp, but all my testing shows that the shutdown is temperature related. So until I have a chance to install Boot Camp and Windows to test, I would suggest the card would work so long as you can keep the temperatures cool enough. I still don't understand what's so special about 77°C. Prior to my repaste, the trigger was 61°C. And yet with the stock video card and with the stock CPU, temperatures can go higher than that without causing any problem. So there must be some kind of incompatibility at work here that triggers a shutdown (in hardware) when the 6870M's temperature rises beyond a certain threshold, and that threshold appears to be related to thermal paste too -- which makes sense because the paste helps to keep the GPU chip cooler.
@@JDW- I appreciate the advice and your experiments! Not sure if it would be equivalent to disconnecting the CEL light bulb, while trying to pass a smog check (haha), but maybe disallowing/disconnecting the Temp. sensor would prevent the shut down? We know what these cards can handle after all, especially if fans are running high at all times.
Disconnecting the GPU heatsink temperature sensor is an intriguing idea, but I wonder if doing that would allow the GPU to potentially overheat and be damaged by that excess heat. (For example, if the GPU exceeded 100 degrees C for an extended period of time.)
I have a iMac 27 i7 and I do the recovery from the internet to be able to install the software on my new drive, goes all over the full bar after fill up my internet password and then changes to the Apple logo and goes down or freezes with a blue screen or black screen sometimes, I don’t know what that could be? Please help Thanks so much
If you have a bootable external drive and get the same freezing or black screen problems, then it is clear your video card is the root cause. In that case, you need to follow my Bake videos to try to resurrect your video card. You could also replace your video card, but the Bake is cheaper, so I suggest you try to Bake first. Just be sure your oven temperature doesn't fluctuate. A few people have reported desoldered components because their oven temperature was hotter than what they set. It's rare when that happens but it can happen. Use a turkey thermometer inside your oven to verify if the temperature is accurate and doesn't fluctuate.
JDW strange is that is I let it on stays on all the time and doesn’t go down but if I try to make the recovery or trying to install the software goes down or freezes. Thanks so much for the response. Amazing videos
@@walkinggod Thank you for your kind words. I still think you should try booting from an external drive. Even a USB thumb drive would work if it's large enough. You need to determine if your problem is software related, or if your drive is failing, or if it is the video card. So if you install MacOS on a thumb drive and can boot from it and use software on it just fine, then such indicates that either the software on your existing internal drive or the drive itself is the problem. But if you have the same lockups with the thumb drive too, then it's clearly your video card. I hope this helps!
I have a late 2009 iMac 27. I baked my graphic card 3 times. Last time was a week ago and I put new past, but did not use 2 different pasts. I’ve used Arctic MX-2 everywhere. My computer came back to life and worked fine until 2 hours ago while I was on internet, everything stopped. I was still able to move the pointer, but could not access anything, even the apple menu to force quit softwares. I then restarted the iMac. Loading screen stops 3/4 the way and stay there. Usually after backing the first 3 times, it paused for a bref moment and continue, but not anymore. I’ve just purchased a AMD 6970M that is supposed to be new (I doubt), and then saw this video... I don’t know if I want to cancel or not this purchase.
It seems you use the same paste or similar paste after each of your three bakes, which is a problem. As mentioned in my 2nd Bake video, you must use a different kind of paste called K5 Pro (or thermal pads) on the memory chips. The fact you used Arctic MX-2 on the memory chips is a problem. You see, those pastes are for CPUs and GPUs where there is NO GAP between the chip and the heatsink. But in the case of video card memory chips, there is a gap. MX-2 isn't made to bridge a large gap like that, which is why it doesn't work. It's not thick enough to hold it's shape and therefore cannot transfer heat effectively. K5 Pro is especially made to hold its shape, and it's the only "paste" I know of that can replace thermal pads. You could use thermal pads, but you would need to know the gap distance. I cannot easily measure that, which is why I use and recommend K5 Pro. With that said, you have baked your video card 3 times. In my experience, 2 bakes worked just fine, but additional bakes did not. I got 2 years and 9 months of daily use from my 2nd bake, so I can say from experience that it lasts. But again, subsequent bakes didn't work for me, which indicates you can only bake the video card a certain number of times. I need to mention this to you because if you try a 4th bake even with K5 Pro, I honestly don't know if your video card will work, due to the number of bakes you've done already. I highly doubt the 6970M you bought is "new" but mine wasn't new and it continues to work fine, so long as I keep it cool. To do that, I had to REPASTE (I used Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut on the GPU chip and then K5 Pro on all the memory chips), and I had to increase fan speeds inside the iMac, and I now keep the A/C turned on in warmer months. This seems to prevent the sudden shutdown problem well enough. So long as the card you get is a good, working card, if you follow my video about repasting and fan speed, you should be fine. But the card will suddenly power off the iMac if it gets too hot though. That's why using higher fan speeds via a fan app is required when using a 6970 in a late 2009 iMac 27" like mine. It probably won't do that in a 2011 iMac because the 2011 model originally came with that card. I hope this helps!
Thank you for your answer. Looks like I won’t have the choice but to repaste my 6970m card. It’s the last time I’m putting money on this computer. Next will be a PC. Thanks again
Have you tried removing the optical drive? It’s design is not optimal and is in the way of the air flow. Maybe that’s why Apple removed them in later models.
Thank you for the suggestion. The answer is "No" because I still use the optical drive. Several other people have made the suggestion before, but there is no evidence the removal makes the internal ambient temperature significantly cooler. But I am still using the same iMac with 6970M graphics card. It works perfectly the vast majority of the time.
Hey Jim, I've done the GPU bake twice on my machine, and it is running again. I have a 1TB SSD installed, and also have a fan control app. What temperature would you recommend the inside of the machine to be running at to avoid temp issues? Right now it is pretty constant at 120-140F. Thanks!
Thank you for the information. Are you saying the "ambient internal temperature" reaches 140°F or are you saying the video card's GPU temperature reaches 140°F? In my experience, the GPU temperature does vary across that temperature range, depending on the app being used, regardless of the thermal paste applied. But just to confirm, what paste did you apply to the graphics card memory chips? And what paste did you apply to the graphics card GPU? Also, because you have a fan app installed, what speed are you keeping all 3 internal fans? Lastly, what is the ambient temperature of your room?
@@JDW- not sure about all the temp questions. I have the SSD Fan Control app which is set to smart, and reads that my Hard Disk temp is staying in that temperature range, fan about 3000rpm. The same is the case for the "Optical Disk" temp, fan about 1600ropm. I have a different app which also controls my CPU fan speed, but is a little bit counterintuitive so I dont use as much. The temp in the room is about 80F. I used K5-PRO thermal pad replacement paste on the chips, and the Arctic MX-4 on the chip itself, which is a Radeon 6970m 1gb chip.
@@redcomet21 It all sounds fine to me. On my late 2009 27" iMac, I have the fans set to 2000rpm, and the ambient room temperature even in summer is not too hot because I keep the A/C switched on. I have Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut on the GPU and K5 Pro on the memory chips. The card in my iMac varies in accordance with the temperature range you specified. All said, your machine is looking fine to me!
Wow. That was an embarrassing find! :-) But I certainly appreciate your keen observation. You are 100% correct about them being SMD caps and the fact no paste is needed on them. Of course, the 3 black WURTH coils will get hot and therefore could use pasting, as do the silver square coils. The good news about over-pasting parts in that area is, it doesn't matter. The fact those caps didn't need paste was a stupid oversight on my part, but cooling them with the heatsink won't hurt anything. The same is true for the small SMD chips at the edge of the card behind the caps and coils. I don't think those little chips need paste, but my having added the paste will cool them. Anyway, thank you for point out my error. I appreciate it!
macOS is not lacking in the system log department, so why guess when you can ask? log show --predicate 'eventMessage contains "Previous shutdown cause"'
Thank you for that Terminal command. I will have to try that sometime. In the meantime, for the sake of others reading our discussion, here are the Shutdown Cause Codes: georgegarside.com/blog/macos/shutdown-causes/
Hi new viewer and late 2009 iMac 27" owner from new.I only used it for about 3 years and in that time I changed the hard drive but then the graphic card issue happened. Since then I have been using my late 2012 15" macbook pro from new and it's still going strong today. I put in a 1GB SSD yesterday and just waiting for another 8gb ram to turn up. Wow and amazing machine now even without the extra ram, quiet, fast and way cooler. Two different apple products one useless and the other a powerhorse pumping out 100's of videos for youtube. Anyway I'm excited so thought I would have a go at my iMac but struggling to find any graphic card for it and only see the 2nd hand stuff on ebay and amazon. Pricey and 2nd hand, was wondering if there is any alternative in 2022. Was maybe going to source one and get someone to do it for me ( like a repair guy) Thanks and i'm enjoying your vids on it!
Thank you for sharing your experience, and I must say you have a great RUclips channel! It seems you are considering either a change to a new graphics card or possibly paying someone to repair your existing card. You can buy something like an NVIDIA K2100M, but you would need a Windows machine to flash it, otherwise it won't work. And if you're an all-Mac household like I am, using Windows is beyond troublesome. Of course, you could pay a repair guy to "reball" the GPU chip (since repair shops don't do the oven bake method that I use), and that would work because it requires heating the GPU to desolder it, and then it gets heated again when they resolder it. But honestly, the smallest cash outlay would be if you spend a Saturday following my 2nd Bake video and do a DIY fix. Since your graphics card hasn't been baked before, it likely would work for you, and give you another few years of life out of the card, at which time you could consider buying an alternative graphics card. Here's a playlist of all my bake videos: ruclips.net/p/PLNZ4qjMn-GHoez6_PtpyJfcU_ialTS8bB Again, I would recommend you watch my 2nd Bake video, and please also watch the last video, which is the FAQ. That should bring you up to speed on what you need to do. Please let me know how it goes!
I have my iMac’s 3 internal fans all set to 2000 RPM. That in combination with room air-conditioning has made the card very reliable over the past several months, and I have not had a single sudden power off problem occur during that time. But if you were to allow your card to heat up too much, chances are you would have the same problem of your iMac suddenly powering off. Also note that I used new thermal paste on my card too, which is very important to ensure cooler operation.
@@JDW- Cool! I always keep my fans a little high and monitor the temps! Have you tried a fresh install of High Sierra? I heard some say at Ifixit that it doesnt finish installing with this cards. Am curious about that, don't think it makes sense. Thank you for your really helpful input! I love this imacs. :D
@@camcappe353 I define "fresh/clean install" as: "format hard disk and then install High Sierra." I did not do that. I have reinstalled the High Sierra on top of itself without problems though. Remember that I have a 2009 27" i7 iMac, so other year models of iMacs may behave differently than mine. I suspect 2011 iMacs will work without any sudden shutdown problems since the 6970M originally shipped in that iMac. But that's pure speculation on my part. So far, not a single person has commented under any of my videos saying they get a sudden shutdown with their 6970M. But maybe that's due to the fact very few people use the 6970M in their 2009 iMac? One person did suggest that the card I received from Hong Kong is in fact a card that shipped with a Windows machine and was flashed to work on Macs. The seller denies that, of course.
@@camcappe353 One more thing. The people who have told me my 6970M card is a Windows version card said they based that on the fact there are little red things at each of the 4 corners of the GPU chip. They claim the Mac version does not have those red things. So perhaps that is something to keep an eye on.
Holy Hell, Dude. You're a saint *to begin with* but big ups for putting up with Autismo Willy down there. "ThERe iS nO GoD! STOP LIEING TO YOUR CHILDREN!" *loooooooool*
The truly sad part about RUclips is that I can only HEART your amazingly kind comment once! 😄 Thank you truly for making time to share your thoughts. Best wishes!
Sorry for my delayed reply. I didn't see your comment until today. I made a video after the video you watched: ruclips.net/video/hldcyJ_qUD4/видео.htmlsi=RSRsN7Hje8NkXkMI Basically, I am still using the 6970M even today. All problems have been resolved and there is no need for me to seek out another card. Also, this machine is now so old that if I really did need more speed, it makes logical sense to get an Apple Silicon Mac instead, as a replacement.
The bake is the lowest cost solution to the problem, which is why I suggest everyone should try it when starting out. Replacement cards like a 4850 (stock cards) are more expensive and have about the same life as the card that originally came with the Mac. My Apple replacement card lasted 3 years, just like the stock card did. Another option is to use a card that didn't come with the Mac originally, which is what I did with the 6970M. I didn't have to deal with flashing. It came with the heatsink and just works -- the high temperature shutdown problem notwithstanding. The next alternative is to use PC cards that require flashing, but that isn't for most people, and I honestly don't know if there would be heat or longevity issues with those. I have heard some OS incompatibility reports though, which is why I personally have not tried one of those yet. For now, my 6970M is working well enough, so I am satisfied with it. I just keep the fans a bit higher than normal and the A/C on to keep it cool. No shutdown issues under those conditions.
As to using other video cards in your iMac, you may find the following discussion useful: www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/8117/Can+I+upgrade+the+graphics+card+on+my+iMac
@@JDW- Thanks! think I will swap my core 2 duo with an i7 imac 2009 board and eventually later this year go for a better video card perhaps a 2 gb model.
If you only plan the iMac 2009 for light use, why spend money on HD 6970m 2GB? The small HD5670m from iMac 2010 will work beautifully and cool enough. I sold mine for only 45$, after successfully installing a WX4150 4GB to my iMac 2010.
Why? Because at the time I purchased my 6870M, I couldn't find one on EBAY for a reasonable price. I could only find the 6870M. And because I knew the 6870M would work, and because I knew it would be faster than the 5670M too, I did not have a big resistance to buying the 6970M. That 6970M is still going strong even today. My iMac is used by our family daily too. With that said, if someone can find a cheap $45 card from a 2010 27" iMac, then of course it will work fine in the late 2009 27" iMac too.
Apparently an Nvidia K1100M works very well with this iMac and is pretty affordable too! I’ve been thinking about getting one and upgrading. Also adds Metal support so that’s cool.
If you would please provide a link to the information you have that detail a 1100M working in a late 2009 27" iMac, I will of course read that. But what I can say for now is that people trying these Nvidia cards in iMacs are finding a number of caveats, in addition to the fact the procedure is no simple task. Here's one such example: ruclips.net/video/sgfljXSgdj4/видео.html
@@JDW- So I haven't done the upgrade myself (yet) because the baked card is still working for me. I've been wondering about upgrading to just get better graphic performance and Metal support. However I've been reading a lot about these upgrades. forums.macrumors.com/threads/2011-imac-graphics-card-upgrade.1596614/ This is like more of a general upgrade guide. The K1100M n K2100M offer you basically full compatiblity. However you do have to flash them. Which doesn't seem to be the most difficult thing to do but you do need to buy this chip reader to flash the card. And the heatsink requires minimal modification bc the card looks slightly different. Coming from a Dell/Alienware device the card should work out of the box but to get back boot screen/brightness controlls you do need to flash it. I haven't yet found a tutorial doing this exact upgrade but if I do find a good deal on the card I will for sure attempt the upgrade myself. Normally (in my country) you can get K1100M for about $50-100 and the Mac 4850 is $500. So even losing the bootscreen would be worth saving up to $450. If you would be able to try attempting an upgrade like this and sharing with us it would be awesome! Wish there was an easy comprehensive step by step guide for this but all the information seems to be scattered across different forums and videos.
@@olafb6445 If I was in a better financial position, I would certainly be open to buying such a card for testing purposes, but that's unfortunately not the case for me right now. But such an experiment really would be for only the geeks. Most folks find it challenging enough just to do the bake. Flashing a video card in the proper manner is really outside the abilities or desire of the average iMac owner. But I agree with you that it would be a great thing to try nonetheless. I can only hope the virus mayhem ends soon and people start buying products from my employer again soon. Indeed, I hope I even still have a day job in the coming months. It would be great if I was a full time RUclipsr making most of my living off RUclips, but I need a stronger subscriber base, more views and well, I need to kick out better content, for that to happen. I'm doing the best I can in spite of the odds right now. Thanks again for your support and helpful information!
JDW you started out with baking cards maybe now you should bake cakes? 😆😆 I hope you’ll get back on your feet soon! I do agree that it’s not an upgrade for most people I do wish the flash was easier. But for people who like tinkering it’s an interesting project. Definitely not for the mainstream audience. If I attempt to do it I will be sure to report how it went!
I had same issue with my 2019 imac 27 4850 Video card, and baking it is only a short term solution so i ended up replacing it with ATI Radeon HD 5750 1024 MB. Been using it for many years now, leaving it at night for video rendering,, been using for 2K youtube videos and FCPX 2K video editing with no issues what so ever!
Since the making of my video, I've been using the 6970M daily in my 2009 iMac. It has only experienced one sudden power off, and that was when my son maxed out all the graphics settings on his Roblox game and played it for more than a half hour that way. Even at 2000rpm minimum fan speeds, the temperatures rose too much and triggered the shutdown. It is getting warmer here in Japan, and at the time the A/C was turned off and so was the floor fan. That's really the main issue with the 6970M in a 2009 iMac. It runs too hot unless you are careful with it. But for word processing, email, and minimal RUclips watching, it's not a problem. Glad to hear your 5750 has been working well for so long. That's great!
@@DS-sh2sr Huge benefits to adding an SSD -- more than any other upgrade by far! Just remember to get the correct OWC kit for your iMac. The 2009 model requires a thermal sensor, in addition to a special mounting bracket and of course the SSD itself. I just now added links to all that in the text description under my video, so please check that for details.
@@JDW- thank you will check the link.. Any comment on SSD life span..my hdd lasted over 10 years before i replaced it with 2TB..now considering in upgrading it to SSD or replacimg the ODD with SSD and make it the main bootup drive.
@@DS-sh2sr I purchased a Samsung EVO 850 in 2015. It's been 5 years and it's still going strong. The key point here is that I don't use my iMac as a server that continuously writes data to the drive. The only use case where you really need to worry is in a server environment, especially when buying the cheaper SSDs. But normal users like you and I don't have much to worry about. You can read this article if you want a more technical explanation: www.compuram.de/blog/en/the-life-span-of-a-ssd-how-long-does-it-last-and-what-can-be-done-to-take-care/
Hello! I’m in japan as well like you. I’m going to update my 2011 graphic card because is gone. Was thinking to give it a try baking it while waiting for the replacement i have found.
Be sure to clean off all of the old thermal paste with ISO alcohol before you bake the video card. You can buy 100% ISO alcohol on Amazon Japan. That’s where I buy mine. You can also buy K4 & K5 Pro thermal pastes on Amazon Japan too. Your oven is probably like mine in that it is a combined oven and microwave. Just make sure you use the oven setting, not the microwave setting! Preheat your oven before you put in the card. And make sure you put four little aluminum foil standoffs on the bottom so the card is raised up a bit and heat can flow under it. Lastly, make sure you use 200°C and make sure your oven is working correctly, because some people have reported components falling off only because their oven was defective and producing much higher heat than 200° C. That’s probably not an issue with quality Japanese ovens, but I should mention it anyway. Let the card cool, then apply K4 Pro to the GPU and K5 Pro to the memory chips, reassemble, and you should be good to go.
I’m very sorry to hear that. But as I mentioned in my earlier comment, the only way components would be desoldered is if your oven was producing more than 200°C. Did you check the actual temperature inside your oven before you bake your card? (You would need a heat safe thermometer like a turkey thermometer in order to do that.) It’s not possible that those gray cubes would have been desoldered if the temperature was only 200°C. I read and reply to every comment. There are hundreds of comments under my videos and so far you are the fourth person who has reported this problem. Until now, in every case, the problem has been the oven was much hotter than the actual temperature setting. Normally, Japanese ovens are a very high-quality and the temperature should be quite accurate. Did you mistakenly use a toaster oven instead of a normal convection oven? That’s the only thing I could imagine you possibly did. Or maybe you did not fully understand the Japanese text written on your oven and chose an incorrect setting?
JDW I’ve a denshirenji that has oven features and set it to 200. I’ve soldered everything back but have no idea if it is good to give it a try or not :( but no other gpu available unfortunately
So fucking smart you are. Solder is not cracking. It is a tiredness within the chip when exposed to too much heat. Baking it resets, but it is still tired and bent.
Indeed. "Tiredness within the chip" is one way to put it, I guess. Some people contend it is the solder balls under the chip which is the problem, but my research on the root cause shows otherwise. It is indeed a flaw inherent to the GPU chip, rather than the solder balls. And if someone temporarily fixed the problem via reballing, it is actually the heating of the chip which provides the temporary fix. Sadly, despite the fact the bake works well, it isn't a permanent fix due to the GPU chip flaw. But then again, neither is buying a brand new version of the same GPU card. I know that because I had Apple change mine only to have it die about 3 years later.
@@JDW- i met the qestion god ten years ago. i have been living in pain beyond. you might say i denyed god and his glory, but he wasnt the man to present. wish the best for you and yours!
@@willkra The topic of God, the Bible, and religion in general is beyond the scope of the comments under a graphics card bake video, but I will say that it takes as much "faith" to be an atheist as it does to believe in any of the accepted religions in this world. The theory that the big bang began as a singularity still raises the question about how that singularity came to be or what otherwise established the origins of our universe. From a purely secular standpoint, Steve Jobs once said that the Journey is the Reward. Life is largely what we make (or don't make) of it. CHOICE is powerful. I would encourage you to not be discouraged and press forward toward making your own great dent in the universe! That's easier said than done, I know. But where there's a will, there's always a way.
"...suffering from a bad video card" -- I think you meant to say. Yes, the bake does work although not forever. I recommend watching my 1st and 2nd bake so you can decide which method is best for you, then get the require pastes, set a Saturday aside and give it a go!
@@JDW- Strange... the rest of my post is missing!!! Basically I was saying THANK YOU for the inspiration to attack this again. I replaced my early 2009 iMac with a 2014 iMac 27 5k and re-pasted the Nvidia GeForce GT 130, but it only lasted a little longer as my daughter only used it for the basics. Finally broke down and got her a 2015 MacBook Pro. Anyway, I have baked logic boards previously, so I may revisit the 2009 iMac. I had considered cutting open the back and installing a fan to exhaust the heat around the video card, but couldn't bring myself to compromising the aesthetics of the iMac. I was considering getting the 4850, but it may be a waste of money... technically I don't need the old iMac, but I still want to fix it...
@@RIP662 I would not advise you to cut holes in your beloved Mac -- not even a broken one. The bake will probably work on your 4850, especially if you get the two thermal pastes I recommend. It will eat up a whole Saturday of your time, but I think it's worth getting more than 2 years of life out of the iMac. Also, since you mentioned the 2015 MBP, which is the same Apple notebook I won, you might want to watch my video on that here: ruclips.net/video/Om1c-FCc5u0/видео.html
Thanks. There has been one other person who pointed that out. I was unaware of that when I purchased the card, but I did ask the seller in Hong Kong, and he assured me that it was a stock card that had not been modified in any way. Clearly he lied to me. I also asked if the card had been baked before, and he assured me it wasn’t, but he could’ve lied to me about that as well. I just don’t know. The card is working although it does have a sudden power off problem when the card gets too hot. The entire iMac suddenly powers off. Over the past few months I have been able to keep it sufficiently cool so I have not seen that problem reoccur. Therefore I cannot say if that particular shutdown problem is the result of my using a 6970M in my older 2009 iMac, or if it is because the card itself was originally intended for a Windows PC and flashed to work in a Mac. But for now I’m continuing to use the card happily because I’m able to keep it cool and avoid that particular problem.
@@MichalBerusRepair Of course we are just speculating here, but I believe you are correct about the HARDWARE being identical between Appe's 6970M and the DELL version. However, we cannot say if the flashed firmware on my DELL card is 100% the same as the Apple firmware. Indeed, we know the 6970M doesn't suddenly kill power to the 2011 iMac (the iMac in which the 6970M was a stock video card), and I do know first-hand it triggers a shutdown in my late 2009 iMac. But the question is, does Apple's stock card with the stock firmware do this in the 2009 iMac, or is it caused by someone having flashed 3rd party firmware into this DELL version card? One can argue it works 99.9% of the time, but that 0.1% is the shutdown problem I am curious about. The only way to know for sure is for me to have a stock Apple 6970M with the stock Apple firmware and then test it in this late 2009 27" iMac.
Apple should allow using different video cards other than the AMD Radeon ones. The reason I say this is because the AMD Radeon, cards have a rather odd defect causing them to fail from 2009 all the way to 2012 models. I’ve seen other videos where people have swapped out the AMD card for Nividia’s comparable card, to some degree of success. You lose some features like fan speed and what not.
MAY 30, 2020: I've not had the sudden power-off problem in the last 3 weeks, probably because I keep the fans running at 2000rpm. Even with my son playing Roblox non-stop for almost 2 hours today, with the ambient room temperature 25°C, the GPU heated to about 70°C (which is too hot for me to touch in the back side upper right corner), but no shutdown. I will update this info as we enter summer and the room temperatures increase. MAY 8, 2020: Screencast showing you 6970M owners how to test the GPU Heatsink temperature: ruclips.net/video/DosaK_wrKyc/видео.html
True, especially on power supplies that have not been recapped. But when I keep the card cool enough, there is no issue at all. That lends strong evidence of a thermal issue rather than a power issue.
Just a short note on the GPU card slot. At ruclips.net/video/n2a8oEI2y6U/видео.html you mention the K5 Pro needing to be wiped as it overspilled when the heat sink was applied. The same happened on my end but I wanted to add a small point, maybe some advice. The contacts on the GPU Card obviously fit into a slot. In my iMac's case, the slot for the GPU was dirty enough to see with the naked eye. Obviously I cleaned them up.
Sad that your gfx card still has thermal issues. Thanks for being so honestly sharing, I can’t stand showboating RUclipsrs ! I recently bought an iMac with supposedly « dead gfx card » (2008, 20i. Same as the two I already own), for 50€. The seller showed me how the Mac would not complete a boot, if not in safe mode. Since the power supply, screen, ram (4Gb) and hdd (1Tb + 500Gb spare) were all working good, I bought the thing as spare parts, in case my « main » iMac (the one that runs Thunderbird, and is streaming my webradio) started to show its age. I didn’t try to bake the gfx card yet, because of covid19, I have no longer access to this computer, as I’m confined at my parents place. I should try baking it. Even if: 1. the gfx card is ATI 2600pro 2. the idea I had in mind when I bought this computer still seem the best recycling opportunity in my eyes. I intended to turn this iMac into a headless Linux webserver (at best it would have to display plain text terminal during install process, I’ve been using SME for over a decade on older machines, I like it a lot), and a secondary display screen. Before Covid19, I had removed the optical drive (not sure it was working anyway), making room for a LVDS board to control the otherwise fine lcd panel (adding vga, dvi and hdmi inputs to it). I will buy such LVDS controller board as soon as covid situation will end. Maybe I’ll try to make a video of this « split recycling », even if working and filming when on my own isn’t the easiest thing :-) This comment was intended to tell you not to trash your 27i Mac, even when it’s gfx card will no longer work: its screen and case would make a wonderful secondary display (or main, should you plug some TV box into), using the bespoke LVDS board for its lcd panel. In fact, I am looking for 27i « dead » iMacs near my place (Toulouse, France) for such use :-) Once again : thanks for keeping your videos so simply honest, it’s way better this way, imo. Best wishes for your repasting to last as long as possible. Last but not least, I am using the free version of Macs Fan Control, it allows individual control over every iMac fans, allowing to near fine tuning noise / cooling compromise.
Thank you for your detailed comment, Manuel! You got a great deal! I Googled a photo of the 2600 video card and confirmed there are no electrolytic capacitors on it, which means you can safely bake it for 10 minutes at 200°C, as my bake videos describe. You will need a good thermal paste for the GPU, and then a different thermal paste for the memory chips. I recommend K4 & K5 Pro since they come bundled in a set. K5 Pro is what you use on the memory chips only, so be sure not to make a mistake about that. It is not meant for use on GPUs or CPUs. I'd love to hear your experience once you've done that.
If it was, the problem wouldn't go away when the card is cool. But now that I have the fans running faster in a cool room, there is no lockup issue at all. Therefore, the suddenly shutdown problem appears to be thermal related rather than PSU related.
Curtis Gross has a RUclips channel with some options you may like. I’m so excited because I’ve been waiting more than 3 years to see this happen so I’m telling everyone who will listen! Hahaha
Thanks. I am aware of Curtis' videos, this one in particular: ruclips.net/video/lb-Gg2JY3ug/видео.html I should mention the caveats though. As I've said many times, using an Nvidia card will require you to flash the card, and to do that you need a Windows machine (realistically). I do not own even a single Windows PC, nor do I have bootcamp installed on any of my Macs. There are many Mac users out there like that. So if you cannot flash the Nvidia card, it won't work. Next, as you can see in Curtis' own video, there are sleep/wake issues that can hit you, depending on the CPU you upgrade to. Next, some people in the comments under his video are asking about 2009 and 2010 models, and in one case of a 2010 model, the person commenting said he got a black screen and Curtis could only say he doesn't have a 2010 model. That isn't a slight against Curtis, but it is a warning that particular video really applies to the 2011 iMac, and not necessarily older iMac models like mine (2009). Lastly, I see Curtis is using Arctic Silver V on the GPU chip in that video. I used that same paste on the GPU after my 1st bake, but I think it is a mistake now. I used a different paste after subsequent bakes. Why? Because Arctic Silver V paste is capacitive, and there will be some overspill that will touch the surrounding SMD components, potentially causing problems. I therefore recommend either K4 Pro or Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut for the GPU because they are not electrically conductive nor are they capacitive. Curtis made no mention in his video of pasting the memory chips, but that is just as important, and I recommend K5 Pro for those chips, since using thermal pads is troublesome to get fitted right. None of my remarks in any way whatsoever are criticizing Curtis' excellent videos. I am just pointing out the pitfalls you need to be aware of, in addition to giving you my own advice about thermal paste. Good luck!
@@JDW- Please excuse me but I’m only offering to help. It is not necessary to use Windows, there are clear explanations of an alternative method and I do believe the 2010 model will also accept this upgrade. I’ll not comment on your other observations. Thank you
I fully realize that and I thank you again for your kind and thoughtful recommendations. My comments were only to help others understand that replacing the CPU or going with an Nvidia graphics card will require more planning and effort than baking their stock video card. It was not my intention to undermine what you wrote. I simply provided supplemental information. Thanks again.
@@JDW- in the case someone here doesn’t understand, ‘baking’ a gpu does not repair a defective card. All of these cards are defective and there are no second generation models. All cards will eventually fail and will not be resurrected with a simple ‘bake’ job. Thank you
@@nelsondog100 The only thing I don't understand is why people argue against it. You can put your dead card in the oven, or you can put your dead card in the trash, or you can put your dead card in the oven and then in the trash if it doesn't work. Unless you ruin your oven or burn your house down, costs are the same. What's the problem? Resurrection doesn't require immortality.
Many people who don't even play games have found themselves in your situation because the graphics cards used in these old iMacs are based on a faulty design. The bake isn't a permanent fix for that fault, but it most often works long enough to have made the time and effort worthwhile. Note that I only resorted to buying the 6970M after my 3rd and 4th bakes failed, and then I had no choice but to swap the card. You can swap your graphics card without ever doing the bake, but the bake is the cheapest solution to the problem, and it doesn't hurt anything to try it.
maybe its old but i got similar problems! First of all sorry for my bad english. So i just got a cheap Mid 2011 with core i7 and 6970m 2GB. (iam apple collector) so i do standard procedure, cleaning all heatsinks repaste etc. Then i install Open Legacy to use modern Mac OS so far this mac work fine. But if i install Post Patch and reboot Stuck on Apple logo and its Shutdown and restart every time! I thought man GPU broken etc? or even the PSU? or Logicboard? i Also switch the Logicboard from antother 27 imac 2011 same modell with an i5 same problem. After test and tests i found out when i unplug the GPU Heat sensor the imac starts :D not everytime but 80% it starts. Ofc i use an SSD and the DVD drive is not in for better airflow. I run Heaving benchmark it runs but the FPS is 5? thats not normal i guess need other drivers?
To be honest, I really don't know. You see, I still use MacOS High Sierra on my late 2009 27" iMac and am satisfied with that. I have a late 2015 27" 5K iMac at the office and used High Sierra on it too until last year when I "upgraded" to Mojave, but I really dislike Mojave compared to High Sierra. So many things broke, including the reading of 256GB SD cards, which works fine under High Sierra! Maybe upgrading to Monterey would fix that, but doing so would break other apps that are still 32-bit. All said, upgrading MacOS these days isn't what it used to be many years ago, when pretty much any OS upgrade back then was worth having. Now, you really have to be careful about upgrading the OS on an older Mac. The newest MacOS tends to work best on the newest Macs.
@@JDW- thank you for the response, ye i know that so newer an OS is, and so better it runs if u use the correct maschine (or better on native maschines.) On my M1 Macbook ofc it runs! but on the new maschines its nearly impossible to reprair or even upgrade, thats why i like my old maschines. I have many Mac Pro Towers, Macbook Pros, imacs. Over 40 beauties! - thats why i collect these, codename: Upgrade :) in my world i like old Maschines to upgrade what is possible and run with modern OS. The maschines are so Powerful that u can still work with these in 2023 and we Talk about Maschines 2009-2012 with no problems! Also Office, Surfing, Old games etc. For This imac from mid 2011 is still under El capitan in "heaving benchmark" 5-FPS he dosent recognize the GPU in the Software itself. You see GPu-Chip and then Temp. Normally u i'll see 6970m or 6900 Series AMD ones. But under System information i see 6970 2GB? i think the problem is the GPU is booted under "safemode"? because i didn't hookup the Temp sensor from the Heatsinks GPU. But now its funny :D under MacFan software, i can see GPU Temps thats strange. And if i plug the sensor on The imac he will shutdown after 60% Apple logo "LoadingBar" I tested some Hours ON/OFF he start every time now if i boot Ventura - El Capitan or Monterey no diff he work, but Problem is that the GPU not work 100%. Under This benchmark i must have over 30-40FPS on Low Settings. A desktop one 6970 have over 100FPS there! A mobile version is cutted thats why i think the GPU is on kinda safemode.
@@JDW- hi I mean Central processing units (CPU) not the graphics processing units (GPU) Maybe its a heat throttle of the cpu . To repaste the cpu you need to take the motherboard off. One more thing the i swap hdd to ssd to reduce the heat inside the imac and make more faster and i remove cdroom drive coz i dont need it anymore and to make air flows batter. My regards
@@lava08 Thank you for the advice. When my iMac suddenly powers off, the CPU temperature is not hot compared to the GPU, which is why I don't not see evidence to conclude the problem is the CPU. Also, when running CPU intensive tests that are not GPU intensive, my iMac runs fine, giving further evidence it is not the CPU. With that said, it is always wise to repaste chips that have not already been repasted, so I think your advice is sound even if it would not necessary resolve the problem I am having with my 6970M.
Just buy an nvidia quadro k610m or k1100m or k2100m, for about 50$ . You will only loose boot menu but this can be remedied by flashing the vbios and using opencore for brightness control. Check macrumors for more details
Actually, I have investigated those cards. Flashing requires a PC and the required process isn't for everyone. The bake is still cheaper and perhaps easier overall, which is why I recommend people start with that. My 6970M is still in daily use and is working fine now because I keep the iMac's fans running high enough, and using room A/C the temperature is cool enough to where the sudden shutdown problem is avoided. I don't have any issues with the boot screen or brightness control -- it works like my stock 4850 card did. Should this 6970M fail in the future and should I be unable to bake it back to life, assuming I am still interested in using this 2009 iMac at that time, I will possibly consider those other cards and make a video about flashing. For now though, I'm sticking with the 6970M.
It's heat and/or firmware. I know for a fact heat triggers it. For the last several months I've kept the card cool enough with all 3 internal iMac fans set to 2000rpm (and room A/C when needed) to keep the GPU temperature below 70°C. When the GPU gets into the 70's though, it can trigger a sudden power-off of the entire iMac, and that is true even after my repaste. One commenter suggested my card is actually a PC edition because he said the little red things around the GPU chip show that. If true, it means the seller on EBAY deceived me and actually flashed a PC card. And if that is true, then it could be the firmware is a close match to Apple's firmware but not exactly the same. Or maybe the firmware is the same and it's just that the 6870M doesn't play well in older iMacs like the 2009 model. (The 6970M came with the 2011 model.) But again, I've been able to keep the card cool enough over the last several months to avoid a shutdown, so I am content to keep using it for now.
@@jasonpk2267 You didn't mention if you tried repasting, and if you did, what paste did you use? I used Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut on the GPU and K5 Pro on the memory chips. If you repasted and used the same thermal paste on the memory chips as you did on the GPU, then that is the problem. You cannot do that. You must use either thermal pads or K5 Pro on the memory chips because there is a gap between those chips and the heatsink. I recommend K5 Pro because you don't need to measure the gap to use it.
@@JDW- I didn't repaste it -- it's stock. Since the temperature of failure is well within safe level at 65 celsius when the system shuts down, there doesn't appear any need to do so. I think it is a firmware issue.
@@jasonpk2267 All I can say is that my 6970M was causing my iMac to shut down at lower temperatures like yours until I repasted. It still can power-off the iMac if the temperature gets too high, but now that temperature is in the high 70's, not in the 60's. And with all 3 fans set to 2000rpm, assume the ambient room temperature is normal and not too hot, the card tends to stay in the 60's or below. But again, that is after my repaste.
Time to go with a GTX 780M which is probably the best compatible card. The Radeon HD 6xxx series tends to fail a lot unfortunately. ): forums.macrumors.com/threads/2011-imac-graphics-card-upgrade.1596614/ My 2011 iMac is running really well with the 780M even though it was a lot of trouble to get everything working
Thank you for the tip, but I think a lot of people will deeply ponder your closing remarks: "...it was a lot of trouble to get everything working." :-) By the way, if you run tests on your card like I did, specifically, running 1440p RUclips videos non-stop in Firefox or Chrome and watch the GPU heatsink temperature with something like iStat Menus, what is the highest temperatures you've seen? Again, I was able to hit 77°C at the base fan speed at the time my repasted 6970M suddenly triggered a power-down.
@@JDW- Normally the card hangs around 70 degrees. Did a quick test of a playing a youtube video at 1440p with fans at base speed and I could not get not get the temperature to rise. However when initially testing, I decided to run a beefy PS3 emulator called RPCS3 on a Windows 10 bootcamp partition and after running for about 20 minutes some part of the computer probably overheated although I was not checking temperatures. Interestingly that issue never happened again even after running the emulator for longer periods. I've monitored the temps and the card was reaching the mid 80's and never got hot enough to overheat. So far I could say the 780M was worth upgrading since I can use macOS Mojave. I did buy it second hand off of aliexpress and time will tell if this card could last. I was worried the old 6970M in the computer would fail on me in the near future so I decided on a gpu that would make this computer useful for about four more years
Thank you for the advice. While that Under-volting advice would work well for PCs, it is no easy task to under-volt the GPU on a Mac. I actually under-volt the CPU on my 2015 15" MacBook Pro using a program called Volta. But Volta only works on the CPU, and my calls for the developer to get it to work on the GPU have fallen on deaf ears. So, if you have a step-by-step list of instructions on how to safely under-volt a 6970M graphics card in an iMac, I will of course give that a try. But keep in mind that would need to be done while booted into MacOS, not Windows.
"PC liquid cooled" and Macs share the same thing which is called "Hardware", so what's with (Macs are not that way) ? 😂 PC guys know exactly how far temps can go but they keep them that low because they simply can, Mac users can't for sure because Macs are limited in so many ways. btw, if your kid likes gaming why don't put your ego aside and buy a proper machine like Windows PC or Laptop?
The term “ego“ is tightly connected to “self importance.“ I am not a full-time RUclipsr. I am a parent, however. When parents make certain decisions for their children who are minors and who live in the same residence with the parents, it is not a matter of ego at all. There are 3 facts which come into play here. The first is that I have been exclusively a Macintosh user since the 128K Mac in 1984. I have never owned a single Windows PC. As such, the sheer love for the Mac keeps me in that same pattern, and I am content. Second, the fact that we are an all Mac household does not in any way offend my family. Third, if we did have a Windows PC for the sake of gaming, my son would spend even more time on games that he does now, which is too much. Therefore, the decision that our family has made is a prudent one regarding gaming and the Mac. I grew up playing a few games on the Mac and that satisfied me. My son is satisfied. That’s what’s important. Lastly, Apple admittedly does have a problem when it comes to proper cooling. They tend to emphasize quietness in operation over cool operation, which is something I really don’t like. However, that’s not enough to make me switch over to the world of windows. :-)
@@JDW- Totally agree, and was talking about what I saw in this video, the casually gaming (what all kids lean toward) harmed the machine that is not meant to be for gaming, then ordering extra hardware and repairing them costs even more. Sure you can stay with your Mac ecosystem, but those machines have their limitations, Apple itself is so encrypted environment which is the reason why Safari doesn't support 4K video playback in 2022. There are many tech devices we need in our life which are not Apple related, TV's and multimedia in general, Printers, Playstation or XBox and many other, each machine serve's it's own purpose, from this point of view I suggested a Windows PC. I know this video is a bit old but was surprised why didn't you use thermal pads on VRAM chips, or they come with only thermal paste from the manufacturer? btw, You did great job there on replacing the GPU.
@@robertwilliam5527 The K5 Pro which I used atop the memory chips in my video is a thermal pad replacement paste, which is better than thermal pads in this case because there's a fairly large gap between the heatsink and those chips that is difficult to measure. Also, if the PCB is even a little warped, the gap width will vary, making a thermal pad replacement paste all the more beneficial. That should not be used on the GPU, of course, but it works well for the memory chips.
![Noob To Max With DRAGON REWORK In Blox Fruits [FULL MOVIE]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/LnBMOinoOvA/mqdefault.jpg)
I did just backed my first iMac 2010 EMC2398 AMD GPU. And guess what? I did worked for me!!’ Great!!’ I did had a problem with Back Screen of Death. No pixel, no lights, nothing!!’ Only fins noises, and two Green LEDs on the Motherboard. I did clean inside, and took all the dust from the fins. And nothing, it was so bed!!’
And cooking the Apple GPU was just perfect to get it working properly.
I did use a very cheap Termal Paste, it cost me U$1,00. Crazy that was the only one I could get near my house during the pandemic social isolation.
Let’s see how long it may survive!!’
Congratulations for you videos!!’
By the way!!’
I did had a problem with my HDD and I went forma SSD and the iMac did start to get very strange behavior like your today.
After a lot of research I could find the perfect solution in the iFixit chat.
I did add a Transistor 2N3904 in the HDD Termal Sensor.
So I am positive the might have any clue or troubleshooting issue that might be just something to look deeper to find a simple and inexpensive solution.
Good luck and Keep Safe!!’
God bless us all!!’
That's great to hear. Thank you for sharing your baking experience and for the 2N3904 transistor tip, Paulo!
As a tech for 25 years, you first shot yourself in the foot by not letting the fans max out. You choose lower noise than cooling performance. The computer was overheating and it shut itself off to protect itself from permanent damage. Uninstall that dumb fan controlling software to allow Mac to cool itself as it pleases, and embrace that jet engine fan noise with no shutdown. If it where to happen again, you can't expect a 2009 chassis, airflow, or fan to cool a beast of a video card. add a fan/more cooling. And great channel!
Thank you for your comment. One thing you didn't mention was my repasting. The seller in Hong Kong repasted the 6970M horribly, and my repaste job helped out quite a bit. Using a fan control app over the past several months, in combination with room A/C when needed, has prevented sudden shutdowns from occurring. I should add that I was able to achieve this with all 3 internal fans set to 2000rpm. They are not maxed out. Using 2000rpm keeps the acoustics to ear-friendly levels, and again, I've not had shutdown issues even with my son running his games. Maxing out the fans would be better still, and some people may not care about the louder sound in the case. Thanks again for watching and commenting!
@@JDW- Oh your repasting was excellent, much needed necessary fix of course! First thing that should've been done! trust no one! But 2000rpm will obviously not cut it for iceland 4k videos. Since the users aren't into that kind of thing, your past several months have been fine. The card really is a success, you should recommend now, especially when normal people don't limit fan rpm. cheers!
Mark, from your just add a fan or more cooling comment, I'm going to assume your 25 years of experience doesn't include cracking open too many imacs. Experience can help or hinder.
Apple's design philosophy is very different than, say, Dell. Elegance is high on the priority list, and fan noise is not elegant. If you're confident he was limiting rather than boosting his fan speeds, you're assuming things. Experience doesn't tell me he should uninstall that dumb fan controlling software, it tells me he should of installed it a long time ago. Live and learn.
And by the way, all 27" non-tapered edge aluminum imacs have the same cooling capacity, so yes he can reasonably expect an '09 to cool like a 2011 (the latter has better thermal monitor/manage capability, but running higher fan speeds makes this point moot).
Your acknowledgment at the end of the videos made sub to this channel. Glad to be in this community.
What I have to say is a little long so please be patient. So, Friday afternoon I was checking some email on my 2011 27" iMac when the screen flickered and went to black. I didn't know what was happening. I tried to reboot. It went to the startup screen with the Apple logo. Stayed on that for what seemed like forever, went totally white and shut down. It restarted itself up, crashed and continued to repeat until I held the power button down to stop it. My thermal paste had never been replaced. I knew I had a heat problem and researched possible fixes. I found your first "bake" video. I watched it. I then watched your second. I honestly hoped I would not have to bake my graphics card. Well, I did some more research and kept coming back to your video. I thought... what have I got to lose? So, last night I baked my graphics card. I repasted my GPU. As it hadn't been done in over nine years, I also repasted my CPU. I used K5 Pro on the GPU memory chips and K4 Pro on the GPU and the CPU. I cleaned everything thoroughly as a big part of my problem was it was filthy inside. Took my time putting everything back together. Got the display connected back in and put in one screw. Plugged it in and my heart was pounding with uncertainty as I turned it on. The screen went white. The Apple logo came on. I waited for what seemed forever as the bar under the apple crawled along. Then it stopped halfway and hung there. It stayed there, midway long enough for me to think of my next steps to take because it didn't work...maybe remove the graphics card, rebake or replace it. Did I fail? Was my whole weekend wasted, working on my iMac in vain?
No. The screen went black. Then back to white with no Apple logo. Then... my wallpaper!
Slowly icons appeared and a message telling me I had shut my computer down "because of a problem", and did I wish to restore my web pages. I put in the remaining screws for the display, cleaned the display glass and reinstalled it. Eventually all was right again. However, my machine doesn't seem to get as hot as it was and my sparkling clean fans are almost completely silent. I don't know how long this is going to last and quite frankly, I'm a little nervous about working my machine too hard now but of course, only time will tell. I hate to think of this incredible computer as having an expiry date because it just performs so damn well. But, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it and bake that card again! Thank you so much for your incredibly detailed and informative videos! People just like me really do appreciate them!
I loved reading your success story, Barry. Congratulations! I must admit, it is scary the first time after your bake and you find things taking so long it looks like the machine is frozen up and you don't know what to do. Then the joy takes over when you finally see that glorious desktop again! Feel free to keep me informed on how well your machine is doing over time. Best wishes to you and your newly resurrected iMac!
I have watched the whole playlist in one night, I have learned so much from it. Thanks for sharing all this information.
Thank you for spending those hours watching and for making time to comment, Steven. I certainly appreciate your kind words. Best wishes!
JDW going to try the bake technique on my 2010 iMac tomorrow.
I have attempted to bake the video card yesterday and put the whole computer back together. The problem that emerged was that even though the computer started up (startup sound occurred) the screen stayed pitch black. I tested whether it was due to the screen brightness but that was nog the issue. Is it possible that I screwed up the video card somehow? My best guess was that the LCD wires weren't connected properly but I reconnected those and the problem still wasn't solved. Have you heard about problems like this before? Any indication towards a possible source would be much obliged. Thank you for your videos and advice so far, they were really helpful for doing this whole endeavour!
Thank you for sharing your experience. I read and reply to every comment under all my videos, so I know from experience that a few people have reported what you have said -- a black screen after baking and reassembly. In the vast majority of those cases though, it was either a broken cable or a cable that wasn't perfectly secured into its mating connector. In some rare cases, it was a matter of the bake not working, usually because the card was too far gone for the bake to work. You said you reconnected the "LCD wires" which I assume means "the two flat ribbon cables that you must disconnect before you can remove the LCD panel." It could be you still did not reattached them correctly or it could be another cable that you accidentally disconnected. Sorry for the trouble, you should remove the display, then check all connections other than the display, then carefully reattach the display again and make sure the connectors are in good shape with all their pins intact. That is especially important for the upper left ribbon cable, which often breaks off at the tip. If there is an intermittent connection in any wire of those cables, you would see a black screen.
Many thanks to JDW for posting these videos. They have been enormously helpful to me over the years. Unfortunately, my 27" mid-2011 iMac's 6970M video card died again, just three months after the last bake and this time I decided to replace the whole computer.
Here's a brief history of my video card repairs:
2017: GPU resoldered by eBay vendor; applied thermal paste as described in first bake video and reinstalled video card
July 2019: repaired as described in second bake video
March 2020: repaired as described in third bake video
June 2020: repaired as described in the fourth bake video
Just prior to the last failure, I started monitoring the GPU temperatures more closely using the XRG app and noticed it was hovering around 130℉ before it died. I had been using smcFanControl since 2017, but I may not have set the default speed high enough to prevent these failures.
James, I am sorry to hear your 3rd bake didn't last long, but as my own bake experience shows, I'm not surprised. I can see from your data that your 1st and 2nd bakes lasted quite a while. My own 1st bake lasted a mere 4 months, most likely due to an inferior thermal paste job, but my 2nd bake made it all worthwhile as I got 2 years and 9 months from that. I suspect your 4th bake will last a very short time, as that is what happened after my 3rd and 4th bakes, prompting me to get a new card (swapping my 4850 for a 6970M). 130°F = 54°C which is not hot for any component inside the iMac. When it comes to this era of iMac, I personally define "hot" as getting into the 70°C to 100°C range (158°F ~ 212°C). So your fan speed didn't have anything to do with it. These cards do not have eternal life after the bake.
Some people like to argue semantics screaming, "It's NOT a 'fix'!!" That contention is true and false, depending on your own understanding of reality. As for me, I understand that the word "fix" means, "fixed until it breaks again." Think about a washing machine dying. You call the repair guy who "fixes" a motor which caused the problem. A few years later that same motor dies again, but not due to anything the repair guy did wrong. He indeed fixed your washing machine, but that part simply did not last (perhaps because the design of that motor was flawed like the GPU of these video cards) and therefore the fix didn't last. Its the same with a "cure." Cures for disease are not eternal insofar as the human body doesn't have eternal life. You may have been cured of cancer, but you will still die at some point.
So even though I don't go around preaching the bake as a "fix" I am not afraid of that word when it comes to the video card bake, knowing that no fix lasts forever, and especially not on these cards. Some people prefer to call the bake a "bandaid," but I dislike that term because it undermines the usefulness of the bake and misleads people into thinking it probably wouldn't be worth their time. Your case somewhat parallels my own on that the first couple bakes really do show that the time, effort and small expense was worthwhile. But at some point, as you and I both found out, the bake will no longer work (i.e., the video card can no longer be fixed, repaired, brought back to life, etc.), and then you must either opt of a new iMac like you did or get another card, whether of the same time or a different card that is compatible, like I did by going with a 6970M.
Lastly, to anyone buying a new Mac these days, I would like to mention 2 things:
(1) Intel iMacs currently being sold do not have the video card problem described in my videos and are very fast and worth the money in my opinion.
(2) Apple released its M1 silicon in 2020 that is blowing expectations out the door. iMacs with that chip will likely come later in 2021. Apple will support Intel iMacs for several more years, but Apple Silicon is the wave of the future. Despite the fact Intel caters to Windows, I still feel that Intel will ultimately be undermined as a company if they don't change their chip game plan in a major way over the next year and a half. Apple is triggering a mass move to ARM.
Thank you for sharing your story, James. You made a good run of it. Enjoy that new iMac!
I picked up a 2009 iMac 27 with an i7 for stupid cheap with a bad 4850. I ordered a 6970 card for it (I'm in no rush to get it running) and I've found a liquid GPU block that will fit in the limited space, it will take a slight modification to the case as Ray Charles could see you can't put a pump and radiator inside of an iMac. I'm going to run the pump from USB on the iMac and the fan(s) powered externally, so I have that figured out. However, I know I'm going to have to do something with the sensor. Of course, the old heat sink will not be put back into the machine and I may find it necessary to come up with a new attachment point on the top end of the video card (time will tell) but I am looking for an opinion on where I should position the sensor on this little custom assembly. I do a little aluminum/stainless fabrication from time to time, so I'll have to build a little box to house my external components and slap an apple sticker on it so that it looks like it belongs and somehow was made that way.
Do you mind sharing where you think the most effective position for the sensor would be? I am going to have to have my friend machine a thin little copper plate to make sure that the block also covers the memory chips, so perhaps somewhere on that? Also I'll gladly accept input on paste/pads for all the little necessary components.
Of course this little venture will probably yield some valuable experience when I get around to the planned monsterization of the 2010 Mac Pro I picked up for $35 (they thought it was a speaker, and they got no argument from me).
@@harrellmatt1 Some water coolers have thermal paste pre-applied, so you should check that. But I still recommend Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut for the GPU. For the memory chips, I have been recommending K5 Pro because there is a gap between the stock heatsinks and the top of those chips. If your custom solution has NO GAPS, then Kryonaut on the memory chips will work fine. But if there is any kind of gap at all, then Kryonaut is not made for that. K5 Pro is a thermal pad replacement paste made for gaps.
I honestly have zero experience with water coolers, so the only advice I can give as to where a sensor should be applied would be the hottest part of the cooler. Many people actually forget to reconnect their sensor entirely after a bake, and they wind up having to use a fan speed app to control fan speed. The main problem with that is that you lack any information on the temperature of the GPU. So connecting a compatible sensor is always the best advice. But again, I do not know specifically where to connect it, other than to say you should connect it to the warmest part of the cooler.
@@JDW- The block I'll be using comes completely clean, there isn't actually a water cooled KIT available for this purpose that I know of. I'll anticipate K5 pro for the memory chips as I expect the same issue as the factory heatsink with gaps. The one thing I'm going to have to figure out that I really don't have a thought on is how to best mate the larger copper plate I'm going to have to attach to the block to cover the memory chips. I don't want to have much conductivity loss there either. Ideally none at all, but we don't live in an ideal world, so any thoughts you have in addition to Kryonaut is welcome. I'm thinking perhaps I should examine the location of the sensor on the current heat sink and attempt similar placement. I do intend to use the app you've discussed, not so much for fan control but for monitoring. I think I remember seeing temperature values in screenshots.
I live in Hawaii, and even though my house is air conditioned now, I think we have relatively similar climates, so perhaps what I learn with this will be of value.
@@harrellmatt1 The memory chips don't get as hot as the GPU, which is why a lower thermal conductivity paste like K5 Pro or thermal pads work fine on those chips. You really are entering uncharted territory though with a custom water-cooled solution though because to my knowledge, no one has ever attempted that before. There is going to be some trial and error testing necessary to get it right. Indeed, I would suggest not to attempt it unless you have some experience with heatsinks and watercolors, and if you also have the desire to explore something new. What you are attempting is not guaranteed to produce satisfactory results.
@@JDW- It's my first time doing water cooling in a Mac. I've built a few high powered custom PCs over the years and chose water cooling. I used to love Fry's when I lived in California. I do like bouncing my thoughts off someone else with some knowledge of what they're speaking to. I've noticed several comments from people with 6970s with temperature related issues, and I know Apple changed the heat sink piping. I'd love to water cool the CPU as well, as that would help avoid future problems. In my reasoning, because of the form factor there isn't much way of additional heat displacement, one either has to force fans to run at a higher speed or begin to reduce or remove functionality (I've seen some people have removed the optical drive, for example). If I can move heat displacement to mainly external perhaps I can extend the longevity of the machine as a whole. I'm also hoping the experience with Mac architecture is helpful with future upgrades to the Mac Pro I mentioned. The other motivation for working out the water cooled thing is it seems like any video card put in these has issues that seem to be related to heat at least marginally, so any repair without addressing the heat issue effectively, is only extending the borrowed time. I don't anticipate it being a particularly cheap fix, but I do think I can get it done start to finish for less than $400 in parts and maybe avoid additional heat related hardware failures in the future.
Hi jdw,
Clear story and detail. Well in order to keep the temperature inside the IMac down, I placed 3 heatsinks on the outside top of my IMac and right along the breezing gap on the top backside I put 5 12 volt minifans with a dimmer to suck out the heated air, as the IMac heated too much in my opinion. (58 degrees cenlcius.)
This has been working fine for 5 years. Now my videocard is giving me 5 blue vertical lines. So time for me to put the oven on.
My system:
IMac 27, 3,4 G i7, 32Gig ram, 6970M, 1T SSD.
This could solve you overheating as it will keep the temperature about 10 to 15 degrees. Cheers.
I look forward to hearing the result of your bake. By the way, I'd love to see some photos of all those fans! Feel free to post a link to your photo collection. (If you don't already have them online, I would suggest using Flickr or Google Photos since either will let you put the photos into an album and then create a sharable link. Or you could use DropBox or CloudApp or similar cloud service.)
photos.app.goo.gl/uV2K4S1JLJTiUWLZ9
Hereby link to some photos.
Sorry to hear you still have a problem. I did find when researching the SSD upgrade for my iMAC mid 2011 i7 that the CD ROM drive blocks a lot of the air flow from the bottom right fan. The reviewer recommended removing the CD drive and in doing so was able to significantly reduce the GPU heat sink temperature. I note there is a similar fan/CD drive configuration on the 2009 iMAC. Also suggested taping over the CD ROM slot so as to maximise the airflow over the GPU heat sink.
John, I certainly appreciate that excellent tip. I will take that into serious consideration the next time I open up my iMac!
Thanks for your vids.
I have a mid 2011 with the dreaded 6970M. Replaced under warranty in 2016 but now stuffed. Reading your vids I conclude that a "new" one will only last 3 years thereabouts - but would take a risk with getting one that did not have the Apple firmware. Not worth getting erm "professionally" fixed. So will try the bake method. I have ordered Arctic Silver 5 and K5 Pro and a new vid cable as the cable got a bit bent when inserting on the m/b slot.
I have read folks getting different video cards and flashing it with the Apple firmware. Beyond my abilities. And then those who are saying you still will encounter issues.
If the bake works thats fine. Will scrap the iMac for parts once/if it fails and fork out the money on a new one.
.
Thank you for your comment. My advice is to take care with Arctic Silver V. I used that after my 1st bake. The issue is that if you apply too much, the overspill will touch surrounding surface mount capacitors. Arctic Silver V is not electrically conductive but it is capacitive so overspill is a concern. Use it very sparingly. Probably the pea method in the middle would be best. As to K5 Pro though, overspill doesn't matter at all.
Lastly, check the temperature of your oven with a turkey thermometer to confirm the temperature is correct and doesn't fluctuation too high. There have been a small handful of reports recently from people who had questionable oven temperatures that resulted in some of the square coils becoming desoldered.
All said, if your oven can heat to a consistent 200°C, and if your little aluminum foil feet are all the same height to ensure the card rests as flat/level as possible, you should not have a problem. But make absolutely sure you put the component side of the board facing up. You should then be good to go.
Dear sir. You are an absolute champ! Would you recommend changing thermal paste also on CPU while doing the GPU bake process ? About to start my baking and was wondering whether worth doing it too.
Thank you for watching and for your kind words. To be honest, I never changed my CPU paste at all. The reason why is because doing the GPU alone takes a lot of your time. But it is possible to do both in the same day if you’re committed to doing it. Do you have to do it? No, as evidenced by the fact that I’ve never changed my paste and I have no CPU issues at all, nor any thermal issues. But is it a good idea in general if you have the time and desire to do it? Well of course yes. If you decide to do the CPU, I strongly recommend using Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut, as that’s just about the best CPU thermal paste out there. You can also use that on the GPU too, but be sure to use K5 Pro on the graphics card memory chips. Also, if you do decide to do the CPU too, I would recommend running some CPU temperature checks before you swap the paste and then after and see if it makes any difference for you. I’d love to hear your results.
@@JDW- Your answer matches your deep reputation as a true gentleman, with loads of patience, empathy, professionalism and love of what you do. You should be a teacher at univ or tech college 😊
Dear sir. I realize I forgot to put the foam back on the GPU frame and reassembled the part ! Do you think I might regret it soon ? Shall I make steps back and put the foam ? Thanks in advance.
Gabriel, don’t worry about the foam. I too have forgotten to put that back! I think the purpose is simply to prevent dust from collecting around the GPU chip. It’s not necessary. You don’t need to worry about it.
@@JDW- hello dear friend in my misery. After the bake 🍲♨️, I reassembled and plugged everything meticulously.
But same symptoms when turning iMac on ie., blank screen, but this time with alternance logo 🚫 and logo Apple.
Which means no cold bear as planned.
For the record, I previously had the hard drive changed into SSD and screen replaced by repair shop. That's all I did externally.
I also rechecked the plugging of my RAM cards...although not feeling the plugging sensation like for any other connector, the RAM cards were on right place after putting the little grid back with the 3 screws.
Misery.
I apologize if this comment has been covered before - there are so many comments it is hard to search through them. I’ve watched most of the 2009 iMac graphics card baking videos and I question one thing you do in the disassembly and reinstalling the hear sink. You loosen the 4 Phillips screws on the heat sink side and you also remove the screws on the other side that appear to go into them. So I was wondering why did Apple use 2 sets of screws there? The only reason I could think of is that the screws on the heat sink side allow you to adjust the spacing between the card and the heat sink. If that is the case, I don’t think you should be messing with them unless you have a spec on how to adjust them. Does this make sense or am I missing something? I am about to order some k4/k5 pro to work on my son’s 2009 iMac so any advise on this step would be appreciated.
You are talking about what I show here: ruclips.net/video/v1DXBLkiqFM/видео.html
It's been a while since I've removed that heatsink, but if memory serves correctly, I was not able to get the heatsink off merely by unscrewing and removing the 3 screws on the bottom. I had to unscrew those spring-loaded top screws as well. But all you need to do is just remove the 4 screws on the bottom and then see if you can separate the heatsink from the graphics card. If you can, then most likely you won't need to touch the spring-loaded screws. But there's nothing magical about the spring-loaded screws even if you are forced to loosen them. The springs merely help ensure you don't over tighten the screws. I simply screwed mine down as far as they would go, and I didn't use extreme force either, and I've never had an issue doing it like that. I therefore wish you the best in resolving the problem on your son's 2009 iMac!
@@JDW- thanks for the speedy response. I’ll see if that works for me.
23:37 That's the daily business and feeling of your AMD GPU! :D ;)
Seriously, great video series about that well-known iMac graphics card issue. I like the personal and honest touch. Just wanted to add something about the GPU. I have heard many sources were recommending to use "newer" chips. There seem to be a better/more reliable chip series made in 2016 and 2017. Not sure about the codes/numbers on your old and current replacement card, but the leading 2 digits on your current card might be the manufacture date: 12
Thanks.
The markings on the 4850 GPU are shown in this photo: bit.ly/2W1mfKd
The markings on the 6970M GPU are shown in this photo: bit.ly/2Wnv0NF
Thanks for the updates
I did get 1/2 of what you were saying.. BUT... I truly appreciate the FULL coverage via your video(s).. If I can see it, I can get it! So THANK YOU
Oh.. also, have you tried "rednecking" the over heating??? I picked up (4) "brushless 5v USB fans " from AMAZON and some thin wire to hang them on the "exhaust" part of your Mac, and have it "SUCK" the air through, vs. "PUSHING" the air.. and the extra (4) fans have made a sizable difference in my heating issue. (NOTE: through trial and error.. I found that placing one of the fans on top of the "intake" vent.. actually causes the Mac to heat up faster..!! so I placed all 4 fans along the top of the Mac's slit/vent and my temps stay under 195˚
I just use a floor fan and good room air conditioning to keep everything as cool as possible, in addition to using a fan control app to boost the RPM speed of all three fans inside the iMac.
Hello. The smc fan control did nothing on mine. 2011 i7 same gpu as you have. The other program took control, but since your choices are static it is not a good idea to strain the machine. As the temperature climbs, the fans need a higher rpm. If your son is gaming, set the fan to 4000, and the gpu will survive. There is a pro version of the control which is talking to the fans I believe.
SMC FAN control did nothing when running under what OS? (I am still using MacOS High Sierra on my iMac.)
I just purchased a 6970 gpu pulled from a “tested” working 2011 imac. I installed it in my late 2009 27 inch imac running High Sierra following your great tutorials. Problem is it boots up to 50-60% and then restarts in a boot loop. Safe mode does not work and booting into recovery has the same problem. I read on other forums that High Sierra and 6970 on my imac might have problems.
Do you know if this could be the problem other then it being another bad gpu? Or any suggestions?
Jeremy, MacOS High Sierra is not the issue because I still use that OS on all my Macs, including my late 2009 27” i7 iMac. If you didn’t pull your 6970M from one of your own 2011 iMacs, then I would consider that “pulled from a working Mac” description to be suspect. Maybe the seller meant the rest of the iMac worked but the graphics card didn’t? You never know with sellers in EBAY.
Also, you really need to use the 6970M with the triple heat pipe heatsink it came with on the 2011 iMac to ensure adequate cooling, and even then if you find the card is getting too hot you will need to repaste it using the two type of pastes I recommend.
If the seller insists the graphics card tested good, you can verify that claim by booting from an external drive that has a fresh install of High Sierra on it. That would eliminate your iMac’s drive or OS install as being the root problem. And if booting from an external drive works, then you need to reinstall High Sierra on your iMacs internal drive.
Lastly, if the seller is based in Hong Kong or China, regardless of what their EBAY description said, you need to consider the card may in fact have been in a PC and flashed with firmware to work on an iMac. One commenter under my video said the card I have is one of those. He based that on the little red pieces on the component side which apparently are not present on an iMac version card. What this means is, if your card was flashed, it may have been improperly flashed and that could explain the problems you are seeing.
Please let me known if this helps.
@@JDW- Thank you for responding. The seller did include the 3 pipe heat sink but you may be correct on your suspicion of "pulled from a working mac". He did offer a 30 day warranty but I'll try your other suggestions first just to make sure. Also thanks for confirming it's most likely not High Sierra. Fingers crossed I can get this working.
Nice Video. From what you are describing, the first heat sink installation was not that great resulting in rather poor heat conduction. This would explain the sudden temperature jump in the maximum heatsink temperature - the GPU (or memory) silicon temperature is still the same.The nasty shut-down could be the result of OSX trying to treat the card like the HD4850... There should be a shutdown log entry in system.log. What does it say?
The log does not contain anything specific because it is not a “shut down“ but rather a sudden “power-off.“ so the log of course only records things that were happening until the power off, and then it records the boot sequence after I press the power button to boot the machine. It is a complete loss of power, not a software shut down.
Also note that even though my machine is set to automatically power on and reboot after the loss of power, my iMac does not do that after these sudden power offs. It only does that if I yank the power cord. So even though this is a loss of power, it’s of a different sort.
Vey good detailed summary, thx! could be that after the best thermal pasting, I hear the 6970M takes a lot of power and instead of the normal thermal throttling, it shut the power off? Im subscribed for the great content!
Did you ever try using the old temperature sensor on the 6970? Perhaps the new one is different and reports higher temps than the old one. Or try without a temp sensor at all and see what happens. Also, try with Apple's fan settings.
I did not swap out temperature sensors. I only swapped out the card. The card is compatible with my model year iMac as per the fact it functions fine (even to this very day), so I am not inclined to doubt the readings its sensor gives to me within MacOS.
It sounds to me like CPU overheat, or voltage not stable to the cpu. Do you check the cpu temp during the test?. CPU over-temp and voltage anomalies always end in shutdown.
Yes I did check temperature and if they don’t get into the range of 70C then the iMac will not suddenly power off.
As i commented on your 2nd bake video, i baked my 6970M about 2 months ago. Because of Covid i started gaming on the 2011 iMac. To my surprise it could run CS:GO, wich is quite gpu intense. I also installed bootcamp and run cs:go from there as well, and noticed the game runs smoother on win than on osx. But on both platforms i reach 120+fps, wich is very good for a 9y old machine. Both OS run macsfancontrol with gpu temp set to max 55C. CPU is set to max. 65C. My hottest component now is my samsung ssd, wich will be fitted with heatsinks soon. Now the information that might interest you: i used thermal grizzly minus pads on the gpu memory chips and noctua NT-H1 paste on the gpu core itself. So far it keeps running, i will report back should it fail again. Good luck on finding the problem with your machine.
Thank you for watching and for your comment. I checked that other comment from you, but you did not clarify the model year of your iMac. It seems you are using a 2011 27" iMac with your 6970M, correct? If so, that would explain why you may be seeing something different than I am, since mine is a late 2009 iMac.
As to your choice of using Thermal Grizzly (Kryonaut?) on the memory chips, there is a gap between the memory chips and the bottom of the heatsink, unlike the GPU which makes contact with the copper portion of the heatsink. The presence of that gap above the memory chips is why thermal pads or a thermal pad replacement paste like K5 Pro is typically used there. My fear is that putting something like Kryonaut on the memory chips would work acceptably for a time, but due to it being a liquidy paste that doesn't hold its shape over time, the thermal transfer would eventually diminish and potentially become a problem.
I am curious about one thing on your iMac, if you wouldn't mind testing. If you set your fans to be system controlled, MacOS will run them at their base speed until your iMac gets quite hot. Under that condition, I am curious what the maximum "GPU Heatsink" temperature is on your machine, say after running a GPU-intensive game for 30 minutes or watching a 1440p video in FireFox. More to the point, does your 6970M's heatsink sensor report a temperature higher than 77°C, and can you sustain that higher temperature without problem?
JDW the products i used:
Thermal Grizzly Minus Pad 8 - 120... www.amazon.de/dp/B00ZJSCQF0?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share
Noctua NT-H1 thermal compound www.amazon.de/dp/B002CQU14A?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share
I measured the gap between my heatsink and memory chips, and it was only 0,4mm.
The pads are like a double sided tape with a sticky surface on both sides. The consistency is more like cheese than like paste if that makes sense. 😉
I’ll try and run cs:go for a while on standard fan speeds and report back on max temps.
JDW after playing for one hour with stock fans i got 69C on the GPU
@@d6pulse Thank you for confirming that you used thermal pads, not the paste, on the memory chips. Did you also apply that to the square coils as well? Those coils are usually pasted to the heatsink, in addition to the memory chips.
As to why I chose Kryonaut paste over Noctua (and there is more than one type of Noctua paste, by the way), after having spent 3 weeks researching pastes about a year ago, I came to the conclusion that the best Noctua paste was pretty much on par with Kryonaut in terms of thermal performance, with most tests showing Kryonaut having a slight edge over Noctua pastes. Indeed, if you ever read anything negative about Kryonaut, it's usually from people who talk about the high cost of Kryonaut rather than its performance.
There is one key consideration I have discovered from first hand experience with Kryonaut though. The manufacturer recommends the SPREAD method and is why Kryonaut includes the spatula. However, I've never been able to effectively spread it with the included spatula or an old credit card, and believe me I've tried. Most of the paste sticks to the spatula and all you are left with is a microscopically thin film on the surface of your chip. Pastes like K4 Pro, Arctic Silver V and even Noctua spread rather easily with a spatula -- almost as easy if you were applying hand cream. That is why I have to treat Kryonaut in a special way. My approach is to attempt the spread method with the spatula, which leaves only a microscopically thin film on the chip (pretty much no paste applied to the chip at all, but enough applied to make the chip look less shiny), and then I apply the Kryonaut in an X pattern as shown in my video. I like the X-patter based on dozens upon dozens of RUclips videos I've seen showing how that method, especially for non-square chips, spreads well edge to edge with no air bubbles. I used Kryonaut in a X-pattern on my 2015 15" MBP when I repasted that a year ago (I have a video on that). So far, there haven't been any issues.
Lastly, thank you for sharing your "GPU Heatsink" temperature for your 6970M. It is interesting that 69°C is the maximum GPU Heatsink temperature you get. Again, I was able to measure about 77°C on mine when the sudden shutdown occurred. If you every see GPU heatsink temperatures of 77°C or higher on your machine in the future, please let me know if all is well or if some kind of trouble occurs.
Thank you for all your feedback to date!
I hope you manage to find yourself a new iMac soon. You can pick up incredible deals if you look around! You know that anyway... :)
But good luck and thanks for the updates!!
Actually, by keeping the internal fans running faster, and by keeping the room A/C turned on, I can avoid the high-temperature sudden shutdown problem entirely. The iMac is running fine. Honestly, the next iMac I buy will probably be an Apple Silicon version, assuming I have the money to do so. Since Apple just released a new Intel iMac, their silicon version probably won't come out until next year.
@@JDW- Exactly, you know whats coming, a complete overhaul of the current configurations... I will be watching and waiting to snipe cheap iMacs as we approach this transition. Honestly, I picked up a second hand MBP 13" for £250 and its been the best device for me in a long time. It's seems a good time to buy and sell the macs... I use the fan control app too, so i do agree, it helps keep all these devices running buttery. It should only be a matter of time before a Chinese company steps in and produces imitation replacement GPU's for these 09-11 iMacs... Or at least I hope! :'D Thanks again JDW and may you prosper!
Hi JDW and update on my 27" late 2009 iMac, like I told you in a previous comment I screwed up the large VLD connector on the motherboard to ripping half off when I was replacing back the screen. I was able to purchase on E-Bay a tested and working like new used motherboard after I gave the company my Serial No. so they would send me the right motherboard, today May 29th I got a like new board for less than $100 I will be installing after reviewing a few remove and install videos because of all the connectors and plugs that you need to keep track of. Will let you know if I get' er back up and running in the near future with the new motherboard as I have to install my CPU off the old board and the replacement GPU. To have it done by Apple Install I was looking at $250-$300 + parts. I saw you removed the motherboard in your 1st video bake which I hoping I will have the same luck you had without destroying the computer.
That's wonderful to hear, Robin! And my 1st Bake video is an important reference on how to remove and reinstall the entire motherboard. The main difference you will have is that you will also have to remove and then reinstall the CPU and its heatsink too. I am assuming your new board doesn't have the CPU on it, which is fine because your existing board does. If your new board does have the CPU, then it would be a matter of you repasting the CPU and applying the heatsink. That part is not shown in my video, but there are other videos on RUclips which do show that. Basically the work involved is similar to repasting the GPU, but there is less work for the CPU because it is only 1 chip, whereas there is the GPU and memory chips on the video card. Definitely do NOT use K5 Pro on the CPU. K4 Pro will work, as will something like Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut. So long as your past is less than 1 year old and made for CPU and GPUs it should be fine, but I always recommend non-conductive pastes to ensure any overspill won't cause problems elsewhere. You're probably OK on the CPU though. Just be very, very careful during assembly. There are many connectors. You don't want to break another one on your new board!
5/9/2020 Hi JDW, On my late 27" iMac i5 my first bake job lasted about a week using the same paste you used in your bake from Grease, running really great, booting up normal, heat within the normal range within the case, tried to see if I could boot from an external 2.5 drive with a bootable OS Sierra fresh install on it. It to booted up great but I did notice the fans were running slighting faster with the external drive it might be what caused the screen to go black. Before I try a second bake I purchased an ATI Radeon HD 5670 512 MB 661-5579 which I will try switching out and hook up an external monitor to see if it works and boots normally before replacing the iMac 27" screen. Will give you an update as to what happens still hate that thermal sensor that needs attaching to the backside of the motherboard, it definitely is a GPU overheating issue.
Robin, thank you for sharing those details. I am truly sorry to hear your bake lasted only 1 week. If you bake the card again and get only 1 week, then you're situation will parallel my own -- meaning the card is dead, and further bakes won't work. If you have that 5670 in your hands now, I would certainly encourage you to give it a try. I am still using my 6970M card, and to be honest, it hasn't triggered a shutdown since my video because I've not heated it above 77°C. It's still cool here in Japan, so I don't know what will happen during the summer months.
Anyway, I look forward to hearing your feedback about the 5670 in your machine. If you find that it triggers a shutdown (sudden Power-OFF) when it gets too hot, it could be the thermal paste on the card is as bad as mine was, which means you need to repaste it and try again.
@@JDW- Ahhhh, Good news, bad news what I thought was going to be a 20 min job that was going great ended in disaster. I switched out the ATI 4850 (late 2009 iMac GPU) with a 5670 512MB GPU (mid-2010 iMac mode GPU) with heat sink and the 27" iMac was running great like normal. I used an external monitor to check to see if it would boot, it did before trying to replace the iMac 27" screen. The problem came when I tried to install the heavy screen as I had just finished installing all 4 cables back the standing computer screen tiled forward ripping the big cable destroying the big connector on the motherboard so no 27" screen. The sad part is the external monitor will boot up normal and everything seems to be working fine normal fan speeds. I may or may not use it with an external screen that way or the next project would be replacing the motherboard (depending on cost of a good used one) not something I really want to do. Hint for the day is lay computer down when replacing the iMac 27" screen.
@@rpdee7344 Robin, I am very sorry to hear that. But just to confirm, when your display fell forward, are you sure it did not also tear off that little ribbon cable in the upper left? When my display fell forward during my 2nd Bake (see my video about that), only the little ribbon cable in the upper left broke. I bought a replacement from AliExpress and all was well. It seems odd that only the big ribbon cable would have been damaged in the fall. In any case, please shoot me a photo of the damaged connector on the motherboard. Just upload your photo to Flickr or CloudApp or iCloud Photos or similar free sharing service, and then post the link to your photo in a new comment. I want to inspect the damage so I can better advise you.
@@JDW- The little cable is OK it pulled out OK, but the main connector for Video pulled itself off the motherboard and bent several of the copper pins and broke off a couple with the connector left at an angle, there is a shop oversea that will replace the connector, but if I can find a good used motherboard with all good connectors that is what I need, but dread having to taking it out with all the cables and connectors to it like you did in your first video bake. The computer itself is working fine with an external monitor, just wish it were the original screen, my screw up. In fact, I am typing this reply with the 27" iMac just with an external 17" monitor VGA screen, the temperature control seems to be working fine at monitoring and reducing the heat. I was watching a RUclips video game with lots of action to see if it would overheat like your son was able to do, but it stayed within normal ranges with the 5670 GPU card (Used GPU with heat sink and a shorter GPU card that replaces with no issues and tested to run for about $85 USA off of E-Bay) .
I also have a late 2009 21" iMac and a 2011 Mac mini server to handle my computer and internet needs, just wanted to be able to use the better CPU and larger screen of the 27" iMac. My mess up should have laid the 27" iMac down when putting back the screen. Still have use of the 27" just not how I wanted to use it if needed.
@@rpdee7344 Well, I'm very sorry to hear that, Robin. That's unfortunately a problem I cannot easily remedy for you. The only way to avoid having to remove the motherboard would be to find a repair shop local to you that would take the entire machine. Not sure of that's possible with all the COVID-19 lockdown mayhem going on now.
Thanks for the information, was a bout to buy the video card for my 2009 Imac, but will look for another model..
I am still using the 6970M in my iMac. It's currently running fine, so you shouldn't necessarily rule out the 6970M for your 2009 iMac, so long as you repaste it and get the triple heat-pipe heatsink with it like mine. I give an update on my 6970M in my newer video here: ruclips.net/video/hldcyJ_qUD4/видео.html
Hi, I just discovered your channel and I'm gonna try to fix my GPU with your really helpful tutorials!.
Now that I'm here I would like to suggest to not use that iMac for gaming anymore, there're some services available to use PC gaming from the cloud at a very reasonable price that your son can play with, he can play modern video games at the maximum settings, and the best thing is that it's just a stream service, that means the only thing your Mac is handling is a compressed video format streamed to your computer that he can control it instead of playing natively video games on your iMac, so it will probably last longer!. The companies that offer these services are Nvidia GeForce Now ($5/month), Shadow tech ($15/month), Stadia ($10/month) and I don't know if there're more companies in japan that offer this service but I'm sure you could look that up. Best wishes! (I apologize if I committed any grammatical mistakes but my English is awful)...
I look forward to hearing how your GPU repair goes! Thank you also for the suggestion for my son; however, about the only game he plays these days is Roblox!
Hi JDW, that's unfortunate to hear about the temp. and shutdown problems. Could you tell me if this upgrade will allow Windows in Bootcamp to run? Thanks.
You know, I've not used Boot Camp in YEARS! But I suspect you are using it to run games, right? If so, then heat might be an issue. Because like I said in my video, after I repasted, the unexpected power-off trigger temperature is 77°C on my iMac. Anything below that temperature is stable. The machine isn't running Windows currently in Boot Camp, but all my testing shows that the shutdown is temperature related. So until I have a chance to install Boot Camp and Windows to test, I would suggest the card would work so long as you can keep the temperatures cool enough.
I still don't understand what's so special about 77°C. Prior to my repaste, the trigger was 61°C. And yet with the stock video card and with the stock CPU, temperatures can go higher than that without causing any problem. So there must be some kind of incompatibility at work here that triggers a shutdown (in hardware) when the 6870M's temperature rises beyond a certain threshold, and that threshold appears to be related to thermal paste too -- which makes sense because the paste helps to keep the GPU chip cooler.
@@JDW- I appreciate the advice and your experiments! Not sure if it would be equivalent to disconnecting the CEL light bulb, while trying to pass a smog check (haha), but maybe disallowing/disconnecting the Temp. sensor would prevent the shut down? We know what these cards can handle after all, especially if fans are running high at all times.
Disconnecting the GPU heatsink temperature sensor is an intriguing idea, but I wonder if doing that would allow the GPU to potentially overheat and be damaged by that excess heat. (For example, if the GPU exceeded 100 degrees C for an extended period of time.)
@@JDW- If the fans are running high, I think it'd be unlikely for the temps. to get that high, BUT I'm no computer engineer.
Is this possible for iMac 27" 2.93 mid 2010. Do we need cut something plastic vs. or fits perfectly?
2009 & 2010 iMac are very similar with regard to installing the 2011 iMacs 6970M graphics card, so please following my video on that subject here: @
I have a iMac 27 i7 and I do the recovery from the internet to be able to install the software on my new drive, goes all over the full bar after fill up my internet password and then changes to the Apple logo and goes down or freezes with a blue screen or black screen sometimes, I don’t know what that could be?
Please help
Thanks so much
If you have a bootable external drive and get the same freezing or black screen problems, then it is clear your video card is the root cause. In that case, you need to follow my Bake videos to try to resurrect your video card. You could also replace your video card, but the Bake is cheaper, so I suggest you try to Bake first. Just be sure your oven temperature doesn't fluctuate. A few people have reported desoldered components because their oven temperature was hotter than what they set. It's rare when that happens but it can happen. Use a turkey thermometer inside your oven to verify if the temperature is accurate and doesn't fluctuate.
JDW strange is that is I let it on stays on all the time and doesn’t go down but if I try to make the recovery or trying to install the software goes down or freezes. Thanks so much for the response. Amazing videos
@@walkinggod Thank you for your kind words. I still think you should try booting from an external drive. Even a USB thumb drive would work if it's large enough. You need to determine if your problem is software related, or if your drive is failing, or if it is the video card. So if you install MacOS on a thumb drive and can boot from it and use software on it just fine, then such indicates that either the software on your existing internal drive or the drive itself is the problem. But if you have the same lockups with the thumb drive too, then it's clearly your video card. I hope this helps!
JDW can u recommend a place to check how to make a booting external drive? And what OS X I should use?
@@walkinggod Macworld has an article about how to do that here: bit.ly/30Q8kJO
I have a late 2009 iMac 27. I baked my graphic card 3 times. Last time was a week ago and I put new past, but did not use 2 different pasts. I’ve used Arctic MX-2 everywhere. My computer came back to life and worked fine until 2 hours ago while I was on internet, everything stopped. I was still able to move the pointer, but could not access anything, even the apple menu to force quit softwares. I then restarted the iMac. Loading screen stops 3/4 the way and stay there. Usually after backing the first 3 times, it paused for a bref moment and continue, but not anymore.
I’ve just purchased a AMD 6970M that is supposed to be new (I doubt), and then saw this video... I don’t know if I want to cancel or not this purchase.
It seems you use the same paste or similar paste after each of your three bakes, which is a problem. As mentioned in my 2nd Bake video, you must use a different kind of paste called K5 Pro (or thermal pads) on the memory chips. The fact you used Arctic MX-2 on the memory chips is a problem. You see, those pastes are for CPUs and GPUs where there is NO GAP between the chip and the heatsink. But in the case of video card memory chips, there is a gap. MX-2 isn't made to bridge a large gap like that, which is why it doesn't work. It's not thick enough to hold it's shape and therefore cannot transfer heat effectively. K5 Pro is especially made to hold its shape, and it's the only "paste" I know of that can replace thermal pads. You could use thermal pads, but you would need to know the gap distance. I cannot easily measure that, which is why I use and recommend K5 Pro.
With that said, you have baked your video card 3 times. In my experience, 2 bakes worked just fine, but additional bakes did not. I got 2 years and 9 months of daily use from my 2nd bake, so I can say from experience that it lasts. But again, subsequent bakes didn't work for me, which indicates you can only bake the video card a certain number of times. I need to mention this to you because if you try a 4th bake even with K5 Pro, I honestly don't know if your video card will work, due to the number of bakes you've done already.
I highly doubt the 6970M you bought is "new" but mine wasn't new and it continues to work fine, so long as I keep it cool. To do that, I had to REPASTE (I used Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut on the GPU chip and then K5 Pro on all the memory chips), and I had to increase fan speeds inside the iMac, and I now keep the A/C turned on in warmer months. This seems to prevent the sudden shutdown problem well enough. So long as the card you get is a good, working card, if you follow my video about repasting and fan speed, you should be fine. But the card will suddenly power off the iMac if it gets too hot though. That's why using higher fan speeds via a fan app is required when using a 6970 in a late 2009 iMac 27" like mine. It probably won't do that in a 2011 iMac because the 2011 model originally came with that card.
I hope this helps!
Thank you for your answer. Looks like I won’t have the choice but to repaste my 6970m card. It’s the last time I’m putting money on this computer. Next will be a PC. Thanks again
Have you tried removing the optical drive? It’s design is not optimal and is in the way of the air flow. Maybe that’s why Apple removed them in later models.
Thank you for the suggestion. The answer is "No" because I still use the optical drive. Several other people have made the suggestion before, but there is no evidence the removal makes the internal ambient temperature significantly cooler. But I am still using the same iMac with 6970M graphics card. It works perfectly the vast majority of the time.
Hey Jim, I've done the GPU bake twice on my machine, and it is running again. I have a 1TB SSD installed, and also have a fan control app. What temperature would you recommend the inside of the machine to be running at to avoid temp issues? Right now it is pretty constant at 120-140F. Thanks!
Thank you for the information. Are you saying the "ambient internal temperature" reaches 140°F or are you saying the video card's GPU temperature reaches 140°F? In my experience, the GPU temperature does vary across that temperature range, depending on the app being used, regardless of the thermal paste applied. But just to confirm, what paste did you apply to the graphics card memory chips? And what paste did you apply to the graphics card GPU? Also, because you have a fan app installed, what speed are you keeping all 3 internal fans? Lastly, what is the ambient temperature of your room?
@@JDW- not sure about all the temp questions. I have the SSD Fan Control app which is set to smart, and reads that my Hard Disk temp is staying in that temperature range, fan about 3000rpm. The same is the case for the "Optical Disk" temp, fan about 1600ropm. I have a different app which also controls my CPU fan speed, but is a little bit counterintuitive so I dont use as much. The temp in the room is about 80F. I used K5-PRO thermal pad replacement paste on the chips, and the Arctic MX-4 on the chip itself, which is a Radeon 6970m 1gb chip.
@@redcomet21 It all sounds fine to me. On my late 2009 27" iMac, I have the fans set to 2000rpm, and the ambient room temperature even in summer is not too hot because I keep the A/C switched on. I have Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut on the GPU and K5 Pro on the memory chips. The card in my iMac varies in accordance with the temperature range you specified. All said, your machine is looking fine to me!
@@JDW- good to know, thank you!
btw, those 4 components by the memory are NOT diodes, they are 0.47uF bulk Capacitors, no thermal paste required on them.
Wow. That was an embarrassing find! :-) But I certainly appreciate your keen observation. You are 100% correct about them being SMD caps and the fact no paste is needed on them. Of course, the 3 black WURTH coils will get hot and therefore could use pasting, as do the silver square coils.
The good news about over-pasting parts in that area is, it doesn't matter. The fact those caps didn't need paste was a stupid oversight on my part, but cooling them with the heatsink won't hurt anything. The same is true for the small SMD chips at the edge of the card behind the caps and coils. I don't think those little chips need paste, but my having added the paste will cool them.
Anyway, thank you for point out my error. I appreciate it!
macOS is not lacking in the system log department, so why guess when you can ask?
log show --predicate 'eventMessage contains "Previous shutdown cause"'
Thank you for that Terminal command. I will have to try that sometime. In the meantime, for the sake of others reading our discussion, here are the Shutdown Cause Codes: georgegarside.com/blog/macos/shutdown-causes/
Hi new viewer and late 2009 iMac 27" owner from new.I only used it for about 3 years and in that time I changed the hard drive but then the graphic card issue happened. Since then I have been using my late 2012 15" macbook pro from new and it's still going strong today. I put in a 1GB SSD yesterday and just waiting for another 8gb ram to turn up. Wow and amazing machine now even without the extra ram, quiet, fast and way cooler. Two different apple products one useless and the other a powerhorse pumping out 100's of videos for youtube. Anyway I'm excited so thought I would have a go at my iMac but struggling to find any graphic card for it and only see the 2nd hand stuff on ebay and amazon. Pricey and 2nd hand, was wondering if there is any alternative in 2022. Was maybe going to source one and get someone to do it for me ( like a repair guy) Thanks and i'm enjoying your vids on it!
Thank you for sharing your experience, and I must say you have a great RUclips channel!
It seems you are considering either a change to a new graphics card or possibly paying someone to repair your existing card. You can buy something like an NVIDIA K2100M, but you would need a Windows machine to flash it, otherwise it won't work. And if you're an all-Mac household like I am, using Windows is beyond troublesome.
Of course, you could pay a repair guy to "reball" the GPU chip (since repair shops don't do the oven bake method that I use), and that would work because it requires heating the GPU to desolder it, and then it gets heated again when they resolder it. But honestly, the smallest cash outlay would be if you spend a Saturday following my 2nd Bake video and do a DIY fix. Since your graphics card hasn't been baked before, it likely would work for you, and give you another few years of life out of the card, at which time you could consider buying an alternative graphics card.
Here's a playlist of all my bake videos:
ruclips.net/p/PLNZ4qjMn-GHoez6_PtpyJfcU_ialTS8bB
Again, I would recommend you watch my 2nd Bake video, and please also watch the last video, which is the FAQ. That should bring you up to speed on what you need to do. Please let me know how it goes!
@@JDW- Thank you, I appreciate your comment and suggestions. I watched your other videos before this one, very informative.
Hi I'm planning on getting one of these cards for blender, did you get it to work reliably?
I have my iMac’s 3 internal fans all set to 2000 RPM. That in combination with room air-conditioning has made the card very reliable over the past several months, and I have not had a single sudden power off problem occur during that time. But if you were to allow your card to heat up too much, chances are you would have the same problem of your iMac suddenly powering off. Also note that I used new thermal paste on my card too, which is very important to ensure cooler operation.
@@JDW- Cool! I always keep my fans a little high and monitor the temps! Have you tried a fresh install of High Sierra? I heard some say at Ifixit that it doesnt finish installing with this cards. Am curious about that, don't think it makes sense. Thank you for your really helpful input! I love this imacs. :D
@@camcappe353 I define "fresh/clean install" as: "format hard disk and then install High Sierra." I did not do that. I have reinstalled the High Sierra on top of itself without problems though. Remember that I have a 2009 27" i7 iMac, so other year models of iMacs may behave differently than mine. I suspect 2011 iMacs will work without any sudden shutdown problems since the 6970M originally shipped in that iMac. But that's pure speculation on my part. So far, not a single person has commented under any of my videos saying they get a sudden shutdown with their 6970M. But maybe that's due to the fact very few people use the 6970M in their 2009 iMac? One person did suggest that the card I received from Hong Kong is in fact a card that shipped with a Windows machine and was flashed to work on Macs. The seller denies that, of course.
@@JDW- ok cool cool Ill get a used one from ebay in december :D will let you inow how it goes!
@@camcappe353 One more thing. The people who have told me my 6970M card is a Windows version card said they based that on the fact there are little red things at each of the 4 corners of the GPU chip. They claim the Mac version does not have those red things. So perhaps that is something to keep an eye on.
I am waiting for the heatpaste to arrive and put the thing together. I'll post some photos for you to browse.
Holy Hell, Dude. You're a saint *to begin with* but big ups for putting up with Autismo Willy down there. "ThERe iS nO GoD! STOP LIEING TO YOUR CHILDREN!" *loooooooool*
The truly sad part about RUclips is that I can only HEART your amazingly kind comment once! 😄 Thank you truly for making time to share your thoughts. Best wishes!
Try with 5870, maybe compatible? What your opinion? (Sorry for my break English)
Sorry for my delayed reply. I didn't see your comment until today. I made a video after the video you watched: ruclips.net/video/hldcyJ_qUD4/видео.htmlsi=RSRsN7Hje8NkXkMI
Basically, I am still using the 6970M even today. All problems have been resolved and there is no need for me to seek out another card. Also, this machine is now so old that if I really did need more speed, it makes logical sense to get an Apple Silicon Mac instead, as a replacement.
Great video, thanks I always learn a lot. Rebake cards work for a while, for me it has but am looking for a new card for my imac just to be safe.
The bake is the lowest cost solution to the problem, which is why I suggest everyone should try it when starting out. Replacement cards like a 4850 (stock cards) are more expensive and have about the same life as the card that originally came with the Mac. My Apple replacement card lasted 3 years, just like the stock card did. Another option is to use a card that didn't come with the Mac originally, which is what I did with the 6970M. I didn't have to deal with flashing. It came with the heatsink and just works -- the high temperature shutdown problem notwithstanding. The next alternative is to use PC cards that require flashing, but that isn't for most people, and I honestly don't know if there would be heat or longevity issues with those. I have heard some OS incompatibility reports though, which is why I personally have not tried one of those yet. For now, my 6970M is working well enough, so I am satisfied with it. I just keep the fans a bit higher than normal and the A/C on to keep it cool. No shutdown issues under those conditions.
@@JDW- cool Id love a 6970 but not sure mu core 2 duo at the moment is.compatible...
@@camcappe353 You can always be sure the stock card will work, and you can find that on Amazon here (for a 24" iMac): amzn.to/2DOjmpi
As to using other video cards in your iMac, you may find the following discussion useful: www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/8117/Can+I+upgrade+the+graphics+card+on+my+iMac
@@JDW- Thanks! think I will swap my core 2 duo with an i7 imac 2009 board and eventually later this year go for a better video card perhaps a 2 gb model.
If you only plan the iMac 2009 for light use, why spend money on HD 6970m 2GB? The small HD5670m from iMac 2010 will work beautifully and cool enough. I sold mine for only 45$, after successfully installing a WX4150 4GB to my iMac 2010.
Why? Because at the time I purchased my 6870M, I couldn't find one on EBAY for a reasonable price. I could only find the 6870M. And because I knew the 6870M would work, and because I knew it would be faster than the 5670M too, I did not have a big resistance to buying the 6970M. That 6970M is still going strong even today. My iMac is used by our family daily too. With that said, if someone can find a cheap $45 card from a 2010 27" iMac, then of course it will work fine in the late 2009 27" iMac too.
Hello! is this Hd 6970m from imac 2010 compatible for imac 2009 27" i7???
Does it work without problems??
Apparently an Nvidia K1100M works very well with this iMac and is pretty affordable too! I’ve been thinking about getting one and upgrading. Also adds Metal support so that’s cool.
If you would please provide a link to the information you have that detail a 1100M working in a late 2009 27" iMac, I will of course read that. But what I can say for now is that people trying these Nvidia cards in iMacs are finding a number of caveats, in addition to the fact the procedure is no simple task. Here's one such example: ruclips.net/video/sgfljXSgdj4/видео.html
@@JDW- So I haven't done the upgrade myself (yet) because the baked card is still working for me. I've been wondering about upgrading to just get better graphic performance and Metal support. However I've been reading a lot about these upgrades. forums.macrumors.com/threads/2011-imac-graphics-card-upgrade.1596614/
This is like more of a general upgrade guide. The K1100M n K2100M offer you basically full compatiblity. However you do have to flash them. Which doesn't seem to be the most difficult thing to do but you do need to buy this chip reader to flash the card. And the heatsink requires minimal modification bc the card looks slightly different. Coming from a Dell/Alienware device the card should work out of the box but to get back boot screen/brightness controlls you do need to flash it. I haven't yet found a tutorial doing this exact upgrade but if I do find a good deal on the card I will for sure attempt the upgrade myself. Normally (in my country) you can get K1100M for about $50-100 and the Mac 4850 is $500. So even losing the bootscreen would be worth saving up to $450. If you would be able to try attempting an upgrade like this and sharing with us it would be awesome! Wish there was an easy comprehensive step by step guide for this but all the information seems to be scattered across different forums and videos.
@@olafb6445 If I was in a better financial position, I would certainly be open to buying such a card for testing purposes, but that's unfortunately not the case for me right now. But such an experiment really would be for only the geeks. Most folks find it challenging enough just to do the bake. Flashing a video card in the proper manner is really outside the abilities or desire of the average iMac owner. But I agree with you that it would be a great thing to try nonetheless. I can only hope the virus mayhem ends soon and people start buying products from my employer again soon. Indeed, I hope I even still have a day job in the coming months. It would be great if I was a full time RUclipsr making most of my living off RUclips, but I need a stronger subscriber base, more views and well, I need to kick out better content, for that to happen. I'm doing the best I can in spite of the odds right now. Thanks again for your support and helpful information!
JDW you started out with baking cards maybe now you should bake cakes? 😆😆 I hope you’ll get back on your feet soon! I do agree that it’s not an upgrade for most people I do wish the flash was easier. But for people who like tinkering it’s an interesting project. Definitely not for the mainstream audience. If I attempt to do it I will be sure to report how it went!
I had same issue with my 2019 imac 27 4850 Video card, and baking it is only a short term solution so i ended up replacing it with ATI Radeon HD 5750 1024 MB. Been using it for many years now, leaving it at night for video rendering,, been using for 2K youtube videos and FCPX 2K video editing with no issues what so ever!
Since the making of my video, I've been using the 6970M daily in my 2009 iMac. It has only experienced one sudden power off, and that was when my son maxed out all the graphics settings on his Roblox game and played it for more than a half hour that way. Even at 2000rpm minimum fan speeds, the temperatures rose too much and triggered the shutdown. It is getting warmer here in Japan, and at the time the A/C was turned off and so was the floor fan. That's really the main issue with the 6970M in a 2009 iMac. It runs too hot unless you are careful with it. But for word processing, email, and minimal RUclips watching, it's not a problem. Glad to hear your 5750 has been working well for so long. That's great!
@@JDW- is it worth upgrading to ssd, is there a huge difference on performance/speed?
@@DS-sh2sr Huge benefits to adding an SSD -- more than any other upgrade by far! Just remember to get the correct OWC kit for your iMac. The 2009 model requires a thermal sensor, in addition to a special mounting bracket and of course the SSD itself. I just now added links to all that in the text description under my video, so please check that for details.
@@JDW- thank you will check the link.. Any comment on SSD life span..my hdd lasted over 10 years before i replaced it with 2TB..now considering in upgrading it to SSD or replacimg the ODD with SSD and make it the main bootup drive.
@@DS-sh2sr I purchased a Samsung EVO 850 in 2015. It's been 5 years and it's still going strong. The key point here is that I don't use my iMac as a server that continuously writes data to the drive. The only use case where you really need to worry is in a server environment, especially when buying the cheaper SSDs. But normal users like you and I don't have much to worry about. You can read this article if you want a more technical explanation: www.compuram.de/blog/en/the-life-span-of-a-ssd-how-long-does-it-last-and-what-can-be-done-to-take-care/
Hello! I’m in japan as well like you. I’m going to update my 2011 graphic card because is gone. Was thinking to give it a try baking it while waiting for the replacement i have found.
Be sure to clean off all of the old thermal paste with ISO alcohol before you bake the video card. You can buy 100% ISO alcohol on Amazon Japan. That’s where I buy mine. You can also buy K4 & K5 Pro thermal pastes on Amazon Japan too. Your oven is probably like mine in that it is a combined oven and microwave. Just make sure you use the oven setting, not the microwave setting! Preheat your oven before you put in the card. And make sure you put four little aluminum foil standoffs on the bottom so the card is raised up a bit and heat can flow under it.
Lastly, make sure you use 200°C and make sure your oven is working correctly, because some people have reported components falling off only because their oven was defective and producing much higher heat than 200° C. That’s probably not an issue with quality Japanese ovens, but I should mention it anyway. Let the card cool, then apply K4 Pro to the GPU and K5 Pro to the memory chips, reassemble, and you should be good to go.
JDW thank you so much
Unfortunately baking it the grey cubes ubsoldered and move from their position :(
So the gpu is broken now :(
I’m very sorry to hear that. But as I mentioned in my earlier comment, the only way components would be desoldered is if your oven was producing more than 200°C. Did you check the actual temperature inside your oven before you bake your card? (You would need a heat safe thermometer like a turkey thermometer in order to do that.) It’s not possible that those gray cubes would have been desoldered if the temperature was only 200°C.
I read and reply to every comment. There are hundreds of comments under my videos and so far you are the fourth person who has reported this problem. Until now, in every case, the problem has been the oven was much hotter than the actual temperature setting.
Normally, Japanese ovens are a very high-quality and the temperature should be quite accurate. Did you mistakenly use a toaster oven instead of a normal convection oven? That’s the only thing I could imagine you possibly did. Or maybe you did not fully understand the Japanese text written on your oven and chose an incorrect setting?
JDW I’ve a denshirenji that has oven features and set it to 200. I’ve soldered everything back but have no idea if it is good to give it a try or not :( but no other gpu available unfortunately
So fucking smart you are. Solder is not cracking. It is a tiredness within the chip when exposed to too much heat. Baking it resets, but it is still tired and bent.
Indeed. "Tiredness within the chip" is one way to put it, I guess. Some people contend it is the solder balls under the chip which is the problem, but my research on the root cause shows otherwise. It is indeed a flaw inherent to the GPU chip, rather than the solder balls. And if someone temporarily fixed the problem via reballing, it is actually the heating of the chip which provides the temporary fix. Sadly, despite the fact the bake works well, it isn't a permanent fix due to the GPU chip flaw. But then again, neither is buying a brand new version of the same GPU card. I know that because I had Apple change mine only to have it die about 3 years later.
@@JDW- i met the qestion god ten years ago. i have been living in pain beyond. you might say i denyed god and his glory, but he wasnt the man to present. wish the best for you and yours!
mine is the golden child. I7 3,4 2md ram card. great computer.
Why is there a god my friend?I find no energy in life.
@@willkra The topic of God, the Bible, and religion in general is beyond the scope of the comments under a graphics card bake video, but I will say that it takes as much "faith" to be an atheist as it does to believe in any of the accepted religions in this world. The theory that the big bang began as a singularity still raises the question about how that singularity came to be or what otherwise established the origins of our universe.
From a purely secular standpoint, Steve Jobs once said that the Journey is the Reward. Life is largely what we make (or don't make) of it. CHOICE is powerful. I would encourage you to not be discouraged and press forward toward making your own great dent in the universe! That's easier said than done, I know. But where there's a will, there's always a way.
Wow... what an adventure. So my early 2009 iMac has been sitting in the box for 5 years, after suffering from the
"...suffering from a bad video card" -- I think you meant to say. Yes, the bake does work although not forever. I recommend watching my 1st and 2nd bake so you can decide which method is best for you, then get the require pastes, set a Saturday aside and give it a go!
@@JDW- Strange... the rest of my post is missing!!! Basically I was saying THANK YOU for the inspiration to attack this again. I replaced my early 2009 iMac with a 2014 iMac 27 5k and re-pasted the Nvidia GeForce GT 130, but it only lasted a little longer as my daughter only used it for the basics. Finally broke down and got her a 2015 MacBook Pro. Anyway, I have baked logic boards previously, so I may revisit the 2009 iMac. I had considered cutting open the back and installing a fan to exhaust the heat around the video card, but couldn't bring myself to compromising the aesthetics of the iMac. I was considering getting the 4850, but it may be a waste of money... technically I don't need the old iMac, but I still want to fix it...
@@RIP662 I would not advise you to cut holes in your beloved Mac -- not even a broken one. The bake will probably work on your 4850, especially if you get the two thermal pastes I recommend. It will eat up a whole Saturday of your time, but I think it's worth getting more than 2 years of life out of the iMac. Also, since you mentioned the 2015 MBP, which is the same Apple notebook I won, you might want to watch my video on that here: ruclips.net/video/Om1c-FCc5u0/видео.html
your card has red bonding in corners of AMD chip. It means its Dell Alienware card with changed iMac EFI :)
Thanks. There has been one other person who pointed that out. I was unaware of that when I purchased the card, but I did ask the seller in Hong Kong, and he assured me that it was a stock card that had not been modified in any way. Clearly he lied to me. I also asked if the card had been baked before, and he assured me it wasn’t, but he could’ve lied to me about that as well. I just don’t know.
The card is working although it does have a sudden power off problem when the card gets too hot. The entire iMac suddenly powers off. Over the past few months I have been able to keep it sufficiently cool so I have not seen that problem reoccur. Therefore I cannot say if that particular shutdown problem is the result of my using a 6970M in my older 2009 iMac, or if it is because the card itself was originally intended for a Windows PC and flashed to work in a Mac. But for now I’m continuing to use the card happily because I’m able to keep it cool and avoid that particular problem.
they are pretty identical other than that EFI. Probably Dell supply is much more available so it's nothing "bad". Just sayin ;)
@@MichalBerusRepair Of course we are just speculating here, but I believe you are correct about the HARDWARE being identical between Appe's 6970M and the DELL version. However, we cannot say if the flashed firmware on my DELL card is 100% the same as the Apple firmware. Indeed, we know the 6970M doesn't suddenly kill power to the 2011 iMac (the iMac in which the 6970M was a stock video card), and I do know first-hand it triggers a shutdown in my late 2009 iMac. But the question is, does Apple's stock card with the stock firmware do this in the 2009 iMac, or is it caused by someone having flashed 3rd party firmware into this DELL version card? One can argue it works 99.9% of the time, but that 0.1% is the shutdown problem I am curious about. The only way to know for sure is for me to have a stock Apple 6970M with the stock Apple firmware and then test it in this late 2009 27" iMac.
Apple should allow using different video cards other than the AMD Radeon ones. The reason I say this is because the AMD Radeon, cards have a rather odd defect causing them to fail from 2009 all the way to 2012 models. I’ve seen other videos where people have swapped out the AMD card for Nividia’s comparable card, to some degree of success. You lose some features like fan speed and what not.
Nvidia card caveats are shown here: ruclips.net/video/sgfljXSgdj4/видео.html
MAY 30, 2020: I've not had the sudden power-off problem in the last 3 weeks, probably because I keep the fans running at 2000rpm. Even with my son playing Roblox non-stop for almost 2 hours today, with the ambient room temperature 25°C, the GPU heated to about 70°C (which is too hot for me to touch in the back side upper right corner), but no shutdown. I will update this info as we enter summer and the room temperatures increase.
MAY 8, 2020: Screencast showing you 6970M owners how to test the GPU Heatsink temperature: ruclips.net/video/DosaK_wrKyc/видео.html
I have been a mess the last ten years. i have begged on what is left of me. no help from above.
I like your wiev. keep the cost dowm, cause there is someone profiting. neverteless. THERE IS NO GOD.
I so wish to see a god, but I cannot. I am so open.
i can give the answere. heating up the chip makes order. there are millions of trails in a chip, and they get tired. as you framed. chip is done!
Its been 10 plus years power supplies can fail. When its drawing more power.
True, especially on power supplies that have not been recapped. But when I keep the card cool enough, there is no issue at all. That lends strong evidence of a thermal issue rather than a power issue.
Just a short note on the GPU card slot. At ruclips.net/video/n2a8oEI2y6U/видео.html you mention the K5 Pro needing to be wiped as it overspilled when the heat sink was applied. The same happened on my end but I wanted to add a small point, maybe some advice. The contacts on the GPU Card obviously fit into a slot. In my iMac's case, the slot for the GPU was dirty enough to see with the naked eye. Obviously I cleaned them up.
Thanks for the slot-cleaning suggestion, Alex!
Sad that your gfx card still has thermal issues.
Thanks for being so honestly sharing, I can’t stand showboating RUclipsrs !
I recently bought an iMac with supposedly « dead gfx card » (2008, 20i. Same as the two I already own), for 50€. The seller showed me how the Mac would not complete a boot, if not in safe mode.
Since the power supply, screen, ram (4Gb) and hdd (1Tb + 500Gb spare) were all working good, I bought the thing as spare parts, in case my « main » iMac (the one that runs Thunderbird, and is streaming my webradio) started to show its age.
I didn’t try to bake the gfx card yet, because of covid19, I have no longer access to this computer, as I’m confined at my parents place.
I should try baking it.
Even if:
1. the gfx card is ATI 2600pro
2. the idea I had in mind when I bought this computer still seem the best recycling opportunity in my eyes.
I intended to turn this iMac into a headless Linux webserver (at best it would have to display plain text terminal during install process, I’ve been using SME for over a decade on older machines, I like it a lot), and a secondary display screen.
Before Covid19, I had removed the optical drive (not sure it was working anyway), making room for a LVDS board to control the otherwise fine lcd panel (adding vga, dvi and hdmi inputs to it).
I will buy such LVDS controller board as soon as covid situation will end.
Maybe I’ll try to make a video of this « split recycling », even if working and filming when on my own isn’t the easiest thing :-)
This comment was intended to tell you not to trash your 27i Mac, even when it’s gfx card will no longer work: its screen and case would make a wonderful secondary display (or main, should you plug some TV box into), using the bespoke LVDS board for its lcd panel.
In fact, I am looking for 27i « dead » iMacs near my place (Toulouse, France) for such use :-)
Once again : thanks for keeping your videos so simply honest, it’s way better this way, imo.
Best wishes for your repasting to last as long as possible.
Last but not least, I am using the free version of Macs Fan Control, it allows individual control over every iMac fans, allowing to near fine tuning noise / cooling compromise.
Thank you for your detailed comment, Manuel! You got a great deal! I Googled a photo of the 2600 video card and confirmed there are no electrolytic capacitors on it, which means you can safely bake it for 10 minutes at 200°C, as my bake videos describe. You will need a good thermal paste for the GPU, and then a different thermal paste for the memory chips. I recommend K4 & K5 Pro since they come bundled in a set. K5 Pro is what you use on the memory chips only, so be sure not to make a mistake about that. It is not meant for use on GPUs or CPUs. I'd love to hear your experience once you've done that.
@@JDW- You will, no matter how it might end :-)
Could be power supply
If it was, the problem wouldn't go away when the card is cool. But now that I have the fans running faster in a cool room, there is no lockup issue at all. Therefore, the suddenly shutdown problem appears to be thermal related rather than PSU related.
Curtis Gross has a RUclips channel with some options you may like. I’m so excited because I’ve been waiting more than 3 years to see this happen so I’m telling everyone who will listen! Hahaha
Thanks. I am aware of Curtis' videos, this one in particular: ruclips.net/video/lb-Gg2JY3ug/видео.html
I should mention the caveats though.
As I've said many times, using an Nvidia card will require you to flash the card, and to do that you need a Windows machine (realistically). I do not own even a single Windows PC, nor do I have bootcamp installed on any of my Macs. There are many Mac users out there like that. So if you cannot flash the Nvidia card, it won't work.
Next, as you can see in Curtis' own video, there are sleep/wake issues that can hit you, depending on the CPU you upgrade to.
Next, some people in the comments under his video are asking about 2009 and 2010 models, and in one case of a 2010 model, the person commenting said he got a black screen and Curtis could only say he doesn't have a 2010 model. That isn't a slight against Curtis, but it is a warning that particular video really applies to the 2011 iMac, and not necessarily older iMac models like mine (2009).
Lastly, I see Curtis is using Arctic Silver V on the GPU chip in that video. I used that same paste on the GPU after my 1st bake, but I think it is a mistake now. I used a different paste after subsequent bakes. Why? Because Arctic Silver V paste is capacitive, and there will be some overspill that will touch the surrounding SMD components, potentially causing problems. I therefore recommend either K4 Pro or Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut for the GPU because they are not electrically conductive nor are they capacitive.
Curtis made no mention in his video of pasting the memory chips, but that is just as important, and I recommend K5 Pro for those chips, since using thermal pads is troublesome to get fitted right.
None of my remarks in any way whatsoever are criticizing Curtis' excellent videos. I am just pointing out the pitfalls you need to be aware of, in addition to giving you my own advice about thermal paste. Good luck!
@@JDW- Please excuse me but I’m only offering to help.
It is not necessary to use Windows, there are clear explanations of an alternative method and I do believe the 2010 model will also accept this upgrade.
I’ll not comment on your other observations.
Thank you
I fully realize that and I thank you again for your kind and thoughtful recommendations. My comments were only to help others understand that replacing the CPU or going with an Nvidia graphics card will require more planning and effort than baking their stock video card. It was not my intention to undermine what you wrote. I simply provided supplemental information. Thanks again.
@@JDW- in the case someone here doesn’t understand, ‘baking’ a gpu does not repair a defective card. All of these cards are defective and there are no second generation models. All cards will eventually fail and will not be resurrected with a simple ‘bake’ job.
Thank you
@@nelsondog100 The only thing I don't understand is why people argue against it. You can put your dead card in the oven, or you can put your dead card in the trash, or you can put your dead card in the oven and then in the trash if it doesn't work. Unless you ruin your oven or burn your house down, costs are the same. What's the problem? Resurrection doesn't require immortality.
I am here because my son broke our iMac by playing Roblox too much too... (and thank you for your detailed videos and followups)
Many people who don't even play games have found themselves in your situation because the graphics cards used in these old iMacs are based on a faulty design. The bake isn't a permanent fix for that fault, but it most often works long enough to have made the time and effort worthwhile. Note that I only resorted to buying the 6970M after my 3rd and 4th bakes failed, and then I had no choice but to swap the card. You can swap your graphics card without ever doing the bake, but the bake is the cheapest solution to the problem, and it doesn't hurt anything to try it.
maybe its old but i got similar problems! First of all sorry for my bad english. So i just got a cheap Mid 2011 with core i7 and 6970m 2GB. (iam apple collector) so i do standard procedure, cleaning all heatsinks repaste etc. Then i install Open Legacy to use modern Mac OS so far this mac work fine. But if i install Post Patch and reboot Stuck on Apple logo and its Shutdown and restart every time! I thought man GPU broken etc? or even the PSU? or Logicboard? i Also switch the Logicboard from antother 27 imac 2011 same modell with an i5 same problem. After test and tests i found out when i unplug the GPU Heat sensor the imac starts :D not everytime but 80% it starts. Ofc i use an SSD and the DVD drive is not in for better airflow. I run Heaving benchmark it runs but the FPS is 5? thats not normal i guess need other drivers?
To be honest, I really don't know. You see, I still use MacOS High Sierra on my late 2009 27" iMac and am satisfied with that. I have a late 2015 27" 5K iMac at the office and used High Sierra on it too until last year when I "upgraded" to Mojave, but I really dislike Mojave compared to High Sierra. So many things broke, including the reading of 256GB SD cards, which works fine under High Sierra! Maybe upgrading to Monterey would fix that, but doing so would break other apps that are still 32-bit. All said, upgrading MacOS these days isn't what it used to be many years ago, when pretty much any OS upgrade back then was worth having. Now, you really have to be careful about upgrading the OS on an older Mac. The newest MacOS tends to work best on the newest Macs.
@@JDW- thank you for the response,
ye i know that so newer an OS is, and so better it runs if u use the correct maschine (or better on native maschines.) On my M1 Macbook ofc it runs! but on the new maschines its nearly impossible to reprair or even upgrade, thats why i like my old maschines. I have many Mac Pro Towers, Macbook Pros, imacs. Over 40 beauties! - thats why i collect these, codename: Upgrade :) in my world i like old Maschines to upgrade what is possible and run with modern OS. The maschines are so Powerful that u can still work with these in 2023 and we Talk about Maschines 2009-2012 with no problems! Also Office, Surfing, Old games etc. For This imac from mid 2011 is still under El capitan in "heaving benchmark" 5-FPS he dosent recognize the GPU in the Software itself. You see GPu-Chip and then Temp. Normally u i'll see 6970m or 6900 Series AMD ones. But under System information i see 6970 2GB? i think the problem is the GPU is booted under "safemode"? because i didn't hookup the Temp sensor from the Heatsinks GPU. But now its funny :D under MacFan software, i can see GPU Temps thats strange. And if i plug the sensor on The imac he will shutdown after 60% Apple logo "LoadingBar" I tested some Hours ON/OFF he start every time now if i boot Ventura - El Capitan or Monterey no diff he work, but Problem is that the GPU not work 100%. Under This benchmark i must have over 30-40FPS on Low Settings. A desktop one 6970 have over 100FPS there! A mobile version is cutted thats why i think the GPU is on kinda safemode.
@@pixl2363 If everything is very slow, then you know you are booted into SAFE MODE. All graphics acceleration is disabled in that mode.
4:22 You watch Fox News, I like you already
Actually, at the 4:22 time stamp, I am speaking about the text description under my videos.
Maybe its the cpu paste ... repaste it and chack
I did just that. 10:39
@@JDW- hi
I mean Central processing units (CPU) not the graphics processing units (GPU)
Maybe its a heat throttle of the cpu .
To repaste the cpu you need to take the motherboard off.
One more thing the i swap hdd to ssd to reduce the heat inside the imac and make more faster and i remove cdroom drive coz i dont need it anymore and to make air flows batter.
My regards
@@lava08 Thank you for the advice. When my iMac suddenly powers off, the CPU temperature is not hot compared to the GPU, which is why I don't not see evidence to conclude the problem is the CPU. Also, when running CPU intensive tests that are not GPU intensive, my iMac runs fine, giving further evidence it is not the CPU. With that said, it is always wise to repaste chips that have not already been repasted, so I think your advice is sound even if it would not necessary resolve the problem I am having with my 6970M.
Just buy an nvidia quadro k610m or k1100m or k2100m, for about 50$ . You will only loose boot menu but this can be remedied by flashing the vbios and using opencore for brightness control. Check macrumors for more details
Actually, I have investigated those cards. Flashing requires a PC and the required process isn't for everyone. The bake is still cheaper and perhaps easier overall, which is why I recommend people start with that. My 6970M is still in daily use and is working fine now because I keep the iMac's fans running high enough, and using room A/C the temperature is cool enough to where the sudden shutdown problem is avoided. I don't have any issues with the boot screen or brightness control -- it works like my stock 4850 card did. Should this 6970M fail in the future and should I be unable to bake it back to life, assuming I am still interested in using this 2009 iMac at that time, I will possibly consider those other cards and make a video about flashing. For now though, I'm sticking with the 6970M.
Its not the power supply. It will be something else.
It's heat and/or firmware. I know for a fact heat triggers it. For the last several months I've kept the card cool enough with all 3 internal iMac fans set to 2000rpm (and room A/C when needed) to keep the GPU temperature below 70°C. When the GPU gets into the 70's though, it can trigger a sudden power-off of the entire iMac, and that is true even after my repaste. One commenter suggested my card is actually a PC edition because he said the little red things around the GPU chip show that. If true, it means the seller on EBAY deceived me and actually flashed a PC card. And if that is true, then it could be the firmware is a close match to Apple's firmware but not exactly the same. Or maybe the firmware is the same and it's just that the 6870M doesn't play well in older iMacs like the 2009 model. (The 6970M came with the 2011 model.) But again, I've been able to keep the card cool enough over the last several months to avoid a shutdown, so I am content to keep using it for now.
@@JDW- Mine shuts down at below 70°C -- more like 66 to 65°C ! What's the solution?
@@jasonpk2267 You didn't mention if you tried repasting, and if you did, what paste did you use? I used Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut on the GPU and K5 Pro on the memory chips. If you repasted and used the same thermal paste on the memory chips as you did on the GPU, then that is the problem. You cannot do that. You must use either thermal pads or K5 Pro on the memory chips because there is a gap between those chips and the heatsink. I recommend K5 Pro because you don't need to measure the gap to use it.
@@JDW- I didn't repaste it -- it's stock. Since the temperature of failure is well within safe level at 65 celsius when the system shuts down, there doesn't appear any need to do so. I think it is a firmware issue.
@@jasonpk2267 All I can say is that my 6970M was causing my iMac to shut down at lower temperatures like yours until I repasted. It still can power-off the iMac if the temperature gets too high, but now that temperature is in the high 70's, not in the 60's. And with all 3 fans set to 2000rpm, assume the ambient room temperature is normal and not too hot, the card tends to stay in the 60's or below. But again, that is after my repaste.
Time to go with a GTX 780M which is probably the best compatible card. The Radeon HD 6xxx series tends to fail a lot unfortunately. ): forums.macrumors.com/threads/2011-imac-graphics-card-upgrade.1596614/ My 2011 iMac is running really well with the 780M even though it was a lot of trouble to get everything working
Thank you for the tip, but I think a lot of people will deeply ponder your closing remarks: "...it was a lot of trouble to get everything working." :-) By the way, if you run tests on your card like I did, specifically, running 1440p RUclips videos non-stop in Firefox or Chrome and watch the GPU heatsink temperature with something like iStat Menus, what is the highest temperatures you've seen? Again, I was able to hit 77°C at the base fan speed at the time my repasted 6970M suddenly triggered a power-down.
@@JDW- Normally the card hangs around 70 degrees. Did a quick test of a playing a youtube video at 1440p with fans at base speed and I could not get not get the temperature to rise. However when initially testing, I decided to run a beefy PS3 emulator called RPCS3 on a Windows 10 bootcamp partition and after running for about 20 minutes some part of the computer probably overheated although I was not checking temperatures. Interestingly that issue never happened again even after running the emulator for longer periods. I've monitored the temps and the card was reaching the mid 80's and never got hot enough to overheat. So far I could say the 780M was worth upgrading since I can use macOS Mojave. I did buy it second hand off of aliexpress and time will tell if this card could last. I was worried the old 6970M in the computer would fail on me in the near future so I decided on a gpu that would make this computer useful for about four more years
Make your fucking god come forward explaining things for us!
Sounds as if you have more issues with Him than you do with me. I'm sorry to hear that.
@@JDW- Admit, but i have a computer working, and neither god and jesus can interupt.
sorry for my language, I just am that way:-)
@@JDW- never baked this chip, but it is a heat problem with apple .
Try undervolting it even a little, I doubt Roblox would suffer much (and that seems to be its hardest task).
Thank you for the advice. While that Under-volting advice would work well for PCs, it is no easy task to under-volt the GPU on a Mac. I actually under-volt the CPU on my 2015 15" MacBook Pro using a program called Volta. But Volta only works on the CPU, and my calls for the developer to get it to work on the GPU have fallen on deaf ears. So, if you have a step-by-step list of instructions on how to safely under-volt a 6970M graphics card in an iMac, I will of course give that a try. But keep in mind that would need to be done while booted into MacOS, not Windows.
@@JDW- I see, I was also forgetting about the locked bios.
"PC liquid cooled" and Macs share the same thing which is called "Hardware", so what's with (Macs are not that way) ? 😂
PC guys know exactly how far temps can go but they keep them that low because they simply can, Mac users can't for sure because Macs are limited in so many ways.
btw, if your kid likes gaming why don't put your ego aside and buy a proper machine like Windows PC or Laptop?
The term “ego“ is tightly connected to “self importance.“ I am not a full-time RUclipsr. I am a parent, however. When parents make certain decisions for their children who are minors and who live in the same residence with the parents, it is not a matter of ego at all.
There are 3 facts which come into play here. The first is that I have been exclusively a Macintosh user since the 128K Mac in 1984. I have never owned a single Windows PC. As such, the sheer love for the Mac keeps me in that same pattern, and I am content.
Second, the fact that we are an all Mac household does not in any way offend my family.
Third, if we did have a Windows PC for the sake of gaming, my son would spend even more time on games that he does now, which is too much.
Therefore, the decision that our family has made is a prudent one regarding gaming and the Mac. I grew up playing a few games on the Mac and that satisfied me. My son is satisfied. That’s what’s important.
Lastly, Apple admittedly does have a problem when it comes to proper cooling. They tend to emphasize quietness in operation over cool operation, which is something I really don’t like. However, that’s not enough to make me switch over to the world of windows. :-)
@@JDW- Totally agree, and was talking about what I saw in this video, the casually gaming (what all kids lean toward) harmed the machine that is not meant to be for gaming, then ordering extra hardware and repairing them costs even more.
Sure you can stay with your Mac ecosystem, but those machines have their limitations, Apple itself is so encrypted environment which is the reason why Safari doesn't support 4K video playback in 2022.
There are many tech devices we need in our life which are not Apple related, TV's and multimedia in general, Printers, Playstation or XBox and many other, each machine serve's it's own purpose, from this point of view I suggested a Windows PC.
I know this video is a bit old but was surprised why didn't you use thermal pads on VRAM chips, or they come with only thermal paste from the manufacturer? btw, You did great job there on replacing the GPU.
@@robertwilliam5527 The K5 Pro which I used atop the memory chips in my video is a thermal pad replacement paste, which is better than thermal pads in this case because there's a fairly large gap between the heatsink and those chips that is difficult to measure. Also, if the PCB is even a little warped, the gap width will vary, making a thermal pad replacement paste all the more beneficial. That should not be used on the GPU, of course, but it works well for the memory chips.
@@JDW- Now I got it and makes sense, thanks for sharing.