CF-18 MK4 GPRS and Bluetooth

Hello!
I got my first Toughbook today! It's an European version; CF-18KEH01VE.
It had a few surprises:
- Integrated EDGE/GPRS (Siemens MC75)
- German XP tablet (I don't understand it)
- Pristine condition, "only" 1090 hours on it.

I got myself XP Tablet 2005 from our school (msdnaa). It did not take the COA-key from the bottom sticker. Is there a way around this, other than the recovery CD's?
The drivers from panasonics site did not work, they had to be extracted.
Almost all buttons work, the screen rotation does seem to have som hiccup.

There are however two unidentified items in the device manager:
MC75, this is the EDGE-modem
UGX, should be bluetooth

Are there any drivers available for these? I didn't find any on Panasonics site.
Battery seems to hold up nicely, I bought a NOS red/orange tab battery from fleabay just in case.

Best regards, Martin
Waiting to get this in use for our voluntary fire department

 

The COA licenses from the bottom are product keys for retail versions of Windows (as they are units being retailed).

Your school's version of Windows is from MSDN - which will only accept MSDN product keys.

You are correct with both the hardware assumptions - the Siemens MC75 modem is the WWAN, and UGX is Bluetooth. Both drivers aren't available for download from the Panasonic site due to license restrictions (go figure...).

If you're in Europe I'd suggest emailing [email protected] with your query, model number and ask for the MC75 and Bluetooth drivers.

If you're in the US/Canada, I'm sure one of the helpful peeps on here will direct you towards someone helpful that side of the pond

 

I found drivers for both bluetooth and MC75 from panasonic.ca, but the Checknet application can't connect to the modem.
The bios seems a bit restricted as well, there is no option in bios for battery calibration, but the normal utility will do.

 

Do you also have the auto boot up when you connect to ac power ?
I think there are a bunch of these laptops in circulation in EU.
I bought mine on Ebay from a Belgian seller (windows tablet in Dutch, what is fine for me)

 

Yes, I have the same "feature".
I bought this from eBay of a German seller (IT-mixx).
The battery seems to keep up as well, indeed a nice catch.

I made som progress with the EDGE-modem:
I was able to create a network connection that works, but I cant have the CheckNet -utility running at the same time. It was just a matter of reassigning com-ports in the device manager. The Siemens AG USB modem needs to be set as Com3. I disabled the wireless serial-port in bios, but windows didn't notice any difference.

The speed was, however, stunning. Almost 0,2/0,04Mbps at speedtest.net. WOOHOO indeed

This brings me to a matter that has in some extent been discussed on the forum. (As I waited for the laptop I did a quick read on all topics regarding the CF-18)
What is the next best thing to get wwan or "3G" as we call it going.
I'm situated in Finland, and as the computer will be for our vfd, I would like to keep the ruggedness, ie. no ports open during normal use.

I popped the hood and found the EDGE-card connected to CN16, and the bluetooth connected and riding a piggyback on the EDGE-card (MC75).
I was hoping to keep the BT for use of an external GPS-dongle in the vehicle.
The BT is not needed for anything else actually, neither is voice or SMS for GSM.

This brings me to a few options:
1)
- Find a pcmcia-3G modem that works in Finland (does the Aircard 850 or 860 do this?). Over 1 Mbps will do.
- Use a BT gps-dongle in the vehicle

2)
- Strip out the MC75 and BT
- Add norweigan (custom-toughbooks) GPS
- Use the USB-port on the GPS for a 3G usb-stick with an external antenna connector

3)
- Build everything myself
- GPS inside
- 3G

I would opt for options 1 and 2. There is some concern as to the wwan-antenna in the lid, as to what frequencies it will be able to use. Any hint on this?

 

I use the sierra aircard 850 (works perfect) now waiting for a pigtail (from a Chinese ebay seller) to connect to the internal antenna.
I use a Irish Vodafone pre pay card to connect Internet (2,99 euro/day and no roaming costs )

I removed the mc75 (modem only) because to slow , but the bluetooth is still in.

Planning to flash the ec to get rid of the start up, i wait for an answer if it is possible to do the flash with a thumb drive (i don't have an usb floppy)

As for the drivers, you could try to extract them from the German windows version using something like Driver Magician ( Free driver backup software, Driver Magician Lite )

 

The huawei 3G stick will not fit inside (to long) i did this in a CF-29, and with all the plastic stripped off it was a tight fit, i think there is less room in the CF-18

The stock antenna of the CF-29 works fine on 3G, so the one in the 18 will do also (i hope)

 

How did you remove the modem? More precicely, where did you connect the BT module, and how did you mount it inside the area?
Interesting enough, booting up linux and running lsusb showed that both the modem and BT controller are connected to the same usb-hub.
However, there is only one usb available on the CN16 according to the schematics found on this foum.

I purchased an aircard 850 for £10, we'll see when it arrives how it performs. It lacks the 900 MHz UMTS, which might be an issue.

I have a plan B that includes aquiring a very short USB2-pcmcia-card, from which I'll wire the two ports to the area where the EDGE-modem resides at the moment. I suppose routing cables will be a tight squeeze.

Using a BT-GPS will be enough for our use.

However, this solution is quite close to the Norwegian offer. I've read some posts where it had some negative feedback..

 

I'm sorry to use this topic for further enquiries, but they all seem to me a bit related.
I stripped out the whole daughter-card as I do not have use for neither BT or gprs at this time.
I didn't realize that the gprs-modem was connected with a 80pin board-to-board connector, thus making it possible to leave the BT intact.

Anyway, I have a few questions about the daughterboard (DL3UPB444AAA):

a) what are the extra antenna-connectors for? JK4-6 and JK7 on the backside.
b) The CN5 is most apparently for the GPS-board?
c) Can the daughterboard be replaced with a board from CF-19? (which would have a pcie-slot for wwan?)
d) could the MC75 module itself be replaced with something else? ie. this cinterion -module. The Siemens MC75 is now known as Cinterion MC75 just to be clear. The connector seems to be the same.
I've sent Cinterion a support request about the module interchangeability.

Even if the modules can't be interchanged, there is a USB-line available at the 80port btb -connector which could be utilized for a "normal" wwan-usb-stick.
Using a module would keep the sim-slot operational, and the whole install quite stock.

Regards, Martin

 

The extra antena connector is use mostly for a rest area when the WWAN modem or bluetooth module are not present and the other is just a passthrough connector as you will notice that one has back to back u.fl.

The daughterboard of an 18 has different pin out than 19 so, it means not posible.

Its is posible to replace the MC75 by a usb stick(modified of course) but it is pain on the ... on tracing those usb line and it require a bit of a patience and most importantly is atleast you have a skill on doing such a mod.

The OEM sim slot is also not quite posible but as I said you trace the line and use it instead of the one on USB stick. Its a lot of work, dude if you wanna do that in my opinion.


ohlip

 

A local company replied on my enquiry about the EU3. They weren't that sure that it would fit, even though it in theory is a straight swap and directly upgradeable with the MC75. Their foremost concern was if panasonic has used som proprietary connections.

Just to explore and learn, does someone have
a) Pinouts or schematics for the EDGE-daughterboard? I could verify the pins against those in the MC75 hardware interface description. With good luck I'll be able to source a similar document of the EU3.
Especially the 80 pin B2B connector is of interest.
Schematics to the GPRS-board are not of use here, they use a 50 pin B2B-connector for the MC45.

b) pinouts or schematics for the daughter-board connector on the CF-19. Are there same pins in just a different order, or completely different interfaces routed?

If it can be replaced with the EU3, it would offer a very neat and "affordable" setup, which could be capable of working just as the MC75 concerning buttons and indicator lights.
Size-wise they are the same size, under 1mm difference in width, length or height.
If not, I will probably source a 80pin B2B connector and make a USB-connector available.
This would of course make the use of modded GPS's a bit hard, even though I'm considering utilizing the CN5 for a random GPS-engine instead of the stock engine. Or why not replace it with the complete CF-19 gps-setup? the pinout differs on CF18 vs CF19 gps FCC-cables, but it's available on the forum.

As you see, my plans differ almost every day, but they change along with how much I know and learn. This forum has very much information, but I seem to ask for something someone rarely would ask for anyway

 

For future reference, some information I had trouble finding:
The modem (MC75) appears as two devices if the serial port is turned on:
1) Via USB-connection as MC75, modem driver from panasonic.ca will leave it showing as Siemens AWG USB modem. It will have a serial port available.
2) A normal serial port is available in Device Manager, you can query the modem via this. Even if the module is in powerdown-mode, you can start it with the right AT-command from this interface. This is what Checknet does at startup.

The normal serial port can be multiplexed to three logical ports, this is not necessary.

Use hyperterminal or putty to check that both serial ports (USB and regular) respond to AT-commands, at<enter> should tell "OK".
I had my modem ports fussed up on the chip, so I ended up runnin "AT&F", which reset it to factory defaults. Also, I set the serial port to 115200 baud with the command AT+IPR=115200 with putty connected to the serial port.

After this I installed Checknet v2.2 (The one for MC75, v2.1 is offered for MC45) and made sure it uses the physical serial port.
Now I'm able to monitor the modems status, and open a connection at the same time!

A more sophisticated universal software might be nice, it could show whether the connection is open or not. As Checknet is made for XP, it has a small UAC-popup everytime I start it in Win7.
I suppose it should work in a similar manner even in XP. You could use the multiplexer (winmux2k) to utilize even more serial lines if necessary.

Having the MC75 work might open some new views. Is edge-speed enough? if it is, should I source an edge&gps -module? is the second serial port from the module wired on the board? perhaps not.

The MC75 is a quite sophisticated device, yet outdated. We'll se how it performs. I leave it always on, even when the machine is shut down (power setting in bios: Independent).

The bluetooth-module stopped working in win7 for some reason, hence I'm modding a cheap usb-dongle for future use. I might post about it later..