Need mSata assistance on Laptop board

 

 

This image is from an HP that is not supposed to have mSata.  Now, I having never held an mSata card/drive or a mainboard with one, am a bit unsure as to what this is supposed to be.  The black part on the image is a plastic(more of a vinyl sticker) with 2 boltholes in the corners (not shown in image)

Now I am fairly confident that it's an mSata slot, but wondering if it might be something else.  The laptop is an HDX18 1378CA, which is not supposed to have mSata (that I can find documented).

Just like to have some degree of certainty before buying an mSata drive.

Did try contacting HP...and yea, no reply as of yet.

FYI - mSATA and mini PCI-e are physically the same, but electrically different. It could be mini PCI-e, if there is no reference to mSATA. Typically mini-PCI-e slots are NOT compatible with mSATA drives unless stated otherwise by the manufacturer; mini PCI-e can be wired for SATA, but not always is.

My laptop has both. The one the left is mSATA (typically has a lot of clearance), and the one on the right is PCI-e

Left is a Crucial M500 mSATA SSD, on the right is an Intel Centrino Wireless N + BT card.

Could be either mSATA or mPCIE, the slots look the same. Look around the slot, sometimes the motherboards say stuff like "MPCIE 1" or whatever near them.

Thanks for the replies!  I am now looking to make sure if is or is not a mini PCI-e.

I opened it up, but failed to find any identifying labels.  I did however take another picture.  Likely an exercise in futility, but that can be fun too :)

 

See that large black sticker thing? See if you can pull it off. Sometimes they'll have writing underneath that. It's for heat dissipation, so if there's nothing under that then just stick it back on.

Regardless, that's a full length mSATA or mPCIE slot, so we're halfway there. I believe mSATA tends to be full length and mPCIE tends to be the half length.

Having repaired many HDX 18's working in an HP repair centre i can safely say it is not an mSATA slot. ~2008/9 machines didnt really have them especially on HP.
It's just a PCI-E mini slot used for the TV tuner card that was optional.

Tried to peal the thermal sticker back and it's just not going to happen.  The adhesive is too strong and the area where this is is a bit of a flimsy corner.  Just "feels" too uncomfortable to test the limits beyond the stress I've already subjected the board to.  But Thanks for the suggestion.

Thanks!  This one did not have the TVtuner, so it's empty.  that explains it.  Now to find something useful that I can jam in there for fun.

Anyone have any ideas for mPCI-e slot(5cm long, 3 wide) on a laptop?  I'm really only seeing WiFi cards.  Which I think are a bit of a waste for what this slot should be capable of.

Hello sexy!  Golly I would love it if this would work.

http://www.renice-tech.com/product.asp?classid=130&id=110

Anyone have experience with "Renice", personal or work wise?