Anyone know anything about Toughbooks? Making WWAN card work

[rek]

I've recently grabbed a Panasonic Toughbook CF-53 (which will work well in the workshop and general outdoor stuff) and feel a little like a fish out of water. It's like learning another language after spending so much time with ThinkPads and Dell Latitudes...

The main thing that's been perplexing me is how to get the WWAN mini PCIe slot to do something. One exists on the system board, with antennas and such available, but when I put a card in (Ericsson 5537g) it can't find it. The closest thing I can see in the BIOS setup is a setting about optional features which is password protected, even though I haven't set a BIOS password.

Does this thing need a modded BIOS like a ThinkPad does? Or are there a whole other set of tricks of the trade?

It could also do with a new CPU fan, and wouldn't mind adding a fingerprint reader; but if the steps involved in replacing the HDD with an SSD is anything to go by (cumbersome due to amazing over-engineering) I'm not looking forward to attempting either!

[ajkula66]

I can't offer any guidance on CF-53, but check toughbook talk and Panasonic section of notebook review.

Good luck.