Hacking a mini-PCI-E HSDPA into Aopen i45GMT-HD board.

[ptk]

Recently received my new mini-itx board from AOpen, i45GMT-HD board. Brilliant piece of board. worked flawlessly with W7.

While messing with the board, I recalled i have a left over piece of mini-PCI-E HSDPA modem from my eeePC 901 project. Since the aopen board has 2 mini-PCI-E socket (1 occupied by a WLAN card), I am itching to hack the HSDPA board in.

The obvious problem is, while the connector is a standard mini-PCI-E connector, there is no provision for SIM card socket.

I was wondering if anyone has tried hacking a SIM socket in by wiring it to the mini-PCI-E connectors?

[mrbean_phillip]

@ PTK: I'm in the same boat with my Commell LS-373 - it has one mini pci, and one mini pcie sockets.

I have a sierra mc8775 card spare, and last night installed the (hacked generic) drivers for it, so windows recognizes it - even 3G Watcher is picking it up, and it's only complain is no sim card.

I will be playing with this the next few days, as it would only be 3 or 4 of the 6 pins (on a sim-socket) that will need to connect to the pcie connectors on the pcie card - should not be to hard, except finding proper points to connect the sim-socket to.

I will check back and post my experience here during next week or so.

If you find anything, please keep me posted too.

[ptk]

mrbean
ah. that's easy.
here's the pinout for the mini-pci-e

you need to get the pinout for the sim socket that you are using, and connect appropriately.

I have not venture to try as I am tie down with work. but given the experience on eeepcs, it should work.

do keep us updated.

kao

[mrbean_phillip]

Ah, thanx

Here is the pinout for the general simcard, so all you have to do is do the proper connections. I have done some reverse-engineering, and now know which pins on the simcard (1,2,3 and 6) should connect to the(mini) pci-express connector.

The problem is actually finding the vias/testpoints on the little board you can use - mine is all screened up with some housing soldered over everything - need to remove it though.

Will keep you posted - this is simple enough in terms of wiring, just crappy to do due to small size et al.

This may also come in pretty handy for those with a spare WWAN card, but no onboard mini pcie connector - this even has the Simholder onboard - nice, small, and cheap!

[mrbean_phillip]

Maybe something like this - should work ok.

[_Dejan_]

Hi guys,
UIM pins are reserved for SIM card holder. On commell LS-373 you must isolate 5this pins if you use UMTS card with SIM holder on it, because this pins are somewhere connected and UMTS card report NO SIM if you have it in slot or not. On this board is Mini Pci express designed for some extension board which need this pins for operation and not for UMTS card...
We are try with commell fix this problem with diferent BIOS(Which mrbean_phillip have now on board if you are not reflash it) but it doesn't help. Only isolating pins help...
So be carefull because if you will add SIM holder to this pins you must CUT connections otherwise SIM holder will not work...
I think that better idea is only isolate this pins and connect sim holder direct on UMTS card...

With Jetway NF93.LF I don't have this problems and I don't need isolate pin's for normal operation...

[mrbean_phillip]

Heya DeJan,
Yep, I have figured as much on the LS-373 Not a problem though, as I found an Ebay reseller which have some Sieera Wirelss 881U USB units, minus the wwan card, so I will fit my wwan card into the unitl, and connect to one of the onboard USB headers on the Commell board.

This way I can use my 3945 abg WiFi card in the pci-express slot, and my Commell GPS954 in the mini-pci slot - works out rather well, as I want to try and minimize BT devices with this setup - don't ask why, just my preference.....

So, it works out rather well.

One of these would work rather well too, but, they're out of stock, so I got one of the empty 881U shells to do the trick for me.

Might help someone else out there, so enjoy.

I kept the Bios you shipped it with, works without issues