Changing the graphics card to an alternative

Sadly your options are limited ;-{

Your system uses a MXM based GPU card. So first you would need one that works in your give systems slot there are quite a few different versions so you need to use the correct Mobile PCI Express Module (MXM)

The next issue is the heatsink needs to fit some boards won’t work with Apples heat sink. Then the boards firmware needs to be re-burn’t with the proper Apple version or patched as you just can’t use any MXM board.

Then that leaves us with the last issue! The graphics driver. You are limited to what Apple offered within the OS. In some cases some boards will respond to the driver but will be running in compatibility mode so you won’t get the full ability of the board. So if you where hoping for something better you may not get what you expected.

So this is a lot to consider, and as you may know the GPU makers are not producing MXM boards any more, so your options are limited to what you can find used.

Many of these boards sold are questionable! As you have discovered running the system hard can cause the board to fail as Apple didn’t design this series for what apps we can run on it today.

Lets get into the way-back machine to 2008 which is about when this system was being designed. What type of apps did we have back then? Most games were still using the ASCII extended graphics elements as an example early versions of DOOM The most current version is too stressful for your system. To add to it Steve’s obsession of a quiet system also plays a part here as he didn’t want the roar of the fan at the high RPM to distract. So while the system could do more it was hampered by its cooling. To overcome this you need a good thermal monitoring and fan control app like TG Pro to help you keep an eye on your thermal load and to ramp up the fans. Even still over time your systems fan’s and heat sink fins get clogged up with dust and other junk reducing their effective cooling and then we still have the thermal paste and pads that overtime breakdown.

I think you need to start off with the basics cleaning and refreshing the thermal paste and pads and install TG Pro to push the fans a bit harder. Hopefully this buys you some time to save up your pennies to get a newer system which offers a bit more graphics performance.