Adding minipcie to motherboard

[inimloom]

Greetings

 

I am writing here to gather some insight on mini pcie ports on motherboards. I have a lenovo y570 laptop and originally there was an option to order it with TV tuner card that was put into one of the mini ports. Because I was thinking of trying to install eGPU, I wanted to explore the idea. The greatest problem here, is that my laptop does not have a TV tuner card.

 

If one looks at the motherboard block diagram ( Block diagram here ), one can observe that there is a PCI lane that should go to TV, therefore it should be available.  Motherboard has a following configuration of PCI lanes: 4xPCI Express x1, 1xPCI Express x4, 2xPCI Express x16.  At least one of x16 is occupied by GPU, one x1 by gigabit LAN, one x1 by USB3, one x1 by wifi  and one x1 by SDcard reader. Therefore I think I should have at least x4 on the TV slot... maybe.

 

Now, to the problem itself. A motherboard without original TV tuner does not have a socket installed. Observe: The bottom left corner has a white marking for the slot . One can compare that to a motherboard that has a slot. Observe: The slot exists

 

I have already soldered a socket to the slot, but the initial problem was, that it did not have power. Therefore I ran 3v line from another slot to this one and tested with original WIFI card. The card warmed up, therfore It was receiving power. But there was no connection. Then I tried flashing unlocked bios. Still nothing.

 

Am I missing something? What kind of peripheral devices (capacitors, photocouplers etc.) does a minipcie slot need? I assume that data lines should be connected to the controller. Is there somekind of enable line, so the controller knows the socket is alive?

 

If anyone can give some insight on this topic, I would be really grateful.

 

Thank You!

[SLAYR]

It shouldn't need anything other then just putting a socket on it, recheck your solder points, and make sure nothing is shorting out.

 

I would say to try using an egpu where the wifi card is, and using a usb wifi adapter.

[inimloom]

Actually there were no power connected to the pads. I first took measurements from working WIFI adapter PCI lane and compared to new socket. The ground was there of-course, but no 3.3V power. Maybe I still need to connect 1.5V line? On Wifi card, there were no connections that used 1.5V line. I assume that this pinout is correct ( pinout ). It corresponded to WIFI card i have.

 

I am just messing around with this so I could avoid using usb WIFI. Moreover, the orientation of the "free" port is more favorable.

 

Second possibility would be somehow connecting USB port to the same PCI and connect the dongle internally.

 

 

Only connections that are connected together at the moment are corresponding power connections. Therefore, it should be short connection free.

[SLAYR]

15 minutes ago, inimloom said:

Actually there were no power connected to the pads. I first took measurements from working WIFI adapter PCI lane and compared to new socket. The ground was there of-course, but no 3.3V power. Maybe I still need to connect 1.5V line? On Wifi card, there were no connections that used 1.5V line. I assume that this pinout is correct ( pinout ). It corresponded to WIFI card i have.

If there is no voltage on any of the 3.3V inputs, there is something wrong, as usually the manufacturer just doesn't put the port in, who knows if any of the data lines are actually connected as well.

 

There is a voltage difference if the slot is configured as a msata as compared to a mpcie, the 3.3V power is in a different pin, and another pin is swapped.

 

 

[inimloom]

So, as I can understand, the TX and RX with other data lines are the ones that should end up connected to the controller directly? No optoisolation or other intermediate circuitry? If so, applying power to right pins should get it going.

 

If I compare the pictures of the motherboards with TV and my motherboard, I can find two missing components. There may be more missing on the other side.