MiniPCI Express slot

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Revision as of 04:17, 20 May 2011 by Notpeter (Talk | contribs) (link to Thinkpad BIOS which enables 3rd party mini PCIe devices)
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A MiniPCI Express slot is a version of the PCI-Express x1 slot for Notebooks.

NOTE!
There are two physical form factors, a standard 30×50.95 mm, and a half-height 30×26.8 mm. Some ThinkPads only support the later


MiniPCI Express Adapters

WLAN

WWAN

Other

(In)Compatibility

Though the slot is MiniPCIe in form factor, it has been crippled to only accept devices with PCI-ID's contained in a BIOS whitelist consisting of the above list of devices (likely not exhaustive and varying depending on the particular system) with the additional requirement that they must carry the Lenovo brand name and consequently cost twice as much. If an unauthorized card is plugged in it gives a 1802 error on initial boot up before it even touches the operating system. (see Problem with unauthorized MiniPCI network card, 1802 with MiniPCIe on t60,same). The workarounds on the first link concerning MiniPCI devices may or may not be directly applicable to the MiniPCIe slot. Anyone who has added non-Lenovo components to this slot either successfully or unsuccessfully is encouraged to provide any relevant details here.

Hacked BIOS with white list removed

Non-official patched versions of BIOS files are available for X300, X61, X61s, T61, T61p, R61, R61e which remove whitelist restrictions allowing non-lenovo PCI-e devices.. (see forum post: Ultimate R61/T61/X61/X300 BIOS (inc SATA-II)

Linux support

MiniPCI Express adapters are handled by the Linux PCI subsystem.

Models featuring this Technology

External sources