AH532 Upgrades

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DemonicBunnee
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AH532 Upgrades

Postby DemonicBunnee » Mon Oct 08, 2012 13:27

Hi,

I recently purchased a Lifebook AH532, and when checking to make sure that I have free ram slot I noticed that there was also an unoccupied mini PCI-E slot. Now I have a couple of questions I hope someone would be able/willing to answer.

    -Is this second mini PCI-E operational?
    -Is said mini PCI-E mSATA compatible?
    -If yes does this slot operate a SATA3 (6Gb/s)?
    -If not what bandwidth is available to this slot (For use with a mini PCI-E SSD)

    -What is the maximum amount of memory each slot can handle? (8GB?)
    -Does this notebook support XMP? (Allowing the memory to adjust the clock speed and latencies to the memory's specs)

Would really appreciate a quick reply to this as I would like to get the possible upgrades done ASAP.

Thanks :D

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sabrex
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Re: AH532 Upgrades

Postby sabrex » Mon Oct 08, 2012 13:48

UMTS slot.jpg
UMTS slot.jpg (35.25 KiB) Viewed 27559 times

I think your talking about a free slot on the right in the pic which is where the UMTS card usualy goes.

-Is this second mini PCI-E operational? Yes
-Is said mini PCI-E mSATA compatible? im checking - answer no idea but i know why you are asking it is because it may have a built in controller , samsung were the only ones i think producing a mini SSD with the sata controller built in (as of 2010)
-If yes does this slot operate a SATA3 (6Gb/s)? im checking - no idea unlikely
-If not what bandwidth is available to this slot (For use with a mini PCI-E SSD) Its where a UMTS card goes

The only way to find out is to call the manufacturer who can pass a query to Germany. Id be interested to find out .

Main Memory
2 memory slots
DDR3 -1600 MHz
Up to a total amount of 16GB
- 2GB DDR3, 1600 MHz
- 4GB DDR3, 1600 MHz
- 8GB DDR3, 1600 Mhz

DemonicBunnee
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Re: AH532 Upgrades

Postby DemonicBunnee » Mon Oct 08, 2012 14:36

That would be correct sabrex, here a picture of the aforementioned slot:

Image

Also visible in the picture is the Intel Centrino N2230 wireless card.

I google the card's model number which confirmed that the card is a mPCI-E card.

Also visible on the picture is the slot manufacturer, LOTES, as well as what seems to be printed batch numbers (121502). The model numbers for Lotes mPCI-E slots are a totally different format.

Now apart from the slots being physically similar, assuming that the numbers are either batch or model numbers, I believe it is safe to assume both slots are the same, and thus mPCI-E.

Also, mSATA and mPCI-E connectors are physically the same, but electronically different.

Wikipedia wrote:The connector [mSATA] is similar in appearance to a PCI Express Mini Card interface,[28] and is electrically compatible; however, the data signals (TX±/RX± SATA, PETn0 PETp0 PERn0 PERp0 PCI-express) need connection to the SATA host controller instead of the PCI-express host controller.


Wikipedia wrote:Despite the mini-PCI Express form factor, a mini-PCI Express slot must have support for the electrical connections an mSATA drive requires. For this reason, only certain notebooks are compatible with mSATA drives. Most compatible systems are based on Intel's Sandy Bridge processor architecture, using the Huron River platform. But for a mSATA/mini-PCI-E connector, the only prerequisite is that there is a switch which makes it either a mSATA or a mini-PCI-E slot and can be implemented on any platform.


Hope this helps explain why I've posted my questions.

@sabrex: Thanks for the information regarding the RAM.

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sabrex
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Re: AH532 Upgrades

Postby sabrex » Mon Oct 08, 2012 14:43

Thanks i already went wiki and read it. The only way to find out is to call the manufacturer Fujitsu.

DemonicBunnee
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Re: AH532 Upgrades

Postby DemonicBunnee » Mon Oct 08, 2012 14:55

sabrex wrote:Thanks i already went wiki and read it. The only way to find out is to call the manufacturer Fujitsu.


Being the Fujitsu forum I was hoping they had representatives active here who would be able to answer my questions.

In short I just want to know that if I bought an ADATA XPG SX300 (or similar) and installed it in the free slot, would it work? :twisted: :mrgreen: :twisted:

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sabrex
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Re: AH532 Upgrades

Postby sabrex » Mon Oct 08, 2012 15:17

This is just a users helping users
you can wait for a tech support agent :)
Waiting4Supportagent.jpg
Waiting4Supportagent.jpg (13.48 KiB) Viewed 27552 times

If you dont want to make the call why not email
ukhelpdesk@uk.fujitsu.com

include the serial number , address and phone number for yourselfs.
or you could wait for another helping user who has already attempted this and found out if it works or not.
:shock:

DemonicBunnee
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Re: AH532 Upgrades

Postby DemonicBunnee » Mon Oct 08, 2012 15:27

Haha, I'll drop them a mail, calling them from S. Africa will cost me an arm and a leg, and probably some other body parts....

What ever happens, I'll report back, hopefully I'll get an answer from Fujitsu. "We" have 3 of these notebooks, and we all want SSDs, and no one ever really wants to sacrifice the storage space you get from a conventional HDD, so I guess if Fujitsu doesn't help, one of us are bound to take the chance.

DemonicBunnee
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Re: AH532 Upgrades

Postby DemonicBunnee » Mon Oct 08, 2012 15:47

Did some digging and found that the AH532 uses the Mobile Intel HM76 Express Chipset.

According to this article the HP ENVY14-3108TU SPECTRE also has the HM76 Express Chipset, and mSATA. Kinda makes it seem like this might work, as from what I understand the chipset controls the mSATA/mPCI-E switching.

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sabrex
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Re: AH532 Upgrades

Postby sabrex » Mon Oct 08, 2012 16:02

chipsetHM76.jpg
chipsetHM76.jpg (121.73 KiB) Viewed 27543 times

It might work i cant find any definate 100% though

WannarN
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Re: AH532 Upgrades

Postby WannarN » Sat Nov 10, 2012 17:51

Did it work?
I'm just wondering aswell, what else can you use the slot for? i mean, it should do something right?

rodman
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Re: AH532 Upgrades

Postby rodman » Mon Nov 19, 2012 15:27

I'm also interested in this since i want to buy this notebook...it'll be wonderfull if a msata ssd would work in that mini PCI-E...
Tell me...the user manual doesn't say anything about this?...or in BIOS is no option regarding a second drive or msata or something?...I'm just very curious...
Thanks!

DemonicBunnee
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Re: AH532 Upgrades

Postby DemonicBunnee » Mon Nov 19, 2012 16:00

Aparently it does not work. Someone i know tested it with no success :-(

Klepto
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Re: AH532 Upgrades

Postby Klepto » Fri Mar 15, 2013 18:09

DemonicBunnee wrote:Aparently it does not work. Someone i know tested it with no success :-(


What exactly doesn't work? I know the whole mSATA-isn't-really-pci-e thing, but I have an SSD with a proper onboard SATA controller (Supertalent CoreStore MV). That should work, but the slot itself seems to be inactive on my machine, if I move the wifi card into the empty slot it' not recognised, and neither is my SSD. Is this a firmware thing or should I just try to forget the spare pci-e slot is there? Anyone know?

iainmd
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Re: AH532 Upgrades

Postby iainmd » Wed Jun 12, 2013 10:49

It won't work. The correct electrical connections aren't on that PCIe connector to use an SSD/SATA storage device. It will only work with USB emulation devices. I know because I have tried and researched.

Ren Höek
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Re: AH532 Upgrades

Postby Ren Höek » Mon Oct 14, 2013 9:45

It does seem to work at least with some mini PCI-E SSDs with onboard controller.

Here is an amazon review, where someone got a Kingspec mini PCI-E 64 GB SSD running:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/review/RIMW3SLQ6IDDC
As far as I can tell, it's the model with PATA onboard.
For him, the mentioned "Supertalent CoreStore MV" with SATA onboard should work as well.

For Klepto, the slot doesn't work at all.

Before any experiments with expensive SSDs, I wanted to try switching the WLAN module, just to discover...
... no second slot. Just the one for WLAN.

So there might be some variance on how the slots are connected or present at all!?!!


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