[T430] help selecting a WWAN card

[hjaqqg]

hey guys.
i'm planing on biosflashing my t430.
now, without wlan/wwan whitelist there are LOTS of possibilities for a WWAN card.
having pretty much no clue about WWAN cards, i hoped someone here could give me some advice on which to buy^^
or maybe at least someone could verify that the card i'm currently contemplating is actually going to work with the t430.

being somewhat of a globetrotter, i tried to find a card that supports the globally most common LTE bands.
in conjunction with the msata form factor and the necessity of a simcard slot my search defaulted to this card:
SIMCom SIM7600SA-H LTE
but would that thing actually work?!
like i said, i have no real clue what to pay attention to when picking such a card.
heck, i dont even understand half the specifications on the site i linked.
e.g. why is the interface usb2.0? what does this card even have to do with usb?! 0.o

as you might see, i'm somewhat confused and rly hope someone more experienced will give me a hint on what to look for^^'

[Jake.Werecat]

You definitely don't need a SIM card slot on the WWAN card. The slot is soldered to the mainboard, no matter if the laptop was previously equipped with a wwan card or not. It can be accessed below the main battery.

[hjaqqg]

You definitely don't need a SIM card slot on the WWAN card. The slot is soldered to the mainboard, no matter if the laptop was previously equipped with a wwan card or not. It can be accessed below the main battery.

daaamn... i didn't even notice^^
thanks my man!!

...which means there are even more cards to pick from...

[Jake.Werecat]

Be my guest Look for violet piece of foil underneath the battery:

You might have a dummy rectangular card in there, just pull it of gently, and insert the SIM card.
Yep, with BIOS jailbreak and whitelist removed you have plenty of choice out there, just remember it has to fit mPCIe slot, most of the newer 4G/LTE cards feature M2 slot instead.

Btw. not many folks are aware, but there is 4G/LTE modem that is actually whitelisted on T430/X230 and thus works without modded BIOS. It's Sierra mc7710. The only problem is that it requires three antennas...

[hjaqqg]

turns out the card i linked earlier is also available without sim slot.
but theres also this model, which sports even more LTE bands...

The only problem is that it requires three antennas...

that's actually a really good point! what about antennas in a t430 that originally had no WWAN card?
do i have to buy & install new ones? if so; does anyone have any tips on which antennas to pick?!

[Jake.Werecat]

that's actually a really good point! what about antennas in a t430 that originally had no WWAN card?
do i have to buy & install new ones? if so; does anyone have any tips on which antennas to pick?!

That depends. Most T430 came out of the factory "WWAN ready", which means, that the antennas are already installed. But there are some of T430 without those, so in that case you would need to buy and install them yourself. Good news is that you are one screw away from finding it out yourself. Flip the computer upside down, take a PH0 or PH1 cross-head screwdriver and remove one screw holding bottom RAM cover. Next to DIMM slot, there is a WWAN card slot. If the antennas are there, you will see them. There are just two wires, orange and blue. It looks like this: