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    sony vaio tz ssd in mini pci slot

    Discussion in 'VAIO / Sony' started by magos, Oct 19, 2012.

  1. magos

    magos Notebook Enthusiast

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    I have the sony vaio tz21 with the wwan card.

    the board has a sim slot and a mini pcie slot with the qualcomm 3g wcdma modem.

    I don't use the 3g modem at all and would love to install something else in this mini pcie slot.

    Is that possible or is that mini pcie slot only enabled for specific devices?

    I was thinking of installing a mini pcie ssd or a sata3 controller and rewire my msata drive to the sata controller (its currently installed with an msata to zif adapter).

    The ultimate goal would be a mini pcie sata raid controller in that slot + 2 msata drive installed instead of the optical drive (a lot of rewiring and soldering required but no problem for me).

    Has anyone tried to use that mini pcie slot for something else than a modem?

    Thats the board I am talking about:
    DSC01949.jpg
     
    magos, Oct 19, 2012
    #1
  2. ngvuanh

    ngvuanh Notebook Deity

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    You may install sata3 controller but you can't install minipcie sata drive.
    minipcie sata drive uses the same minipcie slot but pin configuration of minipcie sata drive and minipcie device are totally different.
     
    ngvuanh, Oct 19, 2012
    #2
  3. magos

    magos Notebook Enthusiast

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    Ok in the long run i wanted a sata 3 controller anyways. Now I tried to install a random wifi card but the card is not detected by the system.
    There is a small 4x dip switch on the mini pcie board do i need to set it to enable other mini pcie devices. I saw the mini pcie board that comes with the tv tuner is different.

    Any thought, ideas?

    And whats the part number of this board?
    2914-3o.jpg
     
    magos, Oct 20, 2012
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  4. magos

    magos Notebook Enthusiast

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    nobody knows the part number? any links to a service manual?
     
    magos, Oct 27, 2012
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  5. magos

    magos Notebook Enthusiast

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    Mod is done replaced the mini pci wlan card with a sata controller and added a msata drive, also replaced the wwan card with a usb adapter and added a usb wifi card its a tight fit but it works.

    Unfortunately I can't boot from the sata controller due to limitations in the bios. my workaround is loading a bootmanager from a usb flash drive and then load the os from the first available diskdrive.

    Works great except I lost 1 usb port but I added a expresscard usb 3 card with 2 ports :).

    Knowing this laptop is old and probably not worth it but its a nice project and maybe a reference for other laptop upgrades.
     
    magos, Dec 12, 2012
    #5