Thinkpad T530 SIM Card Tray?

[KhakiBlueSocks]

Hello again!

As I mentioned in an earlier thread, I bought my ThinkPad T530 ("Takeru") form a recycled computer shop in my area. While I was cleaning it up, I noticed there was a SIM card slot under the battery compartment. I tried inserting a Data-SIM I had laying around, but nothing happened. I also checked the Device History to see if there were any unknown devices there, but no dice. There was also no sign of a Cellular Connection option in the Networks menu.

I'm puzzled. Does this laptop have an imbedded Cellular Modem in it that I just don't have the drivers for, or is this just a disregarded port on the laptop that was a leftover from previous models? I can confirm that it is, indeed, an occupied slot as I can see the gold contacts inside. And in addition, my Thinkpad X230 Tablet ("Izzy") has the same SIM card slot, except, if memory serves, it requires a smaller SIM card.

Any help would be appreciated with this!

Edit: AND...upon further review, it seems as though I accidentally posted this in the wrong section. I didn't realize there was a section specifically for the T430/530's. Please forgive me and move this thread to the appropriate location.

[w0qj]

Having a T430 SIM Card Tray does not necessarily imply that your T530 has a WWAN antennae, so you need to check this out.

The decision whether or not to bundle WWAN (mobile broadband) antennae with your T530 would have been during the purchase of your machine.

ie: If your T530 does not have the WWAN antennae, then adding a mobile broadband card would not work (no antennae=no signal).

Therefore you would need to check very carefully whether or not your T530 came with WWAN antennae upon purchase, as this antennae is not user-upgradable.

Good luck!

[onionskin]

Looking at the PSRef for T530, all the ones listed in there either have the WWAN card or are WWAN upgradeable, so your model probably never had the mini PCIe WWAN card. You can verify by looking up the Machine Type at http://tp.krelay.de/index.php or in PSRef. It was probably cheaper/easier for Lenovo to put a SIM card slot in all models.

[moofish2842]

I have never so far had a thinkpad of this era that came without wwan antennae installed (red and blue cables going to wwan slot). I bought an fru replacement as listed on lenovo's part lookup page for $10, connected it in the wwan slot to the wwan antennae, and put my phone's sim card in it through a physical adapter. It worked in Windows 10 automatically for data, and then sms after downloading a toolkit. I actually used it as my phone while my phone was on repair. Warning though, DO NOT put a physical size adapter in the slot without a sim card in it. I thought I was being smart to be able to use wwan any time, but the adapter got stuck and I can't get it out now.