Lenovo s500 SFF PC - Adding an m2 Wifi card?

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askelon

871 posts

Ultimate Geek

ID Verified

#281099 29-Jan-2021 13:52

I have a Lenovo s500-10HS desktop. I see it has a slot for a m2 wireless card. Ive got a spare card from a laptop I have disassembled (dead motherboard) but havent had any luck getting it to even detect. Anyone else tried this or have any suggestions?

The card Im installing is an Intel 9560NGW. This may or may not be a good working one (ram/SSD were fine) though since the laptop it came from got submerged in liquids then left for a while (as you do). The card is similar to: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/33028200793.html

Im sure they bought out models of the SFF with wifi cards built in and certainly have the slot available there.

wratterus

1687 posts

Uber Geek

#2644138 29-Jan-2021 14:30

Checked the BIOS for an option to enable/disable? What are you going to use for an antenna? Or did the PC have an antenna but no card?

Some of those PCs can be fussy about what models of card they work with. Looking at a S500 on Lenovo's support site they list drivers for a Realtek card - either RTL8821AE, RTL8723BE or RTL8192EE, all of which are pretty rubbish. Wouldn't be the first time a manufacturer has locked down the BIOS to only work with specific cards for no reason other than to be obtuse.

Might be worth trying a known working card though, or testing that card in another laptop if you can.

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askelon

871 posts

Ultimate Geek

ID Verified

#2644147 29-Jan-2021 14:44

I have a set of aerials for it. I didnt find anything at all in the bios related to it. Its not really something I'll really bother going all out to get going. End of the day the computer wont really need network access once setup. Just would have been a nice perk. I suspect it could be bios locked or something. If I find a different card around I'll give it a go.

vantt1

2 posts

Wannabe Geek

#2842621 4-Jan-2022 00:02

Hey, I recently bought an S500 myself and was wondering the same thing.

I was able to find the Product Specifications Reference for the 10HS:

As @wratterus has noted, the RTL8821AE is indeed one of the cards that it shipped with. The other listed card is Qualcomm Atheros QCA9377. Both cards are dual band but only 1x1, so we can expect wireless performance to be lacklustre. Their FRUs are as follows:

Realtek: 00JT482
Qualcomm: 00JT477

I've worked on a couple of ThinkPads in the past and indeed Lenovo likes to block all but their own whitelisted Wi-Fi cards. It is technically possible to remove this whitelist by dumping the BIOS, modifying it with a hex editor, then flashing it back to the machine. But as you can imagine, this is a risky process and things can go really wrong.

vantt1

2 posts

Wannabe Geek

#2854967 22-Jan-2022 19:28

Update: I bought a Lenovo OEM network card of FRU 00JT497 and installed it in the S500, and to my surprise it works!

(Please excuse the photo of a monitor, I was lazy)

This one is the Intel 3165NGW, dual band AC 1x1:1