Question NO WLAN from factory. Military Surplus Getac X500

[mkcoxn]

I have purchased two Getac X500 G2's that have no wireless cards from the factory. I contacted Getac and they won't provide a bios flash to get the ports recognized. It has one M2 and one PCIe port free on the mother board. I do not want to use an external wireless device.

Laptops were custom built for the government by Getac and intentionally have no wireless. They do however have working ethernet ports.


What are my options?


Cheers

 

[USAFRet]

Being laptops, you don't have a lot of options.

Ethernet, or a USB WiFi. (yes, I know you said you don't an an external thing)

 

[USAFRet]

Is anything consuming the PCIe slot?

Even if you were able to use that, then you have to figure out how to get the antennas to the outside of the case.

 

[mkcoxn]

I can post a photo of the board if i can figure out how. There is one PCIe key E open and one NFGG key E open. This is normally where the WWAN and WLAN cards go. I tried to install a card and i get no response (by design likely).

If i have a non-military x500 with wireless is there a way to copy the bios or install a new bios chip to enable ports?

 

[USAFRet]

An E key is specifically for a WiFi device.

The BIOS is the other issue.

Would a theoretical non-mil x500 BIOS work? No idea.

 

[COLGeek]

As I recall with those boxes, those ports could be enabled/disabled in the BIOS, but only with the admin password. Do these have a admin password enabled and do you have it?

 

[mkcoxn]

I do have admin password. No options in BIOS for ports. Getac USA confirmed they are not available by design. So i was reaching out about a deep dive into this thing to get them back online by Bios flash or some sort of out of the box solution.

The laptop has a removable optical drive that i will never use. Is it possible to tap in to its port for wireless?

 

[COLGeek]

Are you able to download BIOS updates from Getac?

Those systems were sold to non-DoD customers as well, so less locked down versions may be available from their support site.

SATA to M.2 adapters exist and could be rigged into that slot. Whether you can get wifi via that would be an experiment. One I haven't tried.

 

[SyCoREAPER]

If the BIOS has the unpopulated slots locked out, there's nothing you can do.

If you can solder, you could get a USB Wifi adapter and solder it to a USB port and mount it inside the laptop.

Alternatively accept an external device and get something small like this.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008IFXQFU