Turning the wifi slot into a SIM card slot for cellular internet connection is the #1 most amazing modification that no one feels like they should talk about. This is a high end feature only some business class laptops receive.

the five stages of computer shenanigans - what happens if.. - wait what - no way this works- - oh.. s#!t... - OH F&€K

Oh hey. I made that wikipedia E key edit. It used to be that it was written in a way that could make people think m.2 E could be 2x PCIe x1 but that was not the case. It is a mix of 2 of the following list.

I've used this slot for an additional ethernet port on a hp prodesk mini. I've genuinely considered making a small pcb to split the different functions for different uses.

You need a common ground thats why it worked when you shorted the both grounds. Anytime to use two different power supplies you'll need to do this. It's not going to hurt anything just make it work!

If you're going to use a PC PSU as external power supply again in the future, try to make a USB Optocoupler to trigger the green wire so you don't need to jumper the psu with paperclip and don't need to remove it because as soon as the board powered on/off, the optocoupler will also get powered on/off, and also it will trigger the PSU on or off. Try a cheap PC817 with some resistor

When you run two PSUs, it's best practice to bond the case ground to case ground (assuming both of them have metal cases) ...AS WELL AS... the zero volt rails to each other. Keep these seperate - for example, bond the cases with one heavy ground wire. Seperately, bond both 0V rails (black wires, usually) together. In your situation here, I assume you#re using a 19V plastic brick PSU and the second PSU is the $5 metal case ATX PSU, so, being unable to bond the PSUs cases because one is plastic, you simply make sure the black wire of the second PSU is very firmly connected to the chassis 0V of the mini PC, usually the metal case is directly connected to the 0V line. I've guessing that there was a potential differance ("a voltage" to most people) between the 0V rail on one PSU and the 0V rail on the other PSU. The only thing linking the two 0V rails together was the screening earth braid on the SATA cables, so current was flowing on the SATA screen. This sort of thing can cause all sorts of wierdness. It's not so much about mains safety grouding (to anyone in the US), or "earthing" (in the traditional British English sense - electrical engineers really call that equipotential bonding of exposed metalwork. Nope, it's actually more about making sure that leakage currents or noise voltages don't affect both the devices you are powering AND the PSU regulators themselves. In simple terms: "it's f-ing complicated" :) The potential difference can easily occur do to RFI Y-capacitors on the mains input of one or both PSUs, as the caps are never perfectly equal value and also have a inherent leakage current. This is why you get a "tickle" from the DC power lead on some laptop PSUs. For years I've wondered how gamers could get away with running 2 PSUs in the same case to power a huge GPU, in reality, without bonding the 0V rails there coiuld be all sorts of unusual currents flowing across their GPU and through the PCIe (or PCI/AGP/IDE) socket in a similar way to the way your SATA lead was trying to equalize the two independetly floating 0V rails. For anyone running NAS systems with lots of disks and 2 or more PSUs, it was less of a problem back in the day because each spinning HDD had a nice fat metal case and was screwed directly to the mounting rails in a metal chassis. The HDD 0V rail was internally connected at or near the power connecter on the disk to the metal disk case via the PCB mounting screw pads. But recently, as people do this with SSD and their plastic cases, the problem is occuring on 2-PSU DIY NAS boxes too.

As a $1 member it's worth it easily. It's my kind of tinker heavy computer content.

As others have commented here, I would be extremely cautious using multiple power supplies in a situation like this. I've even had issues using external hard drives on test benches if things aren't properly grounded.

Great video on the m2.E key slot. It would be a great follow up for a Frigate / Coral TPU follow up and how its worked out.

Love those septres. I run the S8s and love them. The imaging is insane. Great vid BTW

One crazy venezuelan here converted it to and adapter to connect a graphics card in a atom laptop. Awesome video.

thank you to do this demo with these cards! I was searching information about it, specific with the 2.5g because in a future I want to do a homelab with mini/micro pcs, but i was'nt sure if was compatible, but with this video I'm more confident to proceed with my project :D

I'm using one of these Coral edge TPUs with Zoneminder on an Intel Nuc, have been for maybe 3 years, and it's brilliant.

I was recently working on an HP SFF pc that only had 2 sata ports, one was in use for the DVD drive and one for the internal hard drive. We added a 2.5" SSD to it but there was no extra sata port. I found on Amazon you can get a little adapter that is the same size as a wifi card that has 2x SATA ports on it so I put that in there and connected the DVD drive to the expansion board and put the SSD into the motherboard. Works awesome. The PC is used on Ethernet so didn't need wifi (and the slot actually came empty on this model of SFF PC!)

That face when everything blacked out was priceless 😂

Peter's video was really cool to come across! I appeciate the run though of all these devices, thanks.

You’re so chill. I enjoy your content man. 🍻

great video!! so helpful! ❤

Good job! I found those 2.5 Gb adapters on Amazon, and they work great on the HP mini Proxmox Cluster units!

Regarding the Sata card, maybe its hitting the power limit since HWInfo shows only 10 watts max on it, or just a weird compatibility issue, not totally sure myself but I've seen other comments try to suggest some tips. Really awesome to see people trying this stuff because I was really curious on how it would work. Great video as always, and keep doing what you do! I aspire to be like you and try stuff to see if it works.

Hey man, been here since 4k subscribers! Love your videos, keep up the good work!

I used my wifi slot to go the cheap eGPU route for my laptop. I even made a video about it! It's pretty old now but gives a good look how I did it.

how did you know that I was googling this last week, great video as always!

I used a 2x sata adapter on a jonsbo n2 which as far as I can tell is the only way to get the maximum 5 drives from a modern consumer itx MOBO. Works pretty well!

I shared this with someone else smart enough to appreciate your possible 'ground' issue between the cases of the PSU and computer. Thank you...🇺🇸 👍☕

That 2.5GB adapter is sweet. I have an older NUC that might need that. FYI I tried to order that 2.5G adapter from that link and they wouldn't ship to my address in Texas for some reason....

Great info. Thanks!

My laptop Prometheus has 4 of these slots. Two half height, two full height. I have installed in them a combo Wifi AC/bluetooth card, a Google Coral, A Sierra Wireless MC7700 4g LTE modem, and some no name 240gb SSD for my OS boot drive. It's an older core perhaps, but it checks out.

You can also buy a PCI X4 adapter for the wifi port, that allow to install whatever card you want. In my case (M710q) i use it to connect a sata card with x6 sata ports i found a really cool way to actually power drives directly from the M710q motherboard, so i have x6 3.5 HDD drives connected

It's a NGFF connector pinned for M.2 E-key, and they're usually only 1XPCI-E lane at the bus. Good enough for a STA SSD or WI-Fi +/- BT.

Nice video, actually the first one which talks about that not all are equal since manufacturers are building them differently. Good job! 😊 Btw the Coral TPU driver is also all available for Unraid and the setup process is much easier.

Old Apple hardware could utilize a Broadcom h.264 accelerator called crystal hd which used mini PCIe. These expansion slots are really useful even though very few people realize.

Cool idea for a video. Thanks for sharing.

I have this HP Elitedesk Mini PC. And this content right now is what im looking for. I want to use the m.2 e into some storage adapter, to make "wannabe" NAS..

Great video. Its common to see people never finding true potential of their computers. There are still people who never tried ssd in their computers.

I didn't know about Frigate, thanks!

I got one of those super jank M.2 to PCIe 16x adapters and put a video card in it and used it for my TV for a while.

Got a HP 800 G4 mini, a newer model that the one showed in the video. Did and experiment with one of those E-key 2.5 gigabit ethernet cards, great fun. Managed to snag an actual Intel-based card (i225) for pretty cheap and mounted it in the G4. Was a tight fit for the E-key card, then the actual Ethernet port (the dangly end like shown in the video) had to be fastened somehow. I managed to get it securely mounted INSIDE the G4 by first of all insulating the metal on it with electrical tape (important), then I used those plastic-coated metal wires you get from packages (I always save those, good to have) and tied the Ethernet port down. There are multiple holes on the back of the PC where you could fasten such wires. The card works great and the port sits flush with the back of the PC.

Thanks for your sharing

Just a tip: Limine boot loader can help to tie together two completely different operating systems together that want to be the only OS on your system, like Windows and Linux (or FreeBSD). Not super plug and play, as there's no default config file and documentation is fairly thin, but it's super doable to glue virtually anything together with Limine (within reason) and have it stick. I've been dual booting with it between different machines and OS for about a year now, and it's been rock solid.

Love your vids!

Great video, and very timely! I've been looking to add Frigate on my Home Assistant instance. I've been researching the Coral TPU and I've gotten equal amount of people recommending M.2 Accelerator A+E key as well as the M.2 Accelerator with Dual Edge TPU for my Intel Nuc 11 (celeron). ANy way you can weigh in here to clear up my confusion on which one will work please?

Great idea. Just tried and now have an extra 2.5G Lan on my mini PC running proxmox.

Whoop whoop. New video in the house!

very useful thank you 👍👍

omg i had this exact idea when i was refurbishing a laptop for a customer yesterday. Thanks this came in a pinch lmao this is great

Great content. Subscribed.

I know Peter, he knows his stuff. I am getting a couple usb corals in a week or 2.cant wait

Mini PC + Coral TPU + Debian + Homeassistant + Frigate NVR. And cameras. AI security camera video analysis for the win.

The TPU was probably the one I'm most interested insince Frigate kind of requires having a TPU installed to work. Part of a much larger project for me and not sure when I'll get started on it.

The Vertical Monitor , what model is that ?? It can take and display 2 diffrent HDMI input is it ? Thanks

Lol, that shot of a mPCIe wifi keeps coming back 🤣

Watching the video and it's clear you've never experienced the thrill of running 2 PCUs together! 😂😂 Reminds me of the good ol' days when I first started mining; we had to make sure they were properly earthed together. Ah, the memories! ⚡

Awesome video! Was trying to figure out what to use that slot for on my own HP Elitedesk mini. I think a 2.5gbs network card would be perfect. Thanks!

I've used the EXP GDC Beast Video Card Dock on my HP Thin Client t630 to use an external graphics card using the Mini-PCie/NVMe slot. While it's VERY limited, it's 100x better than the onboard graphics. It's interesting to see a low-power 4 core APU boosted by an RTX 3050. XD

A few months ago, I bought several B, M, A, E , B+M and A+E and maybe B+E key adaptors (they are packed away) for testing on a latte panda delta 3 and one other MB that I just can't recall at the moment. This was a bit of a flashback to some of the headaches I had while attempting this. I'm reasonably certain that many of my problems were related to the BIOS. Not sure if the devices were whitelisted/blocked in the BIOS or how/why an engineer would even go through the trouble to block and/or enable only certain things, but I do recall having issues getting them to work properly. Adding to the frustration was the fact that BIOS (for the most part) is still secret sauce stuff and I just don't know how they limit and/or allow just certain PCIe devices (or any other device). I can only say that I eventually gave up. I really wish I could have found a completely open BIOS that I could have flashed that would just simply treat any PCIe device as something communicating on the PCIe bus - but that doesn't seem to be the case. Before I ever do this again, I want to find a completely open BIOS that I can configure and flash at will. It really shouldn't be that difficult.

So, I've got a couple of these HP machines with empty "wifi" slots. Of the options you showed here, the Coral TPU is the most interesting to me. Can it be used for anything other than object recognition?

Hi, what is models you are using for person detection ? Yolov or mobilenet ssd, could you make a vedio to use raspberry pi customed detection for opjects.

I transformed mini pcie slot into M2 with adapter, then put some random Samsung nvme - it didn't detect it bcs it had bios from like 2015, I had to mod bios with nvme driver and now I can boot from it!

I gambled this once before on a dell Inspiron 15 5100. The WiFi card was to slow. It only works on b/g protocol. I tried to replace with one that supports n networks but it didn't work. If someone knows what wifi card works on this laptop please let me know.

Damn, that Wikipedia page about CNVio is better than the Intel page describing it 😂 I had a hell of a time trying to figure out why my PC wouldn't even power on when I tried to switch from a 9560 to an AX201

What model was that red and black Asustor 2.5Gbit switch that was shown?

I heard that they used to whitelist like that but don't really any more. I heard HP was one of them that used to do it. I had a more modern HP laptop from the last couple years and upgraded its WiFi myself. I used an AX200NGW and that is even though it wasn't listed as one of the cards that the laptop could have came with if it was a model based off the same motherboard. I just had to get another antenna for it. It only had the cable for one antenna. I just stuck it down somewhere inside the case, it seems asenine to make us mess with the display bezels and do all of that work to get to it. I just made sure to put it where it will not short something. I also taped down the small bit of excess cable but never sharply bent it anywhere. I just needed it to stay in place so it won't move and get pinched when I close it again. I have a new roll of 3M electrical tape for that. The new card worked, none of the computer refusing to boot with it or any of that

I have a prodesk 600 g3 with nvme adt-link for a GPU, an nvme drive with e key adapter in the wifi slot and a sata drive. Very janky but it works!

I've found the slot useful for non wifi, much like you. With the Dell MFF PC's they have Realtek NIC's onboard. Which suck as vmware ESX 7 or later doesn't support them. Rather than have USB adatpers hanging out, put in an Intel 210 gigabit NIC in to slot. The older dell MFF PC's have a VGA hole, which nicely takes the RJ45 connector. It looks almost factory fit. Vmware 7 or 8 will then install. Once vmware is running, you can pass the onboard Realtek NIC through to an OS to use natively if you want. Is how I did my openense firewall - use the Realtek NIC as the external interface, and use the Intel as the internal bridge, alongside other VMs. I don't have an overly quick internet connection, so not an issue for me with regards to the internal NIC contention

I think that it is meant that the network plug from the ethernet adapter must be mounted against the back plate from the inside and not through the back plate from the outside as you have tried.

Thanks for sharing some interesting ideas. I think the power outage really made it feel like being in a workshop and really experimenting with things that may not work! Did you ever come across any converter cards to turn the E Key slot into B or B+M for SATA/NGFF M.2 SSD drives? I wonder if such a thing exists. With that M.2 E key SATA controller: I'd be curious to see what kind of crystal disk mark speeds you get using a SATA 2.5 ssd or a regular 3.5 drive w/external power (grounded power brick like for laptops). My guess is not much above 300MB/sec. The 2.5 drives you have definitely won't max it out. I'm on the fence about getting anything outside of 2.5Gb ethernet for that slot, since it is only PCIe x1. For PCIe 2.0 you get 2.5Gb/sec each way for I/O, so 5gb max for the x1 slot. Theoretically I think your NAS test maxes out the bus speed for that slot. TPU module is probably best use of that slot for the DVR/NVR. Maybe USB 3.x or SATA if a person ran out of ports. Is Frigate only for DVR/NVR with cameras? Or can it be used to do HDMI vid capture too, sort of like a personal DVR?

On my Lenovo M920q HWINFO does not show any x1 PCI-E slots, only x4 (NVME) and another x4 - the weird mini slot for the optional discrete GPU. No x1 slots. So that's how I know my Wi-Fi slot does not support PCI-E? I don't actually have anything installed in that slot.

May I ask how did you manage to setup the grub boot loader I tried to do it so I could get prime os up and running along with windows 11 It wasn't even recognized as bootable and grub was not there

Happy that the Thinkpad X1 keeps the sim card slot accessible outside and sd card as well

Always ground the devices directly! You never know. I personally think it's good practice. Interesting video tho!

I had a random 32GB SSD sitting around doing nothing and an unpopulated slot meant for a 4G card. The extra 32GB drive in my laptop is nice to have considering I only have a 250GB NVMe.

I tried to slip a nvme into my little wifi card slot (since I didn't care about the wifi). I had a compatible 256gb slot. I could read it, but I couldn't boot from it unless my boot manager was on the primary drive..

Your videos are awesome i built a homelab server with proxmox but cant figure out how to auto power on on power outage, Please explain how to enable auto boot if there was a power outage

You shuld do a dedicated video about the Coral edge TPU and Frigate.

I have been using E-key M.2 PCIe for a while now. Mostly converting ebay special board-only Gen 4 or 5 Intel NUCs to turn them into gateway routers for family members and friends. Better solutions than consumer routers off the shelf and much more manageable. Low power, low noise, reliable performance... Yea... People should explore the world of PCIe m.2 E-Key and sometimes you can find some weird B/M key adapters as well. I've even seen 10Gbps adapters, but you'll want to be careful with those, they get hotter than a m.2 NVMe drive. I have used a E-Key cellular card for a family member that had a house in a rural beach area, worked great to make a WAP/Router to monitor a security camera, some sensors and provide internet access when people are using the property.

2:09 love the steady hands 🤣

laughed out loud, hope it all survived,

the face you made after shortage :D cool topic btw, great vid.

I was recently looking for something to use the Wi-Fi socket on a Fujitsu FUTRO-S920 and found a M.2 NGFF to PCI-E Adapter Card to accept an NVMe, which is a nice boost to the mSATA that it came with.

Most early laptops that use that slot for Wi-Fi did white list only a handful of Wi-Fi cards that were compatible so you couldn't upgrade an old n to like an AC Wi-Fi even though the only difference was that card

Thanks. Working on a 9th gen, ATX with this slot.

I actually have an m.2 e key nvme drive in my parts bin somewhere. I bought a late 2012 Mac mini a few years back and swapped out the stock nvme drive for a Samsung something or other, and had to get an adapter to do it. The drive I pulled outta the mini was an e key drive. I tried to sell it on eBay but no one wanted it lol

I have a couple questions. The first is if anyone has suggestions for a 10Gb RJ45 Ethernet or other high speed adapter to use in one of these slots. It seems like PCIe 5, 4, and perhaps 3 ought to be fast enough to support one, at least in theory, and there are a very few out there, but I am wondering if anyone has suggestions. I am also, like another person here, looking for information on combination adapters like both WiFi and cellular in one. Finally, I apologize because it is off topic, but does anyone know of an adapter that would let me mirror data over two different PCIe NVME SSD's in a single slot? Essentially RAID 0 (or is that striping and I mean RAID 1?) without taking up a second slot. It seems like it should be easy to manufacture since you are just taking the same data and writing it to two different places. No need to calculate parity or anything processor intensive. But I can't seem to find one. Even if they are only out there for U.2 slots and I would need an adapter, I am interested. I am trying to figure out a way to get both mirroring and an external GPU, and I only have two 4 lane slots to work with.

The G3 Mini's are so good. Have one setup as a Proxmox server. Often wondered about the Wifi socket.

you can get an e-key to M and B keyed adaptor for the slot as well, but I went the same route you did 2 SATA ports since the mobo I bought can't use it as a boot drive and I can't use WIFI with treuNAS. can we get a full video on how to set up home security? with a system like this? I plan to do something like this but I refuse to buy cameras that connect over WIFI and report to a could server.

They make an E-key to PCIe adapter, similar to m.2 m-key to PCIe for egpus. It can support 2 lanes of pcie, usually 3.0. I had an old laptop i wanted to get it for, but the adapter was too expensive for what it was. 2 lanes of pcie gen3 would be fine for something like a gtx 1050. I wish my current laptop uses an e-key slot for it's wifi, but instead the wifi is soldered on. If it had an e-key, i could use a pcie wifi card, AND still tap into the usb lines to install some internal USB devices.

13:45 the hdd only got recognized because there is a common ground between the power supply in the HP pc and the external power supply, the only path to join these two grounds together are the sata cables to the hdd, so yeah, you might run into some issues if you don't have a proper grounding between the power supply's

My old Lenovo laptop whitelisted only 2 wifi modules. My new laptop doesn't have those issues, luckily.

Do you think it would be convenient to use HP EliteDesk 800 G3 as a router with pfSense, PiHole and Home Assistantm, under proxmox (adding another LAN port)?

Wonderful Palpatine reference.

I'm sad the one in my HP ProDesk SFF only supports CNVi. Can't use it for anything other than wifi :/

When I had a dual-core, I always thought of using the M.2 port, To embark on various solutions, Put gps, bluetooth, wi-fi, npu/vpu, Everything on a small plate to make my computer more usable, Too bad it wasn't I have had and I don't even have to do it, but I leave the idea to brilliant minds to do something like this, and postpone the planned obsolescence a lot.

4:24 I'm using a WD SN740 nvme drive in the wifi card slot as a boot drive for my home NAS (with the J4005DC motherboard), I just had to buy the "M.2 A/E Key Slot To M.2 M"

Can a TPM module be put in that slot ?

My HP laptop 14s has a white list, so only special HP wifi cards work in the slot, and whats crazy is that instead of telling me that the card isnt supportet, it just gives me a "defective cooling fan" error and dosent boot until the "unsupportet" wifi card is removed.

have an hp elite refurb laptop, little did i know that the mini pcie slot is choosy with the hardware. my wifi+bt mini card does not work, so used another wifi only card

I have tested with a coral dual edge TPU but did not manage to get it working in the same kind of system. Did you did any configuration in the bios to get it working?

4:05 What a beautiful switch!