Sugestions on how to check compatability

[lfk]

I have a pretty old basic machine running a MSI H87I mini-itx 1160 LGA motherboard.  It's done me vey well with regular upgrades of CPU and ram over the years.

 

Win 10 lastest

Xeon E3-1241 v3

Radeon RX 570

 

I recently purchased a bunch of cheap aliexpress PCI-e wifi 6 cards (https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005002182063182.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.5e674c4dQbegIK) and put them into a range of older laptops and the above mentioned motherboard.  Works perfectly in the laptops but having intermittent issues in the above mentioned motherboard.

 

Started by not detecting the right drivers so after some searches got the applicable intel driver download and it worked.  But on a number of occasions if I sleep or shutdown the machine and start it up later the wifi adaptor is completely gone in device manger.  Not detected at all as though I took the card out.  Event logs seem to indicate it was seen but couldn't start the device.  Suspect its just a straight up compatability issue but is there a way I can confirm this and its not just a config issue or something else that can be fixed.

 

It this mobo and wifi card combo just wont work how can I find a mini pci-e wifi6 card that will work?  Dont want to keep buying one after the other and hope they work.

[BobVonBob]

It could be that this particular adapter is faulty in a way that the other adapters you installed were not.

 

As for checking the compatibility, search the internet and see if someone else has added a WiFi card that didn't have a compatibility issue. If you can't find anything, then it's just luck. The card you have should have worked, but it didn't, and there was no way of telling that before you tried it. It sucks, but other than physical compatibility there is no way to know if a specific device will work unless you find someone else that had the problem first.

[LogicalDrm]

mPCIe is not directly compatible with PCIe. There's your reason for it not working. You will need either to get mPCIe to PCIe adapter, or just get internal WiFI PCIe adapter.

[aramini]

2 hours ago, LogicalDrm said:

mPCIe is not directly compatible with PCIe. There's your reason for it not working. You will need either to get mPCIe to PCIe adapter, or just get internal WiFI PCIe adapter.

Are you sure? My understanding is that it's just a smaller form factor. It should be electronically/protocol compatible. It is probably just due to the fact that mPCIe cards don't have retention clips or a bracket to hold it in place and therefore the card is loose in the desktop PCIe slot (physical connectivity issue). So as you stated, a mPCIe to PCIe adapter would be warranted here.

 

Such as:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B07N2X62LQ/ref=psdcmw_13983711_t1_B07JBCL1CJ

 

Otherwise, there may be some kind of bus/sleep setting and the card isn't being "woken up" or something like that.

[LogicalDrm]

7 hours ago, aramini said:

Are you sure? My understanding is that it's just a smaller form factor. It should be electronically/protocol compatible. It is probably just due to the fact that mPCIe cards don't have retention clips or a bracket to hold it in place and therefore the card is loose in the desktop PCIe slot (physical connectivity issue). So as you stated, a mPCIe to PCIe adapter would be warranted here.

 

Such as:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B07N2X62LQ/ref=psdcmw_13983711_t1_B07JBCL1CJ

 

Otherwise, there may be some kind of bus/sleep setting and the card isn't being "woken up" or something like that.

Quick search says they aren't. Why would there be need for adapters if they were... PCIe 4x is compatible with PCIe x16, but various sources say (including Wikipedia) that mPCIe is both physically and by pinout different from PCIe x4 to what its closest physically.

[aramini]

4 hours ago, LogicalDrm said:

Quick search says they aren't. Why would there be need for adapters if they were... PCIe 4x is compatible with PCIe x16, but various sources say (including Wikipedia) that mPCIe is both physically and by pinout different from PCIe x4 to what its closest physically.

 

Interesting. I did not see any pin-outs for mPCIe on Wikipedia, but (assuming a device follows the standard) it is supposedly PCIe 1x compatible + USB 2.0 compatible (protocol-wise, not connector-wise). Obviously it is much smaller physically and so the dimensions on the traces and trace width would differ. I checked the website of PCI-SIG (who develop and maintain the PCIe specifications) but did not see a clear pin-out comparison of mPCIe vs PCIe.

 

Quote

PCI Express Mini Card

PCI Express Mini Card (also known as Mini PCI Express, Mini PCIe, Mini PCI-E, mPCIe, and PEM), based on PCI Express, is a replacement for the Mini PCI form factor. It is developed by the PCI-SIG. The host device supports both PCI Express and USB 2.0 connectivity, and each card may use either standard. Most laptop computers built after 2005 use PCI Express for expansion cards; however, as of 2015, many vendors are moving toward using the newer M.2 form factor for this purpose.

Due to different dimensions, PCI Express Mini Cards are not physically compatible with standard full-size PCI Express slots; however, passive adapters exist that let them be used in full-size slots.^[33]

Passive adapter would indicate it is not doing much to alter the signals. Of course a 16x card is going to have more lanes than an 8x or a 4x, etc.

 

Anyways, yeah... the OP should get an adapter.

[LogicalDrm]

5 minutes ago, aramini said:

 

Interesting. I did not see any pin-outs for mPCIe on Wikipedia, but (assuming a device follows the standard) it is supposedly PCIe 1x compatible + USB 2.0 compatible (protocol-wise, not connector-wise). Obviously it is much smaller physically and so the dimensions on the traces and trace width would differ. I checked the website of PCI-SIG (who develop and maintain the PCIe specifications) but did not see a clear pin-out comparison of mPCIe vs PCIe.

 

Passive adapter would indicate it is not doing much to alter the signals. Of course a 16x card is going to have more lanes than an 8x or a 4x, etc.

 

Anyways, yeah... the OP should get an adapter.

I couldn't see pinout either. But going by physical difference, and knowing mPCIe is 52pin kinda implicates pins are not hitting the correct spots.

[aramini]

7 minutes ago, LogicalDrm said:

I couldn't see pinout either. But going by physical difference, and knowing mPCIe is 52pin kinda implicates pins are not hitting the correct spots.

That being the case, I am surprised it was even working for the OP even intermittently instead of not at all.