Mini 110 3000 CTO activating 2nd internal Slot

[ashton4life]

Hello everyone,
I searched the forum on this and found a couple of threads asking about this but didn't find a solution. I'll do my best to describe the situation. I own a HP Mini 110 3000 CTO netbook. I recently purchased a Broadcom CrystalHD decoder card but noticed it was not being recognized in the bios or windows when installed in the open slot. I tried the same slot with the wifi card and it did the same thing, no recognition. Everything works fine in the smaller slot where my wifi is so its not an issue with the card. I was wondering if maybe there was a slot lock in the bios? I have posted two links below, one for my current bios and one for the next model that uses the slot and Broadcom CrystalHD card. Maybe it will help in identifing the differences and or settings. I would be so grateful if someone could help me on this. Thanks

Charlene



My The Mini 110 3000 CTO current bios:
Link: http://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp51501-52000/sp51731.exe

The Mini 110 3500 CTO bios with functional 2nd internal mini slot:
Link: http://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp56001-56500/sp56497.exe

---

Update!!! I just found out the 2nd inop slot is for USB only, this is why its for WWAN. The decoder and current WiFi card need to be on PCIexpres to function. I would need to find a USB wifi MiniPCI card. Can anyone confirm this? How do I know what Wifi card is USB for MiniPCIE?

Thanks

[lano1106]

I have a HP Mini 110-3744ca. I'm looking forward to hack it to be able to install a Crystal HD card in the second PCIe mini slot.

I do believe that the second slot is for MiniPCIE and here are the info that led me to think that:

The PC is using an Intel NM10 chipset that do have up to 4 PCIe slots. The BIOS can deactivate any of these (it is all explained in NM10 Spec PDF). My OS tells me the following:

lano1106@hpmini ~ $ lspci
...
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family PCI Express Port 1 (rev 02)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family PCI Express Port 3 (rev 02)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family PCI Express Port 4 (rev 02)
...
01:00.0 Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8188CE 802.11b/g/n WiFi Adapter (rev 01)
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller (rev 05)

lano1106@hpmini ~ $ lspci -t
-[0000:00]-+-00.0
+-02.0
+-02.1
+-1b.0
+-1c.0-[01]----00.0
+-1c.2-[02]--
+-1c.3-[03]----00.0
1. Device 1c is PCIe controller.
2. The BIOS has deactivated 1 PCIe port (port2)
3. Port 1 is used by the Wifi card. Port 4 by the Ethernet card
4. One port is free.

The free PCIe connector that I see behind the service panel matches what the OS sees.

Now the way the chipset works is that the memory location where the bios can deactivate a PCIe slot is WO (Write-Once). I can imagine the BIOS querying the PCI devices and if their IDs do not match a given whitelist, it writes into it to turn off that pcie slot.