CF-27L Help with WiFi in pci slot

Hi, I am new to this Forum but have been searching for answers(and finding them), for a long time. Is there anyone out there in toughbook land that can provide some info on putting an Intel Pro/wireless 2200bg card in place of the modem? Any and all help would be very appreciated. Thanks

 

The mini pci on the CF-27 only allows the modem to work for some reason once the modem is removed it disables the slot so nothing else can work in it. So it seems that you need to figure out a way to trick it into thinking there is a modem attached so the slot stays enabled.

 

I did notice that the #1 pin is used on the modem and not on the Wifi card, how would one go about finding the schematics for the pci board, modem and WiFi card ? there's got to be a way to trick it into staying active.Great idea.
Thanks

 

I don't think it is 'not active', more it simply has only has the minimum capability to run the original modem and is not fully wired to run a generic Mini-PCI card.

 

Now that would make things a bit more complicated,is there anyone out there
that could point me in the direction of some schematics pertaining to the PCI
board ? Also isn't there another piece of equipment that can interface with the board, some sort of police communications device, can that be used for something useful?
Again Thanks for the help, this forum is great!

 

A while back someone reported that they had briefly been able to have windows detect a WIFI card in that slot after accidentaly shorting something out. But they were unable to have it repeat again after they reassembled the unit. So I still believe it is a simple matter of finding which pin sends the correct logic to the chipset which says "enable me". The BIOS simply does not assign an IRQ without the modem installed. This is similiar to the GPS on the CF-28 where all you need is to short out a pin and BIOS assigns a port that is otherwise not present.

As for a schematic for the card, I think of one existed this would have been resolved a long time ago and we would all be enjoying WIFI on the CF27.

 

Well sense I am a perpetual optimist and I have an extra PCI board, I am gonna try stripping off the coating and see if I can follow the tracers and see where that will take me.Please keep the suggestions coming and I will post any interesting developments ASAP

Thanks

 

I've not had a CF-27 for a while, but if I was going to attack this problem I'd find the schematics / service manuals for the CF-27 and -28 or -29 (anything capable of working with wifi) and compare the connections to the Mini-PCI sockets.

That should give you a good start on what pins are unconnected or differently connected on the CF-27.

 

Another possibility is that Panasonic may have a vendor specific lock in the BIOS for this slot. And if anyone knows how to modify a BIOS binary or at least look at the file to see what is in there relating to the modem then we may be able to modify this to allow any card to work in the slot. This was also an issue with the CF-M34 that had the extra slot for a WIFI card. It would only accept a specific WIFI card and nothing else, then Panasonic released a BIOS patch and allowed it to accept a Cisco card. But I doubt Pana will be releasing any further patches for the ole 27.

 

I think that modifying a bios must be a cross between black magic and computer engineering because I have googled it with no results. I personally feel that if a manufacturer is no longer going to support the product bios then they should release the binary to the public to modify as they see fit, but to their thinking that won't sell new products.

 

Well Guys I have an update: I just recieved a cf-27 p3 500 Mhz w/modem, whats unique(I think) is that in the bios it has a place in the advanced section to enable modem, first time I have seen this and I have at least 15 cf-27's. I am going to install a WiFi pci card and see what happens.The odd thing is, is that the bios version is the same in all my P3 27"s, I do automotive diagnostics for a living and we can download whats on the Flash rom, modify it and reflash. Well I am getting a little ahead of myself, I'll try the WiFi card and let you know what happens.

 

Just an update on the PCI slot, Well i put a WiFi card in the slot and the bios didn't even see a modem let alone a WiFi card, so I did some digging and found out that there are several mini PCI slot configurations in use and one of them is a dedicated modem slot, so there is really nothing short of designing a PCI board that a person could do and that is way out of my abilities, so all i can say is that this has beem a great learning experiance and I want to thank all of you for making my first "post" experiance GREAT !!
Thanks again and I'll see you in other posts.......CF-28.......HMMMM.......