Are these adapters different?

[Invincible Sugar]

The spoiler text is backstory, feel free to skip.

Spoiler

 

I wrote this post yesterday about a proposed eGPU setup, and while I didn't get any useful information here I did follow up on a few tech Discord servers where I learned that for technical reasons I wouldn't be able to run the number of displays I need off that proposed setup. Apparently Thunderbolt 3 has a video stream limit so even if bandwidth or PCIe lanes aren't an issue, that is. Interesting!

 

Someone there sent this video of 14 plugable USB adapters powering monitors off of a single Intel NUK. That got my attention. I think these use the computer's CPU to render the video, I don't believe there is any real GPU in them, but clearly if a NUK from years back can handle this, my new laptop should be able to handle it too. I won't be gaming off of these, I'll be using them for Discord moderation, which is not a heavy load with lots to render.

 

 

My question: The pluggable things are expensive. $40 new and $30 used on eBay. I found this adapter for far less, but will it do the same thing? I don't know if it's cheaper because it's not a Pluggable branded adapter, or if there's actually a hardware difference that would prohibit me from running, say 10 of these, at once. The Pluggable can run at least 14 displays with a USB hub and 14 adapters, as shown in the video in my spoiler text. But could this cheaper one do that too?

 

EDIT: Please, I only want to know if the cheaper adapter will do what I need. I'm not interested in completely different solutions like a desktop with several GPUs. I have specific needs. I'm not interested in discussing alternatives.

 

Thanks!

[jaslion]

What are the needs? These things do either use the cpu for graphics or have a small built in gpu.

 

The cheaper one most likely is entirely software based thus all the load will be on the cpu instead of the using a small on board gpu. This can very very very very quickly overload the cpu and cause issues.

 

Another thing to know is that if you even have enough usb controllers on board to allow so many usb devices to be functioning at usb 3.0 speeds.

 

So without more information all I can say is a no to a maybe. Basically anything that isn't text or still images will hammer your cpu to bits on the cheap adapter. Same goes for even the more expensive ones as they only support hardware acceleration for basic things.

[mariushm]

The insides are probably the same. But the software/driver of pluggable may be better.

 

They'll both be shit, I hope you understand that.

You'll have a video card driver inside your computer which creates a fake display, and then takes 30-60 snapshots a second and sends them to that device either as a series of JPEG pictures or a MPEG2 stream or something like that.

 

Everything is compressed, because USB 2.0 is not fast enough to send raw, uncompressed 1080p to that adapter. The chip inside that dongle simply uncompresses those frames and creates the VGA signal.

So yeah, you can have 14 monitors, but your CPU will be compressing 14 streams so the  more motion there's on the screen, the more CPU you're gonna use.

You can see that  in the video at around 2:30 that the CPU is used to 8% with almost NOTHING changing on the displays ... if he runs a movie full screen on one monitor, you'll probably see cpu going to around 20-30%.  If there's no motion, the driver only compresses what changed between frames, so it will send basically no bytes and will use no cpu to send that frame.

[Invincible Sugar]

1 minute ago, jaslion said:

What are the needs? These things do either use the cpu for graphics or have a small built in gpu.

 

The cheaper one most likely is entirely software based thus all the load will be on the cpu instead of the using a small on board gpu. This can very very very very quickly overload the cpu and cause issues.

 

Another thing to know is that if you even have enough usb controllers on board to allow so many usb devices to be functioning at usb 3.0 speeds.

 

So without more information all I can say is a no to a maybe. Basically anything that isn't text or still images will hammer your cpu to bits on the cheap adapter. Same goes for even the more expensive ones as they only support hardware acceleration for basic things.

Oh, actually I forget if it was in the YouTube video or the Discord server but someone suggested running them all off one USB 2.0 hub to prevent issues. The Pluggable ones are actually USB 2.0 themselves, so they couldn't even use USB 3.0 anyways.

[jaslion]

2 minutes ago, Invincible Sugar said:

Oh, actually I forget if it was in the YouTube video or the Discord server but someone suggested running them all off one USB 2.0 hub to prevent issues. The Pluggable ones are actually USB 2.0 themselves, so they couldn't even use USB 3.0 anyways.

Well the cheap one needs usb 3.0 to run higher than 800*600.

 

But anyways why do you need these many individual addressable screens? There are many better ways than using crappy usb adapters that will just be a big bag of suck regardless.

[mariushm]

You can run multiple of them on a USB hub, but you have to be aware of the total bandwidth used.

Think of it like each of those receiving 10-60 mbps of data from the computer, depending on how much motion there's on the screen and how it compresses the data

So if the hub is connected to PC to a usb 2.0 port, you have maximum 480 mbps between the hub and the pc, so expect up to around 400-450 mbps between the devices connected to the hub.

 

[Invincible Sugar]

6 minutes ago, mariushm said:

The insides are probably the same. But the software/driver of pluggable may be better.

 

They'll both be shit, I hope you understand that.

You'll have a video card driver inside your computer which creates a fake display, and then takes 30-60 snapshots a second and sends them to that device either as a series of JPEG pictures or a MPEG2 stream or something like that.

 

Everything is compressed, because USB 2.0 is not fast enough to send raw, uncompressed 1080p to that adapter. The chip inside that dongle simply uncompresses those frames and creates the VGA signal.

So yeah, you can have 14 monitors, but your CPU will be compressing 14 streams so the  more motion there's on the screen, the more CPU you're gonna use.

You can see that  in the video at around 2:30 that the CPU is used to 8% with almost NOTHING changing on the displays ... if he runs a movie full screen on one monitor, you'll probably see cpu going to around 20-30%.  If there's no motion, the driver only compresses what changed between frames, so it will send basically no bytes and will use no cpu to send that frame.

Yeah, my laptop will have 3 iGPU powered monitors which will be used for movies, Photoshop, etc. These will be for Discord moderation and email and other mostly text stuff. I might get one nice eGPU and then use a few of these, instead of a bunch of these, but my original idea for two eGPUs on one thunderbolt 3 cable won't work. I could probably get away with one eGPU though, and just make that one a good model with 4 or more displays.

[Invincible Sugar]

2 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Well the cheap one needs usb 3.0 to run higher than 800*600.

 

But anyways why do you need these many individual addressable screens? There are many better ways than using crappy usb adapters that will just be a big bag of suck regardless.

I was going to do two low end eGPUs in a docked setup which is linked in the spoile lr text, but people on a Discord server said each eGPU would be limited to 10 GBPS / 1 PCIe lane which would be insufficient to send the video signals for the iGPU displays and the USB signals for my peripherals and external drives and run two eGPUs, even if the displays aren't showing much, like just text.

 

Because these USB adapters compress the video I can run a bunch of them without issues. The iGPU displays send full video streams at whatever resolution the monitor is, and the eGPUs send information uncompressed using thunderbolt PCIs lanes, so my proposal would need far more than the 40 GBPS / 4 lanes of a single thunderbolt 3 plug.

[Invincible Sugar]

4 minutes ago, mariushm said:

You can run multiple of them on a USB hub, but you have to be aware of the total bandwidth used.

Think of it like each of those receiving 10-60 mbps of data from the computer, depending on how much motion there's on the screen and how it compresses the data

So if the hub is connected to PC to a usb 2.0 port, you have maximum 480 mbps between the hub and the pc, so expect up to around 400-450 mbps between the devices connected to the hub.

 

Wait a moment, does that mean if I ran, say 12 of these adapters, off a USB 3.0 hub, even though the more expensive pluggable adapters are limited to USB 2.0 because the hub would be running at USB 3.0 there would be less of a chance of the total bandwidth being split between the adapters being insufficient?

[mariushm]

If you can get some pci-e lanes outside the laptop or even one pci-e lane (basically the pci-e slot in the eGPU), you could get an adapter board which converts one slot into multiple slots and then install multiple video cards.

 

For example, this adapter board has a chip on it that multiplexes 3 slots into a single pci-e lane  (takes pci-e x1 and creates 3 pci-e x1 slots)

https://www.amazon.com/JIUWU-Express-Switch-Multiplier-Riser/dp/B01I2Y84TE/ref=sr_1_7?dchild=1&keywords=pci-e+switch&qid=1605463524&sr=8-7

This one does two : https://www.amazon.com/Crest-SI-PEX60016-Extension-Switch-Multiplier/dp/B075KNH1GM/ref=sr_1_5?dchild=1&keywords=pci-e+switch&qid=1605463524&sr=8-5

 

So you could get some cheap video cards with 2-3 outputs and cut their edge connector to convert them into pci-e x1 cards (it's possible) and plug them into these slots)

 

but I assume you'd want an actually powerful video card plugged into the eGPU so unless the enclosure has an extra pci-e x1 slot available it kinda sucks.

 

 

Yeah, a usb 3.0 hub would be connected at 5 gbps with the computer, realistically the pc could send 3-4 gbps to the hub, and then the hub can send 10-60 mbps to every usb device.

But really dude, with the money you'd spend on 12 devices you can just buy a 150$ refurbished pc and add a couple video cards in it and connect 12 monitors to it and you could easily use remote desktop connection software or  stuff that lets you move mouse and keyboard between computers to have a seamless integration between your laptop and that second pc.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[jaslion]

7 minutes ago, Invincible Sugar said:

I was going to do two low end eGPUs in a docked setup which is linked in the spoile lr text, but people on a Discord server said each eGPU would be limited to 10 GBPS / 1 PCIe lane which would be insufficient to send the video signals for the iGPU displays and the USB signals for my peripherals and external drives and run two eGPUs, even if the displays aren't showing much, like just text.

 

Because these USB adapters compress the video I can run a bunch of them without issues. The iGPU displays send full video streams at whatever resolution the monitor is, and the eGPUs send information uncompressed using thunderbolt PCIs lanes, so my proposal would need far more than the 40 GBPS / 4 lanes of a single thunderbolt 3 plug.

You could totally do 12 displays of off 2 thunderbolt connections like no issue? Sure they'll both only run at 20gbps if it's just one thunderbolt controller for the ports. If it's multiple controllers then they'll have a high chance of just running full speed. Then just grab some cheap older 6 monitor cards and call it a day.

 

The usb stuff will never in it's existance compare to even a decade old thunderbolt gpu setup. Also what do you think people with thunderbolt 1 egpu docks did or the even older solutions? That stuff had garbage bandwith but still plenty enough for basic stuff.

 

Also why are you using a laptop for this? This is the point where a desktop becomes what you should use.

[jaslion]

5 minutes ago, Invincible Sugar said:

Wait a moment, does that mean if I ran, say 12 of these adapters, off a USB 3.0 hub, even though the more expensive pluggable adapters are limited to USB 2.0 because the hub would be running at USB 3.0 there would be less of a chance of the total bandwidth being split between the adapters being insufficient?

The cheaper ones basically demand 1 usb 3.0 port an adapter no hubs. The more expensive ones can do usb hub stuff.

 

But again for this setup you'll need a very very strong cpu to even allow webpages to be up on all monitors. So sure you CAN have 14 monitors technically but you can maybe use like 2 at most with active content before the system basically comes to a crawl.

[Invincible Sugar]

11 minutes ago, mariushm said:

If you can get some pci-e lanes outside the laptop or even one pci-e lane (basically the pci-e slot in the eGPU), you could get an adapter board which converts one slot into multiple slots and then install multiple video cards.

 

For example, this adapter board has a chip on it that multiplexes 3 slots into a single pci-e lane  (takes pci-e x1 and creates 3 pci-e x1 slots)

https://www.amazon.com/JIUWU-Express-Switch-Multiplier-Riser/dp/B01I2Y84TE/ref=sr_1_7?dchild=1&keywords=pci-e+switch&qid=1605463524&sr=8-7

This one does two : https://www.amazon.com/Crest-SI-PEX60016-Extension-Switch-Multiplier/dp/B075KNH1GM/ref=sr_1_5?dchild=1&keywords=pci-e+switch&qid=1605463524&sr=8-5

 

So you could get some cheap video cards with 2-3 outputs and cut their edge connector to convert them into pci-e x1 cards (it's possible) and plug them into these slots)

 

but I assume you'd want an actually powerful video card plugged into the eGPU so unless the enclosure has an extra pci-e x1 slot available it kinda sucks.

 

 

Yeah, a usb 3.0 hub would be connected at 5 gbps with the computer, realistically the pc could send 3-4 gbps to the hub, and then the hub can send 10-60 mbps to every usb device.

But really dude, with the money you'd spend on 12 devices you can just buy a 150$ refurbished pc and add a couple video cards in it and connect 12 monitors to it and you could easily use remote desktop connection software or  stuff that lets you move mouse and keyboard between computers to have a seamless integration between your laptop and that second pc.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sorry, I hit the wrong button.

 

I explained this in the post in the spoiler text and I've explained it on the Discord server where I got help yesterday. So I apologize in advance if I sound irritated. But I am well aware of cheaper desktop solutions. I have to use a laptop for this setup. There is no other way. I want to run as many screens as I reasonably can off of the laptop because it is replacing an existing desktop. If I could just use a desktop I absolutely would, it would by far be the cheaper and easier way to go. Unfortunately, that's not available as an option. I have to make do with this specific laptop which meets all of my specific needs for internet and processing.

 

I will look into this solution you mentioned with a split pcie lane. That's interesting.

 

Ultimately I just need to run a lot of displays mostly for text stuff, I don't really care about the processing power of the GPU. the only reason I would prefer an egpu over these USB adapters is it offloads the work to an external device instead of making the CPU which is already working on other stuff also handle that.

 

Maybe I can achieve that through some kind of external enclosure of similar size to a desktop which just handles multiple low end gpus with some kind of jury rigged thunderbolt 3 connection to the laptop. As you said, even one or two PCIe lanes would suffice.

 

Maybe I can find a single graphics card with six or more outputs that fits in a single enclosure to use over thunderbolt 3.

 

Maybe I can use a ton of these USB adapters with a hub.

 

Maybe I can mix and match, I do have a perfectly good EVGA GTX 1070 in my desktop now, I won't be using that desktop so I could just put that into an enclosure, it would only get me four screens I think, maybe 3, and it's far more powerful than I need, but I could do that + 4 or 5 USB adapters and the 3 iGPU driven displays.

 

You've presented me with a couple new options I didn't think about, thank you!

[Invincible Sugar]

17 minutes ago, jaslion said:

You could totally do 12 displays of off 2 thunderbolt connections like no issue? Sure they'll both only run at 20gbps if it's just one thunderbolt controller for the ports. If it's multiple controllers then they'll have a high chance of just running full speed. Then just grab some cheap older 6 monitor cards and call it a day.

 

The usb stuff will never in it's existance compare to even a decade old thunderbolt gpu setup. Also what do you think people with thunderbolt 1 egpu docks did or the even older solutions? That stuff had garbage bandwith but still plenty enough for basic stuff.

 

Also why are you using a laptop for this? This is the point where a desktop becomes what you should use.

I have 2 thunderbolt 3 ports on this laptop, and because it's a thinkpad there is a third proprietary port, I think it's intended for ethernet but it might also work for a dock.

 

In a perfect world I would have everything running off of a single usb-c thunderbolt 3 cable. Not only because of bragging rights, but because anecdotal experience tells me using multiple cables gets a little more janky because the computer starts to allocate resources to whatever is plugged in first without realizing you're about to plug in even more stuff...

 

I don't need to do a lot on these screens. Discord moderation, email, Twitter DMs. Etc. But I was told on Discord that running two eGPUs and a dock dasiychained with one cable to the laptop wouldn't work because of bandwidth issues.

 

It has to be a laptop. My internet options at home necessitate it. I can get internet on a laptop with cellular options, but I can't with a desktop. Because of TOS rules from the carriers, data limits, etc, there is no way to run an unlimited data plan on a desktop.

[Invincible Sugar]

21 minutes ago, jaslion said:

The cheaper ones basically demand 1 usb 3.0 port an adapter no hubs. The more expensive ones can do usb hub stuff.

 

But again for this setup you'll need a very very strong cpu to even allow webpages to be up on all monitors. So sure you CAN have 14 monitors technically but you can maybe use like 2 at most with active content before the system basically comes to a crawl.

Hmm. I don't know what specs the Intel nuc had in the video but it was a few years old. This laptop will have an Intel i7-10510U.

[jaslion]

37 minutes ago, Invincible Sugar said:

Hmm. I don't know what specs the Intel nuc had in the video but it was a few years old. This laptop will have an Intel i7-10510U.

Well from doing some research to make sure what I knew about all of this was still correct these are the 3 options ranged from best and easiest to worst and most complex.

 

1. Get a usb lte adapter for a desktop. Doesn't break any tos for a device sim and this allows you to do the setup properly in desktop

 

2. Get 2 thunderbolt docks with 2 6 display gpu's. Your thinkpad has 2 port so just 2 docks on their own. Sure both wont perform at 100% but it's still infinity better than option 3. You don't need anything fancy for it either. 2 basic docks, some random 6 port 6 display capable gpu (some used older quadro's or firepro's are so easy to get for this or just some older amd eyefinity cards).

 

3. The bad usb setup. Why bad? Well I examed the video and just slowing it down I saw a lot of articfacting going on subtly the moment the slideshow on the website became active which is what I knew would happen. When the slides go off the cpu of that machine goes to 50% usage immediately to hope to keep up but geez does it struggle doing it. So basically what I knew was going on was going on. The monitors were set up the have as static a possible display with minimal changes so the system could keep up. I can tell you right here right now the moment a video plays on any of those screens that ARENT hooked up to the gpu this whole setups falls apart. There was also a lot of tearing and small hitching going on dragging that window around which is another indication that the system is going hard to keep going.

 

Sure you will have a bit over double the power in your pc but this system was having issues playing a website slideshow on a screen and no matter how much power you throw at it it's never gonna be great. So just ditch the option.

 

Also maybe just ya know get a couple big ass monitors and do windows sectioning on them where they get divided into zones so you can just snap your applications to those? Like a 55 inch 4k tv 2-3 and call it a day? That and get a laptop that can do triple monitor out?

[Invincible Sugar]

21 minutes ago, jaslion said:

1. Get a usb lte adapter for a desktop. Doesn't break any tos for a device sim and this allows you to do the setup properly in desktop

Not possible. There is no plan prepaid or postpaid on any carrier or NVMO which allows this. All plans for LTE adapters and LTE modems are by the gig. I need an unlimited data plan, I use hundreds of GBs a month. Sometimes 1 TB.

[Invincible Sugar]

24 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Also maybe just ya know get a couple big ass monitors and do windows sectioning on them where they get divided into zones so you can just snap your applications to those? Like a 55 inch 4k tv 2-3 and call it a day? That and get a laptop that can do triple monitor out?

I could, but I already have a good monitor setup. I think I like your 2 eGPUs each on their own cable option. I'll look for those used cards, thank you!

[jaslion]

Just now, Invincible Sugar said:

Not possible. There is no plan prepaid or postpaid on any carrier or NVMO which allows this. All plans for LTE adapters and LTE modems are by the gig. I need an unlimited data plan, I use hundreds of GBs a month. Sometimes 1 TB.

How are you getting internet on your laptop then? It has to have a sim right if it's using mobile internet as you said? Those cellular options in laptops are identical to those in a desktop so there is for one no way for them to even know what device it is and secondly there's only a handfull of commonly used lte chipsets and the ones lenovo uses are readily available for desktop too.

[Invincible Sugar]

Just now, jaslion said:

How are you getting internet on your laptop then? It has to have a sim right if it's using mobile internet as you said? Those cellular options in laptops are identical to those in a desktop so there is for one no way for them to even know what device it is and secondly there's only a handfull of commonly used lte chipsets and the ones lenovo uses are readily available for desktop too.

I have an unlimited tablet plan which works fine in a laptop, because the laptop has built in LTE. This is different than a USB or ethernet LTE modem which has its own connection then shares it with a computer.

 

I don't know what technical details T-Mobile or other carriers use to decipher what internet traffic is hotspot data and what internet traffic is on device, but they absolutely can tell. There are ways to hack the device so they can't tell, but not only does that violate TOS, it's also going to be caught at my usage. Sure, you might be on an unlimited data plan with 10 GB of hotspot data, and with a hack you could use 30 or 40 or 50 GB of data that appears to the network as though it's on device when it's actually hotspot and they would never know. But because I use hundreds of gigabytes or even a terabyte or more per month they will have a human being manually investigate what device I'm using and what kind of data I'm sending. They will be able to figure out what's going on and will cancel my subscription. it's happened to other people before who have used these hacks. If I use the laptop which is kosher with T-Mobile and then use egpus and other tricks to maximize my productivity with the laptop they don't intend me to use that heavily I will be able to get away with all the data usage I need and still be fully within the terms of service. and I know from conversations with other customers that if you manage to game the system within the terms of service you can use four or five or six terabytes a month and they won't stop you, as long as you are following their rules.

[mariushm]

I'd also like to point out another alternative solution...

There are monitor with VESA mounts in the back, and there are tiny ITX cases or things like raspberry pi  with a pci-e slots, so you could get an old workstation video card (there's amd cards with 6 displayports for example)

 

You can get a cheap Atom board in ITX format which also runs from 12v wallwart power supply for less than 50$ on ebay, and you can run windows from a cheap 32-64 GB ssd and plug a video card in one of those pci-e slots)

 

Here's an example, Atom board with 2 GB of ram (upgradable to 4 GB) for 40$ : https://www.ebay.com/itm/MiTAC-PD11TI-Mini-ITX-Motherboard-Intel-Atom-N2800-1-86GHz-2GB-DDR3-NM10/352706291091?epid=27026507428&hash=item521eeee593:g:0TEAAOSwdxddGjBs

 

You can use a pci-e x1 riser cable to attach a video card to it.

[Invincible Sugar]

Just now, mariushm said:

I'd also like to point out another alternative solution...

There are monitor with VESA mounts in the back, and there are tiny ITX cases or things like raspberry pi  with a pci-e slots, so you could get an old workstation video card (there's amd cards with 6 displayports for example)

 

You can get a cheap Atom board in ITX format which also runs from 12v wallwart power supply for less than 50$ on ebay, and you can run windows from a cheap 32-64 GB ssd and plug a video card in one of those pci-e slots)

 

Here's an example, Atom board with 2 GB of ram (upgradable to 4 GB) for 40$ : https://www.ebay.com/itm/MiTAC-PD11TI-Mini-ITX-Motherboard-Intel-Atom-N2800-1-86GHz-2GB-DDR3-NM10/352706291091?epid=27026507428&hash=item521eeee593:g:0TEAAOSwdxddGjBs

 

You can use a pci-e x1 riser cable to attach a video card to it.

Again, if the actual internet traffic is not coming from the laptop it will not work. It will count as hotspot or tethering data which is not unlimited. 

[jaslion]

1 minute ago, Invincible Sugar said:

I have an unlimited tablet plan which works fine in a laptop, because the laptop has built in LTE. This is different than a USB or ethernet LTE modem which has its own connection then shares it with a computer.

 

I don't know what technical details T-Mobile or other carriers use to decipher what internet traffic is hotspot data and what internet traffic is on device, but they absolutely can tell. There are ways to hack the device so they can't tell, but not only does that violate TOS, it's also going to be caught at my usage. Sure, you might be on an unlimited data plan with 10 GB of hotspot data, and with a hack you could use 30 or 40 or 50 GB of data that appears to the network as though it's on device when it's actually hotspot and they would never know. But because I use hundreds of gigabytes or even a terabyte or more per month they will have a human being manually investigate what device I'm using and what kind of data I'm sending. They will be able to figure out what's going on and will cancel my subscription. it's happened to other people before who have used these hacks. If I use the laptop which is kosher with T-Mobile and then use egpus and other tricks to maximize my productivity with the laptop they don't intend me to use that heavily I will be able to get away with all the data usage I need and still be fully within the terms of service. and I know from conversations with other customers that if you manage to game the system within the terms of service you can use four or five or six terabytes a month and they won't stop you, as long as you are following their rules.

I'm not talking about usb here anymore or anything. I'm talking about literally buying the same exact lte chip that is in your laptop and plugging it into your desktop. Which is not hard to do at all and then the device will just be another random computer using the sim just for itself. No tos voiding as this is exactly how it is intended to be used.

 

Hell even those usb ones are how it is intended to be used and is not in void with tos.

[jaslion]

Even went to look it up further this is what they expect you to do:

 

Use the sim in ONE device with a LTE adapter.

 

Which basically means one device uses the card with any form of adapter you please. So yeah not really an issue.

[Invincible Sugar]

3 minutes ago, jaslion said:

I'm not talking about usb here anymore or anything. I'm talking about literally buying the same exact lte chip that is in your laptop and plugging it into your desktop. Which is not hard to do at all and then the device will just be another random computer using the sim just for itself. No tos voiding as this is exactly how it is intended to be used.

 

Hell even those usb ones are how it is intended to be used and is not in void with tos.

Oh yes, I understand now. I've thought about that, but it won't work. At first, yes, but within a few billing cycles it stops. Others have tried that hack, but it doesn't work. I understand, technically, the chip is the modem so why would it matter? But T-Mobile can tell what system that chip is connected to, and if it's in a pre-built system with a built in screen, like a laptop or tablet or 2 in 1, it's fine. They allow that. If it's custom, or a desktop, they won't. I tried replacing the WiFi card in my older Dell laptop with an LTE chip, accepting I'd only have LTE without WiFi, and they cut it off after 2 months on the basis that it was not a "prebuilt system with a built in screen" because that Dell was never sold with LTE, so it was not OK with them.