[x300][Windows 10][MC8775/HP2300][WWAN] Installs fine, but Watcher doesn't see it

[stasheck]

Hi there, I'm just another guy in love with his x300 - 8 years old and still going strong

I've been testing Windows 10 on the machine, and after initial issues with GPU it's now working very well - all the devices have drivers, suspend works fine, all is dandy.

So I decided to to give the guy a present - WWAN modem. I've bought something labeled as MC8775 some time ago, installed it into the slot and loaded SIM card. I have flashed unlocked BIOS prior to that, of course

Unfortunately, even though I have been able to install drivers, WWAN connection is not seen by the Sierra Watcher nor by HP Watcher.

For some reason, the card is detected as hp2300, and the OS thinks that the best driver would be HP's 2.0.0.13 - USB, Network and Smartcard drivers. I can force install Sierra's 2.0.0.13 driver, 2.0.2.0 driver just fine; tried 2.0.3.5 as well, but this one throws error.

Am I missing something? Can you suggest anything? It's driving me crazy - I can see the device perfectly fine in Device Manager, the "WAN" led on the machine lights up just fine, it's only that no software "sees" the modem.

[wileE]

You will have to tape pin 20.
Cards without a Lenovo FRU are switched off by the firmware over pin 20. Mod BIOS does not help with this.

[Peak2Peak]

Welcome to the forum - Try covering pin20 of the MC8775

[stasheck]

Oh, OK - I thought it only applies if you're trying to use a different miniPCIe slot.

Weird that it installs nevertheless, though. I wonder what's being blocked then?

[stasheck]

So... nope. Result is still the same.

BTW, it installs all drivers just fine (or so it seems). It's just that neither HP nor Sierra's connection manager "sees" the device ("Device not detected").

I vaguely remember that in Thinkpads you could disable a device (like wifi) with software, but it persisted between OSes. Is it possible that I'm missing some utility that manages connections (Fn+F5 doesn't yield any visible result). ATM all 3 LEDs are alight (BT, WiFi and WWAN).

[Peak2Peak]

It's been a good few years since I have installed an HP hs-2300 MC8775 (in my case into a T60 - modded BIOS & pin20 covered) - but I remember that the dedicated HP Sierra Wireless drivers had to be installed in order to use with Sierra Wireless's generic watcher utility

[stasheck]

OK, so installing 2.0.0.16 HP drivers works, the device reports fine in Device Manager, but neither HP's nor Sierra's utility sees the device.

I tried installing 2.2.2.0 HP drivers, the device has yellow exclamation mark and no utility sees it.

I think I'm going to order Ericsson modem tomorrow. I already lost like 16 hours on troubleshooting this :/

[stasheck]

Made it to work!

Using 2.0.16.0 drivers from HP, all devices installed successfully. After that, used MWconn utility (www.mwconn.net) and works like a charm!

Yay!

[Peak2Peak]

Excellent -