74 replies to this topic

[fleek]

Hi all,

I just received news that the new batch of EEE PC does not have the extra mini-PCIe connector. Just for info.

[Chris]

Edited the title for less ambiguity.

Can you post a link to the news source, or a photo if it's a personal experience?

[Chillifingers]

Hi All

I can confirm that.

Just got mine yesterday (in the UK) and it does not have the extra PCIe connector.

[imabuddha]

Ouch! If it's missing from all currently shipping units then future expansion options have become quite limited. A real shame...

[mkrishnan]

Quote

Just got mine yesterday (in the UK) and it does not have the extra PCIe connector.

Forgive me for asking the obvious... I don't mean to imply anything about you...

- Did you actually physically open your Eee? The port is inside the case. It isn't visible from the exterior, right?

- I guess, are we assuming that UK launch models are the ones without it, and possibly current US ones? Can anyone in the UK confirm that they bought a European Eee and it *does* have a PCIe in it? Or does anyone know that they have bought an American one and it does not?

[tristand]

I bought a UK eee and it has no connector.

This is a real shame because I was about to start laying out a PCB to sell with an extra 8G of flash memory which would have plugged into it. I may fit the connector to mine (I have plenty of SMD rework experience and kit) and get the PCB done. I'm not really sure yet. It depends on whether the USB functionality is enabled on this connector. The PCB would have been pretty much a USB mass storage reference design in a different package.



Tristan

[Rroff]

I got mine (UK) earlier in the week and opened it up last night to see and there appears to be no mini PCI-e connectivity in mine either - doesn't bother me too much as I was planning on rigging a 1" HDD in the spare slot above the RAM anyhow.

[mkrishnan]

Thank you for the pictures. :)

It would seem to detract from the theory that the 8GB version of the Eee would use the PCIe to get the additional 4GB....

[Chris]

Quote

I bought a UK eee and it has no connector.

This is a real shame because I was about to start laying out a PCB to sell with an extra 8G of flash memory which would have plugged into it. I may fit the connector to mine (I have plenty of SMD rework experience and kit) and get the PCB done. I'm not really sure yet. It depends on whether the USB functionality is enabled on this connector. The PCB would have been pretty much a USB mass storage reference design in a different package.

http://www.tad-elect...rsonal/conn.jpg

Tristan

It seems like everyone with the missing MiniPCIe port is from the UK. Perhaps it's only been removed from there?

tristand - I'm sure you'd find quite a large market if you can make something like that. SanDisk has already paper-launched an 8G/16GB MiniPCIe SSD, but they're only going to be selling it to OEMs for the next year or so. If you can bring a consumer-level device to market and beat them to the punch on release, you could have a lot of customers on your hands. ;)

If I can ask - how do you plan on addressing the 5V requirement, since the MiniPCIe slot only supplies 3.3v?

[sherifgti]

Does anyone in the US (perhaps black in particular) have an EEE with no Mini PCIe slot? Mine comes in tomorrow and now I am quite worried. I hope its a UK only thing (sorry blokes)

[tristand]

5V isn't necessary - all the logic inside a standard usb flash drive runs on 3.3V. The 5V supplied by the USB port is regulated down to 3.3v by an internal regulator in the flash drive. As I would be designing the device to work without 5V I would simply omit the 3.3V regulator.

This would be a device specifically target at the eeePC - it would not be especially fast (the same as USB flash drive). It would be a USB Mass Storage controller (eg. ST7267 from memory) and a suitable NAND flash chip on a PCB which slots into the Mini-PCIe connector. It would only use 0v, 3.3v and 2 USB lines on the connector.

I really wish they would have left the connector on the PCB. I am a freelance electronic engineer and this would have been a nice little product to make if they hadn't reduced the size of the market!

Tristan

[joners]

Could be, maybe that the UK got newer/older stock than other countries so this could be the way that they all go. Just a thought considering the UK launch was after the US.

[Longhorn Engineer]

Well looking at it will be no big deal to anyone thats handy with a soldering iron unless they removed traces or excluded it from the bios.

Just get a junked laptop and steal the slot from it.

I will check mine when I get it Friday. (USA-Black version)

[mkrishnan]

joners, yeah, I think that sounds most likely... it'd be reasonable to assume that if it has not already happened, the same will happen to US Eees. Most likely, the changeover occurred for American customers alongside this week's launch of the Black 701, so there are probably already Eees here that do not have it.

If anyone with a Black 701 in the US could confirm, though, that would really seal the deal.

[Chillifingers]

Tristan

I may be interested in fitting a new connector myself. I don't need more memory but a sim card reader for mobile web would be very useful.
Let me know if you have any joy with this.

Keith

Edited by Chillifingers, 15 November 2007 - 07:48 PM.

[tnkgrl]

@Tristan,

Here's the USB functionality (verified) on this connector (pins 36 and 38):



I copied your picture and annotated it... Hope that's OK!

Quote

I bought a UK eee and it has no connector.

This is a real shame because I was about to start laying out a PCB to sell with an extra 8G of flash memory which would have plugged into it. I may fit the connector to mine (I have plenty of SMD rework experience and kit) and get the PCB done. I'm not really sure yet. It depends on whether the USB functionality is enabled on this connector. The PCB would have been pretty much a USB mass storage reference design in a different package.

Tristan

Edited by tnkgrl, 15 November 2007 - 07:56 PM.

[TheBronze]

Well, that just sucks for newer buyers. It will be interesting to see if this is just for UK or if they will all be this way...

I was looking at mine and noticed that the serial tag for the one in the picture is different than mine. Mine is silver and has the SN and VN on the bottom of the bar code, whereas the one in the picture, from the UK, has an additional line of text above the bar that says "EEEPC 4G 8K007"

Whats also interesting is that the rev numbers are not different. I would think they would be different since the assembly is missing a part.

[fazz33]

Has anyone asked asus about why its removed? Is it possible its a manufacturing error? It sounds like thats a possibility since it was previously stated that the revision number isnt changed.

Edited by fazz33, 15 November 2007 - 10:32 PM.

[pmeee]

Just looking at Tristan's product code above his barcodes it's different than my Taiwanese Eee PC. Mine says "701-W0002".

[lachy94]

As annoying as this is, at this point there isn't much you can do with this slot, and, if sandisks plan to ship their storage to consumers in a year or more represents the whole industry, we probably won't see much a use for a while, after which time the eee 2/3 will be out and we will all probably be considering quite different things :s however, it is sad for you guys who really want to tool around inside there with some hacks, but it also looks like it's not stopping you :D