2nd WLAN Card in T500 Works Fine / Extra MPCIE Slot Uses

[TPFanatic]

I did a NWL bios flash and taped Pin 20 on an extra 3945ABG just to see if it would work, and it worked fine in the WWAN slot with the WWAN antennas, appeared to have the same reception as the 5100N in the main slot. As a bonus it blinks the WiFi light too.

We can also put NVME SSDS in the MPCIE slots through an m2 adapter, granted at 1x speed, but storage is storage.

edit: Installed a half-height WLAN card into the Turbomemory slot on an X200T, again flashed NWL BIOS and taped Pin 20. This frees up the full-height WLAN slot for an NGFF adapter. WLAN indicator and Hardware switch are defunct, but WLAN itself works great.

[Bionicman]

I did a NWL bios flash and taped Pin 20 on an extra 3945ABG just to see if it would work, and it worked fine in the WWAN slot with the WWAN antennas, appeared to have the same reception as the 5100N in the main slot. As a bonus it blinks the WiFi light too.

We can also put NVME SSDS in the MPCIE slots through an m2 adapter, granted at 1x speed, but storage is storage.

Could you elaborate on that which ssd works with which adapter ? Would that be true for any motherboard from the 00 generation ?

[TPFanatic]

My reference for the SSD compatability comes from here https://imgur.com/a/G9THR3w

Size would have to be 2242 or 2230 and it must be NVME not SATA.

T500, W500, T400, and X200 have extra MPCIE slots one full size and one half size generally unpopulated intended for WWAN or Turbo memory or Wireless USB. R series generally don't have the extra full size slot soldered on unless they were configured with WWAN, and I don't think they ever have the half size slot (I don't know about R400 and 14" R61).

The 60 generation and Z61 don't have MPCIE wired to the extra full size slot, it's USB only I believe.

[TPFanatic]

I just tested a NWL BIOS on a T410.
- downloaded from here https://www.bios-mods.com/forum/Thread- ... st-Removed
- flash with MS DOS per the readme, create bootable DOS with Rufus to a flash drive, copy the BIOS mod to the flash drive, boot DOS and command "FLASH.BAT".

And plugged a 4965AGN into the WWAN slot, and it shows up in Windows Device Manager. I did not tape Pin 20 so it does not do anything but I only wanted to test that the WWAN slot had PCIE lanes.

I figured it would work because I reviewed T410's schematics and they have PCIE lanes to the WWAN slot.

I also tried AX200 in a MPCIE to M2 Wifi adapter and the card showed up in Device Manager along with its Bluetooth. However the installed OS is Windows 7 so there is no way for me to actually test the card at this time.

T410 motherboard also has the spot for a half-size Turbomemory card, but most motherboards are not provisioned with the hardware slot. The hardware is only present if the configuration was ordered with Turbomemory. I believe the slot could be soldered on but you have to ask yourself if you really want another WLAN card, I think the possibility of putting a NVME, or a nice original AX210, in the full-size WWAN slot is more interesting. The appropriate adapter must be used for exclusively either. Of course this can also be done in the Expresscard slot with Expresscard adapters.

I will have to get myself a 2230 or 2242 and an adapter at some point to play with this. So far I am already grasping as straws to find a use for multiple WLAN cards in the same PC.

[deickos]

I did a NWL bios flash and taped Pin 20 on an extra 3945ABG just to see if it would work, and it worked fine in the WWAN slot with the WWAN antennas, appeared to have the same reception as the 5100N in the main slot. As a bonus it blinks the WiFi light too.

We can also put NVME SSDS in the MPCIE slots through an m2 adapter, granted at 1x speed, but storage is storage.

edit: Installed a half-height WLAN card into the Turbomemory slot on an X200T, again flashed NWL BIOS and taped Pin 20. This frees up the full-height WLAN slot for an NGFF adapter. WLAN indicator and Hardware switch are defunct, but WLAN itself works great.

i thought pci ssds do not work on T500 only in T420 ( i have one there)
you have modified the bios to achieve this?

[axur-delmeria]

i thought pci ssds do not work on T500 only in T420 ( i have one there)
you have modified the bios to achieve this?

The T420's WWAN slot supports mSATA SSDs. These are physically identical to min iPCIe cards, but they have SATA signals instead of PCI Express.

An M.2 NVMe SSD uses PCI Express signals, but its physical connector is different from mini PCIe. That's why you need an adapter like this https://www.amazon.com/Sintech-NGFF-nVM ... B07DZ8SB8X

The T500 cannot boot from NVMe SSDs due to lack of BIOS support, but you can work around that by booting from a flash drive (or any bootable disk) that has a UEFI bootloader like Clover or rEFInd.

[deickos]

i thought pci ssds do not work on T500 only in T420 ( i have one there)
you have modified the bios to achieve this?

The T420's WWAN slot supports mSATA SSDs. These are physically identical to min iPCIe cards, but they have SATA signals instead of PCI Express.

An M.2 NVMe SSD uses PCI Express signals, but its physical connector is different from mini PCIe. That's why you need an adapter like this https://www.amazon.com/Sintech-NGFF-nVM ... B07DZ8SB8X

The T500 cannot boot from NVMe SSDs due to lack of BIOS support, but you can work around that by booting from a flash drive (or any bootable disk) that has a UEFI bootloader like Clover or rEFInd.

you say i could boot from linux uefi, include the pci ssd in the boot order and then boot from ssd (through linux uefi) on a t500?
i think not - my idea is t500 won't even detect the pci ssd

[axur-delmeria]

you say i could boot from linux uefi, include the pci ssd in the boot order and then boot from ssd (through linux uefi) on a t500?
i think not - my idea is t500 won't even detect the pci ssd

Note that I mentioned in my previous post:
The T500 cannot boot from NVMe SSDs due to lack of BIOS support

An NVMe SSD won't show in the T500's boot order at all. That's expected.

That's what USB flash drive is for: something that the BIOS can see.
That USB flash drive only contains an NVMe-capable bootloader like Clover-EFI (I mentioned rEFInd earlier, but it probably doesn't work in this particular scenario).

Here's an old guide, just to show that's it's been done before (not Thinkpad-specific though):
https://winraid.level1techs.com/t/guide ... thod/31665

[TPFanatic]

Presently I'm testing out a Z61m going with a 2.5" spinner and a 512gb nvme in the WLAN slot, and I've been trying and failing to get the windows 7 mbr bootloader on the 2.5" to boot a Windows partition on the nvme drive. Windows 10 might be able to boot it. I will come back with clover-efi to see if that will boot the nvme. I tend to rely on smartphone tethering to network on the go so wirelessless is not the end of my world.

Also curious if I put a thumb drive in the USB-only WWAN slot, if I could boot that. Unlikely but I'm going to test it. Alternatively sticking an AX210 in there to get Bluetooth 5 interests me, but it's niche.

[axur-delmeria]

I tend to rely on smartphone tethering to network on the go so wirelessless is not the end of my world.

Also curious if I put a thumb drive in the USB-only WWAN slot, if I could boot that. Unlikely but I'm going to test it.

How about a USB WiFi adapter in the WWAN slot? It might work on the Z61m if there's enough free space not much metal around and above the WWAN slot (I haven''t seen any Z series so I don't know the internal layout).