Chosen Solution
Hi guys, This is my first ever post here! I have an early 2009 imac 2.93ghz with nvidia gt120 gfx card. I’d like to know if it’s possible to upgrade this card to a newer card and have my mac still work? I have read about possible EFI/driver issues and wondered if anyone has any experience of this or can provide me with some info on how to fix them if they occur. The nvidia gt120 & gt130 has an unaddressed issue that apple has never fixed that causes crashes, so I would like to replace this card, with a new card and it needs to be an upgrade as this card no longer works with anything after Snow Leopard 10.6.3 without crashing. Many thanks guys, hardtofin :)
Apple part #661-4990. Yes it can be swapped out. Here’s the guide: iMac Intel 24" EMC 2267 Graphics Card Replacement
iMac Graphic FW Update 3.0 is NOT for the generation of iMac that suffer this issue (early 2009 with GT120 o GT130 Video Cards) and this thing is very frustrating because Apple did NOT help all these users after all these years putting out a stupid right software update. That one you mention is useful for imac younger than the model we’re talking about. It’s Embarrassing thinking that these expensive iMac (they costed more than 2000 bucks) become dead stuff at the moment you upgrade from 10.6 to 10.6.3 and above… something in the new code breaks the “equilibrium” of this damned video card and your iMac that one hour before worked in excellent way now crashes anytime. Always kernel panic: ALWAYS
Is this only happening with the NVidia cards? Has anyone replaced the GT 120/130 with the ATI Radeon card to see if the problem can be subdued in any way?
