CF-54 MK3 with EM7305 WWAN

Hi there,

As most of you will know, Toughbooks delivered without WWAN-cards can be retrofitted with one and, using the BIOS-password and setting the WWAN ID in the Optional Kit Configuration, can be configured to be recognized in Windows. However...

I have 4 CF54-MK3 systems here.
1 with the WWAN-card factory-installed at WWAN-ID 15.
1 with a WWAN-card taken from a MK2, configured at WWAN-ID 15 -> SUCCESS!
2 others won't work with the same card and the same WWAN-ID.

My question is: what does this WWAN-ID depend on? Serial number? Model number? Some other hardware-id or the ID of the EM7305 card or something? Because I thought that all same cards would use the same BIOS WWAN ID on all same-model Toughbooks. Guess I was wrong on that

So, if anyone has a clue other than me trying every possible value from 0 to ff (which I am doing now), please go ahead and point me in the right direction

Thanks in advance!

Kind regards,

Jan


Oh yeah, by the way, for those who are willing to run Windows 7 on an CF54-MK3 (which, according to Panasonic, is impossible), don't worry, everything works great, except for the TPM-driver which has to be disabled and the Windows boot-screen which looks a bit scrambled.

 

What are the full model numbers of the 2 working ones and the 2 non workings ones.

 

Are the WWAN cards ALL from Panasonic or just the same WWAN card from a different brand or Ebay?

Try the SAME physical WWAN card in a working and non working unit.

 

Hi Shawn,

They are non-Panasonic EM7305 cards. Does this make a difference? Are they incompatible?

Kind regards,

Jan

I'll have to check on monday, I only have one of the (non-working) systems at home to try a little more on sunday and see if I can crack the code

Kind regards,

Jan

 

Non Panasonic cards can be very difficult to make work.

 

As Shawn said "difficult" Toughbooks are not like any Dell, Acer or HP. You can almost put any card in them but Toughbooks are not like that. Not even close . For years we have told members they will not work but a few have got them working but it took a lot of doing . If you don't know your way around one then pay the extra money and problem solved.

 

Alright, thanks for your honest reply. I haven't made the choice of buying aftermarket WWAN-adapters, my boss is to blaim for that. And he just passes the issue on to me, saying: "I know you can make this work." Well, I can do a lot of things, both hard- and software-related, but I'm no wizard, not even close.

I've read somewhere about adapting the firmware to make them 'recognizable' as Panasonic-cards, with the big risk of bricking them and thus rendering them useless, so I think I'm going to try a bit more tomorrow and in case it doesn't work, convince my boss to just go for the Panasonic ones.

Thanks a lot for all your replies, great response on the forum here, I'll try to visit as much as I can and be as much help as you guys are to other users, after all, I'm working with Toughbooks on a daily basis and have built up 'some' experience already.

Greetings from Belgium.

Jan