Modding to add internal USB Hub

I have seen articles from people adding usb hubs inside their umpc/laptop:

http://www.ultramobilegeek.com/2007/08/adding-internal-usb-and-internal.html

http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=4818

I took some pictures when I completely disected my Thinkpad R60 the other day. I want to add a USB Hub inside my Thinkpad. I have room for a circuit board where the WAN PCI Express card would be. And from that second link above, I think I could use the PCI Express connections for the USB.

Essentially, I am not an experienced modder and am looking for advice. I have posted some pics of the PCI area and the USB ports to see where the best place may be to hack in to USB from. If I do use the PCI Express connections, where can I find Ground and Power connections??

Thanks to anyone for advice!

 

Buy this US$5 mPCIe USB adapter with solderable lines, solder to your hub, plug it in an enjoy. That is unless Lenovo's bios detects the USB ID of your HUB, noting it's not on it's whitelist and printing an error "Unsupported WWAN card", halting your boot process. HP do that.


Attach USB lines on the left side to your HUB. Can remove the SATA plug on the right. Those SATA lines on a netbook are pci-e lines on a notebook which often are not connected in the WWAN slot, but are in the wifi slot allowing DIY ViDock connectivty.

 

That would be handy but the PCIe connector is not there. If you look at the first picture, the connections are on the circuit board, but there is no PCIe connector present.

I hope I can use the PCIe USB connectors, otherwise ill have to tap into a USB port.

 

I see.. so no mPCIe socket, just the pads. You have 3 of the 4 required USB pins there:



USB Port Pinout
1 ... Red ..... 5 Volt
2 ... White ... Data -
3 ... Green ... Data +
4 ... Black ... Ground

mPCIe pad pins 38/36/34 are the USB+/USB-/GND pins as shown here. The mPCIe slot doesn't have 5V so you'd need to tap a 5V line off a another USB port your ultrabay optical drive. Not sure if it's pinout is the same as a JAE50 pata optical drive shown here.

 

What consequences will I face if I tap into +5V from another USB port or my ultrabay connector?? Will the usb devices suffer when a disc is in use, vice versa?

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I need to know the the consequences of tapping into a 5V power source somewhere on my motherboard. I can use my DMM to find places, but what happens when my UBS Hub is drawing a lot of power? I don't want to overload anything.

 

I don't think there would be any problem stealing power from the ultrabay. A DVD drive needs >1.5A when writing/burning and most likely the machine is designed to deliver at least 2A (as there are older drives requiring that much). There could perhaps be some problems using high-power USB devices while burning a DVD but I doubt it.

 

So what exactly would happen if I powered the USB hub from an existing usb plug, and had 4 things in the hub, and 1 in the external usb plug? Essentially drawing more then 500mA? Would it overload and break my system? Or would some of the USB components not function?

What is the best way to measure the current draw of my DVD drive with my multimeter? And how much the computer is providing it? I have used a DMM with basic testing but never on a motherboard where circuits are so compact.

Thanks

 

this would be perfect for me!!! ive been trying to put my logitech vx nano receiver inside my laptop. Has anyone with a 7805u (or any gateway) tried this?