The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    X300 and mini PCI-E Broadcom HD decoder

    Discussion in 'Lenovo' started by Esben84, Feb 7, 2010.

  1. Esben84

    Esben84 Notebook Guru

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    52
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    Reading some of the reviews of the Atom+Broadcom decoder got me thinking this could also be used in the X300. The 1.2 GHz CPU is unfortunately not enough for 1080p decoding. Decoding 720p makes the CPU so hot the fan has to run very fast and loud.

    It seems that the X300 is designed to also support a WAN adapter. If the computer isn't equipped with one, does this mean it has a spare PCI-E slot?

    On Ebay the Broadcom decoders are selling for about £15-£20. I wouldn't mind paying that to make it possible to decode 1080p, stop the obnoxious fan and at the same time increase battery life when watching movies.
     
  2. lead_org

    lead_org Purveyor of Truth

    Reputations:
    1,571
    Messages:
    8,107
    Likes Received:
    126
    Trophy Points:
    231
    it won't work, since the Lenovo bios whitelist would mean that the broadcom decoder would be useless in the miniPCI slot.
     
  3. cereal killer

    cereal killer Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    14
    Messages:
    142
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    I think they make those 34mm express card configuration.
     
  4. Esben84

    Esben84 Notebook Guru

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    52
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    Thanks for the information, although it's quite unfortunate to hear :(
    Can the 1802 fix be used to allow this card to be used?

    Unfortunately the X300 doesn't have an ExpressCard expansion port.
     
  5. cereal killer

    cereal killer Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    14
    Messages:
    142
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Does it have a 54mm pci slot?
     
  6. Esben84

    Esben84 Notebook Guru

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    52
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    I think it has the smaller Mini-PCIe slot inside
     
  7. User Retired 2

    User Retired 2 Notebook Nobel Laureate NBR Reviewer

    Reputations:
    4,127
    Messages:
    7,860
    Likes Received:
    10
    Trophy Points:
    0
    If Lenovo's whitelisting doesn't halt the boot process, but just disables the port, can try the mPCIe whitelisting workaround. Process can be integrated into XP/W7 bootloader using grub4dos' grldr booting the disk image as explained here so would add another 0.2s to the bootup time. Requires some skill, but entirely possible.

    If Lenovo halt the boot process with some error "unsupported wifi card detected", then not feasible without actually bios hacking OR some other crazy workaround like trying to put some PCI reset delay switch running off the mPCIe socket pins so that card isn't seen by bios on bootup.
     
  8. turqoisegirl08

    turqoisegirl08 Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    1,617
    Messages:
    505
    Likes Received:
    260
    Trophy Points:
    76
    One other thing about Broadcom is it's not very friendly with Linux. If the brand is still on the Whitelist then I'm not sure many people would want to go through a BIOS hack to get it up and running. My Thinkpad experience with Broadcom is that when a miniPCI was insterted the laptop refused to work. Once I removed the miniPCI it let me load into BIOS or straight to my OS.' Many people would like things simply to work out of the box.