Enable extra mini-PCI-e

I have an 8710p

I soldered a seat at the extra mini-PCI-e port but the port is not

enabled

Tried Vidock but could not make it work

Any ideas to enable it ?

I plan to install a sata controller for extra Sata disk at the dvd-rom bay

Reply 1 : Enable extra mini-PCI-e

Quote:

Originally Posted by nkar I have an 8710p I soldered a seat at the extra mini-PCI-e port but the port is not enabled Tried Vidock but could not make it work Any ideas to enable it ? I plan to install a sata controller for extra Sata disk at the dvd-rom bay

Can you see if pin 23,25,31,33 (pci-e/wifi) and 36,38(usb/wwan) have tracks on them? If there's no tracks then there is no way it would ever work. If they are attached then you'd probably also need to apply unwhitelisting to them. Best way to do that would be to find an ICH8M machine with that port enabled and working, "save" it's port data (pcieport.px), then load that on your system.



Based on the lspci output here, I can see the 8710P has:



port1=root port (probably unconnected)

port2=wifi

port5=another port - probably expresscard



Interestingly, looks like the 8710P/W and HDX9000 shares the same drive caddies. The HDX9000 has mPCIe port layout here.



The other way of getting a native sata controller would be to tap the ICH8M I/O chip's sata lines. Tricky to do though as would need to fish Here's an idea of what's involved.



Is there a mPCIe sata controller available? 2510P owner's might want to know about that.

Reply 2 : Enable extra mini-PCI-e

8710 does not have Expresscard

It has Cardbus instead



I can see a miniPCIe port with the intel wifi (port2 in which I succesfully installed a USB3 controller)

and

next to it it had the signs of a mini-PCI-e connector. In which I installed

a mini PCIe connector.



I tried putting both the original (HP whitelisted) wifi card and the usb3 controller at

(soldered connector) with no success . Nothing is recognised .

I think this port is NOT crippled (all pins are connected) since it has exactly the same

pins connected as the working and tested miniPCI-e (number 2) with the installed USB3

port.

Any idea where to get the pciport.px from an ICH8m with that port enabled?