Anyone added WWAN to a P870 chassis?

Getting ready to order a P870KM from HIDEvolution and I'm wondering if anyone has ever added a WWAN card? As I recall there are now options for Sierra Wireless that are M.2 compliant. Would just need to find a place for the antennas to go (preferably behind the LCD for reception!). Would love to hear anyone whose done it on this chassis.

 

(I'm too lazy to check) does the chassis have sim card reader already? I've seen piggyback readers that could be added over the mpcie cards but not for m.2 yet.

My laptop has m.2 Huawei LTE card.

 

No sim slot as far as I know

 

The models that do have it (I can't recall off hand whether the P870 does or does not), have it disabled somehow. I spoke with R & D about another model that had the slot, and was told it won't work (a customer tested and confirmed it around the same time).

Why exactly, I'm not sure.

 

Helpful to know someone has tested before. Now that just makes my inner tinkerer want to make it work that much more just to prove a point lol.

 

If you figure something out, do follow up! It seems superfluous to have it available yet not working.

 

It could well be a BIOS switch that's hidden.

 

@Prema might have an idea?

Sent from my LG-H850 using Tapatalk

 

BIOS has support, but there is no native SIM card slot on P870xM series, so you would have to go another route to add it. Probably easier to get by with an external USB solution...

 

Or pairing your phone which is what a lot have people have moved to which is why sim slots are less popular.

 

So I finally got an email contact with someone at Sierra Wireless. The vast majority of M.2 slots in laptops (that aren't specifically for WWAN) are M.2 Key M. All of the new WWAN cards are M.2 key B.

Currently there are adapters with built-in SIM slots to allow the use of the new M.2 B key modems in the old Mini PCIe slots. There hasn't been anything released that he's aware of to convert a B key to an M key with a SIM slot. The primary difference is B key = 2x PCIe lanes, M key = 4x PCIe lanes, and that single pin difference, of course.

Until someone releases a B to M adapter with the SIM tray built in it sounds like we're SOL. I'd imagine it'll be coming as he said I wasn't the first to ask about doing exactly what we're trying to do.

 

And not 10 minutes after typing all that I had an epiphany. The current best chipset WWAN modem is the Sierra 7455 series. It is probably the last one they'll make in the older mini PCIe format, but they do make it. There are plenty of mini PCIe to M.2 adapters available for people to reuse old mSATA SSDs:

Add to that a mini pci-e SIM card adapter that simply wraps around the 8 pins on the right side of the mini pci-e card and adds a SIM slot:

And the obligatory MC7455 card:

And I can't come up with any reason it wouldn't work...assuming of course there is a place to put it in the case with the appropriate clearance.

You'd also need an antenna kit:

The reality is all of the parts could be had for around $200-$250. Could you get a hotspot or USB modem for way less? Of course! But it wouldn't be integrated and invisible .

I am getting ready to move cross country so I'm waiting to order my P870KM from HID, but once I get settled in and get it ordered I may give it a shot just for giggles. Worse case scenario I pop the modem into my Thinkpad and it just works.

 

The only thing is the extra width around the M.2 needed for the conversion.