Wireless 3G slot question

Can the slot for the 3G card be used for anything else? I have an SSD that looks like it fits that type of connection but I'm not sure.

Any ideas?

 

Without having seen one, I'll answer "probably."

Those slots are pretty standard, even in notebooks. Your m11x does expect a wireless device to be in that slot though so you will likely loose access to your memory card if you turn off wireless.

 

I'll install it now let you know how it goes

 

Sadly the spot to put it in isn't big enough for the SSD but it seemed to fit into the slot correctly, no idea if it would of worked or not. Might be possible to put a GPS receiver in here? Would be interesting...

 

Uhhhh...

As a general rule, I would recommend that you don't put anything in a notebook slot that wasn't specifically designed to go there. Just because it looks like it physically fits doesn't mean you should do it. Every "" computer hardware disaster you will find on the internet comes from people trying to fit a connector/part in a socket/slot that it doesn't belong in, because it looks like it physically fits.

Call me paranoid, but the novelty of having a GPS in my laptop doesn't even come close to the risk of damaging a $1000 machine.

 

Bummer, a low-end MiniPCIX SSD would have been a great thing for that slot. They're typically not great performance but they're wonderfully handy. I had one in my XPS 1730 for a while until it died (generic brand no warranty).

Thankfully, the novelty is worth it that chance for many of us, and thus things are learned and information disseminated.

I'd love to put either a GPS in that slot (I've never looked but I can't say I've ever seen one) or more likely I'll wire in the Rx for my VX Nano mouse. If it's a standard MiniPCIX slot it almost certainly using the USB interface anyway. Yes, it will take a little research and of course there is some risk involved.

 

Hmm I guess so, I don't usually do these things I'm unsure about, but it looks like it uses a mini PCI-E slot, which internal 3g modems hook into on other notebooks (like my acer I have) and various other things like GPS and the SSD I have.

But as you said it's not designed for that so maybe it's a no no, but maybe if someone investigated it further or knows about it? because I'd much rather GPS than a 3G modem

 

Since you were in there and obviously didn't order the Mobile Broadband option, can you tell me are the antenna wires in place or did they not include them?

A Mobile Broadband card with GPS ability on eBay is only about $60, I wonder if the GPS part would work without broadband activation...

 

This is interesting. I ordered without the 3G option so I am keen to know if antennas included or not and if anyone can get a GPS card or 3G / GPS card to work this way.

 

There was a thread here about the mini pcie slot when the m11x r1 just came out, but I can't find it anymore (I was very interested at that time also to put in an ssd).

The basic issues were:

1) all netbooks with an ssd in the mini pcie slot have those pins wired to a storage or usb controller in order to see and use it as a drive. A few people tested these ssd cards in the m11x but nothing worked.

2) the ssd would need to have an onboard storage controller (pata/sata) to work in a generic pcie slot, and those still seem to be very rare. At that time Samsung was announcing ssd's with a sata controller, but those were released as a test to a small group of system builders and not to end users..

So if anyone has some updated news on ssd's in an m11x I'd be very interested too.

 

Wired to USB is pretty common in my experience, it's part of the PCIe spec (which I kept calling pcix for some stupid reason earlier...)

That would enable a GPS/Wireless Mouse, or even a nice 32GB thumb drive to be wired in with a minimum of effort.

I'm really curious about the antenna wires though and if the mobile broadband GPS card will report a GPS fix without a service account. I'd love to get a GPS on this thing.

 

There were no antenna cables that I could see :\

 

If you did not order the unit with the GOBI option, there will be NO antenna included. Confirmed. The antenna for the GOBI has to be wired into the display lid of the m11x.

 

there are no aeriels unless you order wwan

you can install wwan card-un hook one of the wifi aerials and use it for mobile bb works well

 

But that means that you will not get N speeds anymore for your wifi, only G speeds....

 

That's sad. Oh well, not that big of a deal I suppose

 

So, there are no mini pci-e ssd card that will fit in the wwan slot that the M11x comes with that will work as an additional storage???

I do not want to make that mini pci-e slot into an ssd and boot from it and all the nine yards. What I want is to get a 64gb ssd storage option to put all my music and pictures and have a solid backup, internally in the laptop.

Just care about if it will work and if so which drive will work and if anybody has tried it would be awesome to hear from them.

Thanks.

 

VERY interested in this topic.
I'm also wondering if we could utilize that mini pci-e port and maybe plug a SSD in it

 

Well, there are some mini PCI SSDs out there. I am not in front of my computer now, so I can't check for you at the moment. I will later, when I get a chance.

And papote got it right... any SSD you put in there will not be fast. At best, you get USB. 2.0 speeds, which maxes out at about 30Mbps. If you are looking for speed in a miniPCI SSD, it isn't going to happen. Even a 5400rpm mechanical hard drive would be faster than that.

 

What about some other uses to the WWAN slot? Any other cool ideas?

 

There is quite an active community of asus eee netbook modder's out there
Its common to fit gps and other mpci-e devices
@ $400 each there is less financial risk that of a $1000 laptop
The link might give you a few idea's
Asus eeeuser forum



Alex

 

Exactly. There is a chance it could go faster but don't expect it. In essence what I want is a secure storage, that could be locked and password protected, or even disable when not in use and to just be there when something needs to be backed up. I know an SD card in the SD card slot is much simpler and even cheaper but what I want is something that cannot be removed and is conceiled.

Thanks for checking it out guys. Lets hope something good can come out of this discussion and that mini pcie slot can be put to good use because I can assume that something like 75% or more of our M11x have that empty slot there. Is just so lonely there., LOL.

 

Intel Turbo Boost card? Kinda useless if you have more than 2GB of RAM, but hey...

GPS is my next thought. Most 3G cards have a GPS unit in them, so get a cheap, older 3G card?

I think the last idea would be an USB 3.0 card, though you would need some sweet modding/wiring to get it to work (NEEDS an extension cable, since it cannot override the m11x's onboard USB2.0 controller, nor speed it up).

 

Yeah, like jeremyshaw said, if you have more than 2gb of ram the intel turbo boost card is essentially a waste of money.

The 3G card to have a GPS built in I kind of do not see the point, for my personal use, because I am not really going to be using my M11x like that. I rather just use my cellphone when I need a GPS unit with google maps or any other software app.

Again my fellow alien's, what I need is to figure out if buying a ssd mini pcie drive from the selection that newegg has such as mini pcie (sata) and/or mini pcie (pata) if it will work. Will it fit?, Will the pins lineup?, will the card fit in the space provided?, and will the bios/system recognize the card?, if so will the ssd card be recognize as an additional hard drive or as a removable storage, like a sd card. Don't really care to be honest. I just want to be able to find out and figure this out without having to spend $70 or so to buy a 16gb ssd mini pcie card from newegg.

Thanks a bunch guys, let's keep the brainstorming going. There has got to be a good use for this lonely mini pcie slot in our mothership (M11x).

 

Some mPCIe SSD rely on an off chip controller. I know Dell uses this solution on at least one of their laptops (I cannot recall which for the life of me).

Some mPCIe SSD have an onboard controller, so they may be used in any laptop.

I kinda wish there was an expresscard slot, but that would probably cut into the battery area, so maybe not...

I think the final question (that I have to ask) is:

can we use network teaming with dual WiFi? It would heavily compensate for the lack of a GigE port on the m11x.

EDIT: well, it looks like the Intel 6300 would be able to hold it's own against any storage solution... so scratch that last idea

 

seems kind of unproductive to only have one possible use for that mini pcie slot. only using it for a wwan card is no good since you can get one of those mifi from verizon, sprint, virgin mobile, and probably any other provider out there in usa. So, I sure hope that something else can be done with that slot.

 

nobody has any ideas how to make this work or any other uses for that mini pcie slot.

Only other thing I can think of is to plug a mini pcie tv tuner but is not that great cause you still need antennas for OTA reception and there aren't any to plug in. So a usb tv tuner still better in that sense.

Any other ideas guys/gals.

 

Well most will come with an antenna, I assume just route it under the KB or over the battery area?

Avermedia A306 Mini Pci-e TV FM Tuner Card DVB T Hybird - eBay (item 260627486860 end time Sep-27-10 01:19:19 PDT)

halfway down page.


It's also a FM tuner, but that's kinda useless. I cannot find PCIe Satelite radio tuners

 

Also (for us) useless Broadcom Chrystal HD thing that helps netbooks and other low powered stuff play HD content...

Newegg.com - Habey HB-VD904 Broadcom Crystal HD PCI express Mini Card AVC/VC-1/H.264 Enhanced Hardware Decoder/Accelerator - Server Accessories

 

jeremyshaw, I appreciate your efforts. Yeah, those were the only other two things that came to mind. The broadcom crystal HD chip is a total waste of money for our system as you stated.

Now I am wondering about the damn WWAN cards, I just saw on Alienware.com that there are two type of cards a GOBY for Verizon and a GOBY for ATT. As far as I know, at the moment the only current carrier in the usa that offers true unlimited 3g is virgin mobile. Virgin Mobile service is $40 and no contract is required, also it uses Sprint Network. Wondering if any of those cards would work with Virgin Mobile service?

 

it's about CDMA vs GPRS

Verizon and Sprint use CMDA

The rest of the world uses GPRS (maybe a few holdouts, but that's it).

 

yeah, virgin mobile uses cdma too as far as I know. Just not clear if the wwan card that are compatible with the m11x could be use to activate wireless broadband with virgin mobile in the us.

Curious to see if anyone out there have tried it or anyone who currently has a wwan card in their m11x and not activate it right now could try and see if virgin mobile would activate it.

That to me may sound resonable, just have it ready and activate it as needed since they have no contract and for $40 a month is not bad, imho.

 

Is the WWAN slot a true mini pci-e?

I'm thinking about putting another wlan card in the wwan slot. From what I read so far, if I didn't get the wwan option, there are no antennas in the case, so I have to buy my own antennas. Is that right?

 

Yes to both questions.


The WWAN slot is a full height mPCIe as far as I am aware.

 

It shouldn't be locked (not tied to any contract by default), so it should work. At worst, there are probably ways around that. This is a full blown computer, after all

 

Is what I was thinking Jeremy, however it would really suck to spend $50-$100 bucks for the wwan card and then not be able to run it on virgin mobile. I would not do it with any other provider, since for verizon or sprint or att is cheaper to actually tether the cell phone, since you cannot sign up on a monthly plan with any of the big carriers. They want those 2 year contract. It would even be reasonable if I could have unlimited data as opposed to the 5gb limit. I mean seriously, without doing any crazy just streaming from hulu, pandora, slacker, justinTV, and tvshack those 5gb will go rather quick.

 

Thanks for replying. The reason I'm concerned is because I somehow recall that someone said the wwan was wired to usb.

 

You are welcome . I'm curious, why would it need to be wired to USB? I though the mPCIe slot drew straight off of the NB's PCIe bus...?

 

You would think right? Many mini-PCI-E slots are wired as USB unfortuneately so you cannot assume it's actually native mini-PCI-E.

 

Oh my


seraphkz, I am really sorry!


MassiveOverkill, how could one tell? Would it show up as an USB device?

 

Would this be an indication that it's wired to USB?

 

Yep, that would be a good indicator, but I'm still newbish to mobile hardware.

 

Yea, see the link:
PCI Express Card and PCI Express Mini Card Connector Pinout - AllPinouts

The 3rd set of pinouts are the ones. Pins 36&38.

 

That's okay! maybe you're right. I really HOPE you're right haha.

 

Good GOD, I hope you guys are right and that this is tied up to a usb. However, I am a bit pessimist, is there a way alienware can limit and restrict anything that is plug into that mini pci-e slot to even show up as being there unless it is strictly something that they have deem is ok to be put in there?

I had to pass some pictures from a camera into the m11x cause the sd car was getting full and I noticed that the sd card stick out like half way out when plugged into the slot. That is totally unaceptable, I was thinking of this method if this mini pcie cannot be use for s mini pcie ssd storage drive, but now that I know that the card doesn't stay flush with the body when is inserted into the sd slot i am truly hoping to all that is just that this method works.

Thank guys for taking an interest and sharing your knowledge.

 

First thing I tried when I got my new R2 (other than upgrading RAM and HD) was to stick a fast SD card in for readyboost. It's ridiculous how far it sticks out and at first I thought that maybe I hadn't gotten it in all the way or it was in 'eject' mode.

Apparently, the same engineering team that worked on the hinges also were tasked with implementing the multimedia slots.

 

Well, if it makes you feel any better, ReadyBoost won't help you very much. There really is absolutely no reason to use ReadyBoost, unless you run programs that use all RAM on your machine (which would only really happen with 2GB of RAM or less on a Windows 7 machine), have a very slow hard drive, and can't afford any additional RAM.

ReadyBoost is made obsolete if you have enough physical RAM to cover the RAM demand, or have an SSD that will have faster transfer rates and I/O rates to supercede the performance of a USB 2.0-based SD card reader.

 

This is not true. While it's true that Readyboost has more of an impact on systems with low memory, that's not it's only benefit:

"Using ReadyBoost-capable flash memory (NAND memory devices) for caching allows Windows 7 and Vista to service random disk reads with performance that is typically 80-100 times faster than random reads from traditional hard drives. This caching applies to all disk content, not just the page file or system DLLs. Flash devices typically are slower than a hard disk for sequential I/O so, to maximize performance, ReadyBoost includes logic that recognizes large, sequential read requests and has the hard disk service these requests"

I want to see how Readyboost and Seagate Momentus XT play well together.

 

I guess my dream of being able to put a wlan or a mini pci-e SSD in the wwan slot is never going to come true

Thanks for the inputs though!

 

Can you move your entire page file to a SD card? If so is there any benfits?