FZ-G1 WWAN card issues

Hello yall, I am new to posting here but I have read many of your threads on tough books before. you all seem to be in the know.

I am having an issue with an FZ-G1 MK2 (M/N: FZ-G1FA3JXBM)

It was bought used from ebay, came with win10 installed.

The plan was to upgrade this one with an em7355 when it arrived.

We also purchased 3x Em7355 from ebay. Two of them appear to be generic and one dell, no idea if the firmware has been corrected or changed, because of the main problem:

The FZ will not show anything connected with any one of the three cards, at least not in a way that i have been able to find yet. Spent the last day and a half trying to figure it out to no avail. Been getting desperate and getting into CMD trying to find things that windows may have missed, still nothing.

The device does not show up in device manager and I have not been able to get anything to show me in windows that the card is even connected.

Any ideas? Any way to know if this device is bad, or if the cards are? Have I made a mistake in the compatibility of these devices? Am i just a big dumb idiot? xD

Hopefully a quick solution, I would like to deploy these fairly quickly. Thank you for any and all input.

I have also had some issues with drivers. I have so many versions in my download folder.. and probably some malware too. any recommendations as to where to go for those?

Thanks,

Nick

 

Did you change the optional config setting in the BIOS?

 

no, it seems not. I thought i had but it was the wlan, not wwan. Good one. I had not seen the correct config of this before. made me look again. The optional kit configuration is password locked. am i screwed now? lol

Thanks for taking the time to reply Shawn.

 

I have looked on the forum more and it seems discussing this is difficult with the rules, as well as the fact that people have stated certain things will not work in the past. Thanks for the help. Does anyone know what the service center's running rate is for a repair?

 

The Optional Wireless Configuration password is "Toughkit." This is a well known password and has been discussed here before. It is the same password for every Toughbook. This NOT like discussing a BIOS password. Heck... Even Panasonic will tell you the Optional Wireless Config password! I think they assign it a password so you don't inadvertently make changes to your WWAN.

Also... Toughbooks are VERY picky about what cards it accepts. I am not familiar with your model but you may end up needing a card that came out of a Toughbook or one someone else here has found out works. I am sure someone will chime in...

Edit: And BTW... Welcome to the forum!

 

OMG! thank you guys so much. this legitimately made my day.

I just got into the config and set the ID as 13, for the em7355. Tested it and it loads the youtube main page fine on cell data. I cant believe it worked, after all that time i spent melting my brain over it.

Says something to the power of human connection, no?

I came here as a last resort but my efforts were awarded in spades, so than you guys so much. I hope I will be back here again soon, but not with a (seemingly) huge problem like this, lol.

Thanks for fixing my big dumb idiot mistake!


-Nick

 

Happy to help.

Which card worked? From a Dell or something else?

 

Glad you are up and running! Make sure you check back with us from time to time.

 

The generic 7355. Does not have lenovo or dell markings on it. majority of the sticker is blank. I am going to test the dell in a moment
will tell you how it goes, if it's flashed or not. We bought all 3 from ebay seller. two were generic and one was a dell model DW5808e

 

thanks! Also, i would like to add that the password was "toughkit", not as in your reply but close. All lowercase and no period. thanks again.

 

Yup.... - toughkit

I knew you'd get it.

BTW... Not sure if the Dell card will work. I'll be interested to hear on that one.

 

dell card is showing up ok but the fz is not connecting to the network like before, says it's turned off. Honestly not sure if we want to mess with that at the moment- seems like a lot of work to flash them. we will hopefully bet getting a couple more of these fz's though, so i will have plenty to play with once this one is running out in the field.

it may be helpful to know that we are running mint mobile sim cards in these. Mint uses T-Mobile service, which is at first glance not compatible, however due to the fact that they recently acquired sprint, it usually works ok. I've looked at all of the bands and it seems that everything should work out ok- and so far it has, we have done the same thing with a CF-53 MK4 before.

Mint mobile is dirt cheap, so it's a really easy starting point for our application, and is at worst functional with our setup, but we could always switch out for verizon/att if needed for extra reliability.

 

I tried a Dell card a while back and had no luck.
I agree flashing seems like a lot of hassle. I tried to flash the Dell and failed.

 

we will try to return it to the seller. If not, we will probably just buy another. ~20 bucks shipped on ebay so not that bad.

hope they dont send us a lenovo one this time

 

I think your "generic" cards are in fact Panasonic ones

 

It is highly probable, to be honest I will not claim to know all that much about it but from my research, Panasonic does not make the cards, they just use the default sierra wireless ones. AFAIK dell and lenovo are the only ones which need a branded and firmware locked from the factory module, which you must reflash to make work with other models of PC. So, i do call the factory defult cards "generic", but maybe those are the Panasonic ones ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

As a side note for later readers, dell is identified by a model number with this format: DW5808e, compared to EM7355, and Lenovo chips have the name directly on the sticker. Dell looks significantly different in terms of color as well (black and white only), and the default cards have very little sticker space taken up, while both of the other 2 have all kinds of stuff written all over them.

Either way it's working now, and replacements are cheap. It honestly makes me wonder why they are so inexpensive when you can find them other places (like "Bob's Hardware") for like 200 bucks. Anyone think of a reason beyond guaranteed compatibility or government pricing (artificially inflated to meet the spending capability of gov't money)?