Just looking, yea the Asus adapter probably the cheapest and best option. Saw another one with ribbon but its just an "extender" meaning the mpcie slot better natively support msata or else you are using the extender for wifi card or whatever the slot is designed for. Its an extender, not an adapter.
Oh and did find a 128GB mpcie ssd for an older Apple I guess. Only a mere $100 shipped. Yep rare bird indeed.
Oh here is one that came with Asus EEE
8GB for $10....
Ok, who knew got to searching more on ebay for the Asus EEE. Apparently people that collect and restore these. So thats why the adapter are still available. I wondered. Cant criticize as I am playing with the even older Dell D430... LOL
Close as I could come, honestly all the Asus EEEpc videos, didnt find one using the mpcie to msata adapter. Apparently at one point some company basically sold a msata ssd with the mpcie adapter built in for those early Asus EEE. But really weird not to see one video of the adapter to use a standard msata ssd. That Chinese guy using the mpcie adapter in the HP Stream 13 is just about all there is out there. Oh somebody copied his video and reposted it under their own name.... with different music... LOL Not sure the point of that. Swear I find something interesting, glad to give credit and link to the original poster. Only trouble with links is that sometimes the original disappears.
No good deed goes unpunished. My friend FINALLY got around to trying the SGIN. Both connect easily, she likes that. In both win11 and in BookwormPup64, the screen goes black when she full screens, either for watching HULU or for playing some Facebook game she likes. Both using Firefox. Requires a hard reset. Seeing how this happens in both win11 (well Optimum 11 from winXlite) and in Puppy, guessing hardware problem. Didnt happen in win11 she had before the SSD went bad. I found mentions of this in both windows and linux, but not in both on same computer. Very common in win11, seems a GPU driver issue especially after a windows driver update. Course I dont do streaming other than youtube and definitely dont do Facebook or online games. So never occurred to me to try those things. Perhaps the driver that ended up in Optimum 11 from that free driver update website was not the best one. But Puppy???
She by way isnt fond of Puppy, "cause its different" and she finds the menu confusing. Be nice if it only blackscreened on windows then she might be more apt to appreciate linux. But... She didnt like the changed menu in Optimum either, didnt have heart to tell here its based on 24H2 preview that is coming to all win11 this fall. Microsoft likes to churn things and people that prefer the "old way" arent best pleased.
I've looked through a bunch of old machines for another place to use my mpcie-nvme adapter cable other than in the Wyse thin client.
1. All the Lenovos and older HPs are out because their wifi adapters are whitelisted.
2. If you have to completely dismantle the machine to find the wifi adapter, it's not worth the trouble. Sometimes, it's underneath the keyboard.
3. If the machine has a half-height wifi card, there's not enough space for the adapter. I could snap mine in half but then it wouldn't work in the Wyse, which has a screw-down post for a full-height card.
So the actual market for these adapters is pretty small. It would be the "cloudbook" generation of PCs that have tiny emmc drives but still have mpcie wifi, before m.2 appeared. Most of those machines are long-gone. People got sick of trying to run Windows on them and trashed them.
Some original Chromebooks would work if there is room for the adapter.
rcrsn51 wrote: ↑Fri Jun 14, 2024 12:59 pmI've looked through a bunch of old machines for another place to use my mpcie-nvme adapter cable other than in the Wyse thin client.
1. All the Lenovos and older HPs are out because their wifi adapters are whitelisted.
2. If you have to completely dismantle the machine to find the wifi adapter, it's not worth the trouble. Sometimes, it's underneath the keyboard.
3. If the machine has a half-height wifi card, there's not enough space for the adapter. I could snap mine in half but then it wouldn't work in the Wyse, which has a screw-down post for a full-height card.So the actual market for these adapters is pretty small. It would be the "cloudbook" generation of PCs that have tiny emmc drives but still have mpcie wifi, before m.2 appeared. Most of those machines are long-gone. People got sick of trying to run Windows on them and trashed them.
Some original Chromebooks would work if there is room for the adapter.
Unfortunately thats probably the way of it short of modifying the bios to remove the whitelisting. Oh you maybe could use it in the old Apple and Asus EEE that had a rare genuine mpcie ssd. This was only in the early Asus EEE, think they switched to actual hard drives not too soon after. Same way these mpcie wifi only in the earliest HP Streams. They soon went to M.2 wifi cards.
And you see more of the wifi cards now soldered to the motherboard on the chromebooks/cloudbooks. That SGIN X15S laptop my friend has, its got wifi soldered. But it has the M.2 sata socket, so doesnt matter that much. Only matters on those limited to that tiny eMMC drive soldered in place.
Ok, not sure why they bring as much as they do but seems any computer with the N5095 celeron brings minimum of $75 shipped price in working condition. Seriously, they are an ok low end processor, but arent THAT fast. I was looking and got offered the "grade A" motherboard from a SGIN X15S (identical to my friends laptop) for $25. N5095 and 12GB RAM soldered to it. I never set up a bare laptop motherboard as a desktop before, so should be interesting. Use a heatsink and fan from an old desktop and cobble everything else via usb and use external monitor. What the heck is mini hdmi... and what fits it natively??? The Streams and even the Chromebooks seem to all have full size hdmi. Seems only way to use it is with an adapter. So ordered an adapter. Biggest trick will be getting into bios on an external monitor. There are tricks, but on bare motherboard... just have to see. For heck of it tried it on my i7 laptop, the trick that worked on it was to push the power button then close the lid. With external monitor attached. Then push ESC on the wireless usb keyboard to navigate to boot menu, then to bios. Bingo. Was interesting. Never booted a laptop on external monitor with lid closed before. But no lid on this bad boy, so either it will just automatically use the external monitor since no laptop screen, or perhaps if I push the menu F7 key. Have to see. I think the lid on laptop uses some magnet system to sense when its closed but heck if I know. So maybe a magnet in right place make it think there is a lid and its closed.....
@mouldy
not sure why they bring as much as they do but seems any computer with the N5095 celeron brings minimum of $75
It's a 4 core with a Passmark v10=4085, pretty fast for a laptop. That is going to be a real "Frankenputer", although I've worked on a HP desktop tower that was in fact a laptop motherboard inside a tower case. Had no expansion slots and the PS was a laptop AC adapter 
.
wizard
Big pile of OLD computers
wizard wrote: ↑Fri Jun 14, 2024 9:48 pm@mouldy
not sure why they bring as much as they do but seems any computer with the N5095 celeron brings minimum of $75
It's a 4 core with a Passmark v10=4085, pretty fast for a laptop. That is going to be a real "Frankenputer", although I've worked on a HP desktop tower that was in fact a laptop motherboard inside a tower case. Had no expansion slots and the PS was a laptop AC adapter
wizard
Lot of the compact desktops and all in ones have for long time used a laptop power supply. Some of the modern minis use what looks like $5 wall wart, not even a switching power supply. Nothing like the old towers with half dozen pci/isa slots and big ole fan cooled power supply bolted inside the case. I miss that kind of design, they were easy to upgrade with new ATX motherboard. Everything standardized and super easy to work on, well if they routed the cables properly and not the proverbial rats nest. Those old flat PATA ribbon cables were PITA.
Hmm, interesting puzzle. I have two Acer Aspire One Cloudbook from 2015, yes date of manufacture is on the back. Well battery bad in both, but got to playing with older one (by two months) and its only 16GB eMMC. Yea supposed to have had some version windows from factory though cant really imagine... But like say battery shot, and there is no cmos battery so it loses settings on every reboot. I just pulled the battery cause it was dead and swollen. Alas the laptop not worth a new battery, though really wish there was a way that settings didnt go back to default on reboot. Its a kludgy bit of engineering to use the actual laptop battery as the cmos battery, but guess it forces people to either buy something new or at least replace the battery and not just use the plug in power supply. And it saves 30cents for cmos battery. Same mentality that designed the throw away android tablets.
Now the eMMC is wonky. There is only tiny portion at front of the eMMC that is usable. Yes you can install Puppy and it will boot but no space for a save file. Least one that is at all reliable, usually just disappears on next boot, but sometimes works for a while. So I tried one of those wifi port adapters with nvme ssd. Yes I can install linux, puppy booted from usb can see and install to the nvme, but the bios of course doesnt recognize nvme. No problem right, just use refind since its UEFI bios. Unfortunately even though I got refind (with nvme driver) from usb to come up, it could find nothing. Ok seems this bios is 32bit UEFI only. Though its a two core celeron. The other Acer which looks identical and all is 64bit UEFI and has a 32GB eMMC. I know cause I booted it and for some reason at some point had installed the 64bit Tiny10 on it. Though didnt check wonder if I installed it with computer in legacy mode rather than UEFI, If so it might also have 32bit UEFI. And Acer no longer offers downloadable bios for these. Lot computer manufacturers no longer offer downloadable bios or drivers anymore least on the throwaway stuff ??? Or I would try reflashing bios to version used on the other Acer since its the same hardware, least far as I can tell. But anyway seems refind and Clover dont like 32bit UEFI. So its an interesting puzzle. One I am still working on. Oh I am sure there is someway to install parts of Puppy on two drives and do some grub magic but rather figure out how to make refind do its thing and just boot linux from the nvme as there is enough still functional space on the eMMC for boot partition. Sure there is some variation of refind or Clover that can deal with this and give the nvme drive as an option. But what a complex labyrinth to piece together one that works. Wonder if I could set it to legacy and boot Clover and it could find the nvme.... That would be the easiest way, if I can get some version Clover to boot, tried one version using Ventoy and it wouldnt boot. Dealing with the rare 32bit UEFI stuff is not easy. Though this bios not super reliable at best of times. It likes Ventoy and thats the easiest way to get anything booted. I found out its 32bit UEFI cause just for kicks tried booting micro11 and tiny10 installers via Ventoy. Said sorry they dont support 32bit. Linux with grub can boot 64bit system on 32bit UEFI. Windows cant. 32bit UEFI on a multicore system had to be one of the goofiest ideas anybody had. I mean a 64bit UEFI could still booted a 32bit version win8.1 or win10 so why make a special very limiting bios?
Clover iso will only boot from legacy and then its just blank, shows no drives and it should at least show the eMMC even if its barely functional. Refind of course wont work booted legacy. And neither boots from 32bit UEFI, just get popup that they dont support 32ia.
I did find one where guy got windows to boot on nvme using only GRUB2. I will have to watch that one couple more times though seemed kinda involved. And another where guy used GRUB2 to call Clover from file in same EFI directory, who knows might work better than booting from iso on usb. That one would seem most likely. But lot of the videos are too fast and they are from non-native English speakers so it can be hard to follow. And NONE of them are trying to do this on a 32bit UEFI computer. Things that would/should work on either legacy computers with nvme via adapter or on 64bit UEFI computer that just doesnt support nvme, dont work on 32bit only UEFI.
Not that anybody should worry, just a puzzle for me, the laptop is of no actual use or importance. Got 2GB RAM and N3050 Celeron (slower than the N2840) and that insane 32bit UEFI bios that continually tries to reset secure boot, etc cause of the bad and now nonexistent battery.
Oh by way in legacy mode the windows installer in tiny10 did offer to install to the nvme drive if gpt changed to mbr. Even if I wanted windows on this computer, think its unlikely I could get 64bit windows to boot. But Tiny10 is working on the near twin of this one. And yes in legacy mode, vaguely remember messing to get it installed and annoyed I had to use legacy. Thought it was just screwed up bios. though its on the 32GB eMMC. So no messing with nvme driver stuff.
I used this guys setup and menuentry to try and load Clover from GRUB2. GRUB2 will boot BookwormPup on the eMMC, this using UEFI. But try and load Clover and it says "image cant load" and returns to the GRUB2. I used the UUID for my boot partition rather than the generic XXXX-YYYY Am I making some silly error. I am sure no genius with GRUB2 or Clover for that matter.
menuentry 'Clover' $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-simple-XXXX-YYYY' {
insmod part_gpt
insmod fat
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root XXXX-YYYY
chainloader /EFI/CloverV2/EFI/CLOVER/CLOVERX64.efi
}
Okie dokie. Playing some more. The twin Acer Cloudbook with the 32GB eMMC does have 64bit UEFI. And duet-refind works great on it. Also works fine on couple other UEFI computers I tried it on. But its 64bit apparently and cant do the gui on a 32bit UEFI computer. Thats why with Clover I got the "image cant load" message. And duet-refind just does nothing and loops back to GRUB2 menu on the cloudbook with 16GB eMMC. And yes only some of early cloudbooks used the 32bit UEFI bios so rare enough, no obvious solution. So suspect doing the much more involved GRUB2 method is the only way. Unless one could find way to update the bios, but that stuff seems to be lost to the ashbin of history for the cloudbooks. If you want an old slow celeron cloudbook, better to get a chromebook and convert it with mrchromebox UEFI bios. That mrchromebox UEFI bios does support nvme drives.
Oh while messing with this ran across this video. The guy explains using duet-refind pretty well, though from a windows perspective. Works pretty much same whatever nvme system you are booting. He however is a duffer like most of us so leaves in details glossed over in many recipes. Just have to bear with him as he slogs along in the video and he gets flustered using windows to repartition the eMMC drive. At least he speeds up his windows install though honestly he could just left that part out or sped it up even faster. Still looking for the linux grub guy video, thought I bookmarked it but... that guy did pretty good too, plus I want to try his grub method. He explained it well.
@mouldy
Have you tried the Puppy only, split install method? Third post down from here: viewtopic.php?t=11468
wizard
Big pile of OLD computers
wizard wrote: ↑Fri Jul 05, 2024 2:15 pm@mouldy
Have you tried the Puppy only, split install method? Third post down from here: viewtopic.php?t=11468
wizard
I had not tried that as I was thinking more about a nvme driver I guess. But since I had BookwormPup64 identically installed on both eMMC and the nvme, it was simple experiment. Just a custom menuentry from your instruction thread/post, with appropriate UUID's. And yes it works, to be sure I put different wallpaper on them to make sure which I was booting and booted both multiple times. Also showed which drive was mounted at bottom of desktop of course. Seeing how this is a very minimal low spec computer, suspect Puppy is about only thing that would be usable on it. Now it would be interesting to try BookwormDog with waydroid.... See what waydroid did on this super low spec computer. So good enough. One problem without a battery, and booting UEFI, this thing reverts to secure boot and disabled F12 boot menu any time its unplugged. Grrr. Seriously all that frustration cause they were trying to save 30cents. Probably a way to wire a battery in there some how to keep settings but suppose not worth it. Or I could do this with legacy boot. If I set the laptop to legacy boot, the only thing that happens is when I do boot it, asks me if I really want to change to UEFI. Just click no and it continues booting. Whereas with UEFI have to go into bios settings and unenable secure boot at very minimum. F12 one time boot menu doesnt really work anyway.
Now the last video I posted with the guy doing this with Debian 11, still might be worth doing just cause it is universal, least for linux. I really cant imagine windows being worth much on this laptop anyway. And with the goofy bios it would have to be the 32bit version win10. I dont think anybody ever got 64bit windows to boot on one of these 32bit UEFI laptops though back when they came out and few years after, many people tried. 32bit version windows might be problematic since Acer no longer offers drivers for it. Would have to try third party driver site and get lucky.
@mouldy
And yes it works, to be sure
With all the "gothcas" that thing has, I'd do legacy, split-boot and call it a win.
wizard
Big pile of OLD computers
Its great compared to that Lenovo 100s-11 thing. That not only has the 32bit UEFI bios with no legacy option, but also keyboard and trackpad dont work. AND it cant run without a viable battery. Meaning you let it set and to get it to turn on again you have to first charge the battery for half hour. If the battery doesnt charge, the only straight forward way is to replace the battery, think last time I looked they were like $40. Now I have seen workarounds people came up to deal with android tablets that had bad battery, that would be the only alternative to buying new battery. Really overall bad design. Oh it also has the wifi card soldered to the motherboard. No M.2 slot on it. So only way to expand it would be to solder an internal hub into the usb system.
Unfortunately lot of this stuff is engineered to not be economically repairable/upgradeable. So if you have a dud, usually easier to go shopping for something that is salvageable than to try extraordinary means to make a dud work. Lot of this older stuff is dropping in price, least the lower end stuff cause Microsoft is pushing for ever higher hardware standards for windows, mostly to further AI I think. Win11 stripped of all the garbage can run on some pretty old stuff, but only as a simple operating system, not your new AI buddy and spy.
I dont know if I want to mess with the Lenovo 100s-11 but assume its set up something like this tablet and maybe couple capacitors and power supply that mimicks output from the battery would work.
Be worth it just for the experience I suppose. The battery in the Lenovo still sorta works if you leave charger plugged in. But writing on the wall and its definitely not worth a new battery. I have seen other
workarounds using cheap phone batteries with very small capacity to do this but capacitors and plug in power supply fine. Never going to take it anywhere. Just seems mean spirited to design something to require battery and not just work off a power supply. Obviously it was intentional since this isnt exactly rocket science in the video. But guess their justification is that they dont think anybody wants to use it other than as portable device. And it encouraged sale of new expensive replacement batteries or more likely a new device. Few would even try to replace battery sealed inside cheap device. I replaced battery in my phone and my gosh they had the device built AROUND the battery, they didnt intend it to be replaced. It was even GLUED in place, seriously that was OVERKILL. What happened to the old way, you open back cover, pop out battery, pop in new one, put back cover and done.... Or on laptops just push the button to release it externally. Dont need to worship at the alter of the ultra thin phone or laptop. Simply styling, has no practical reason.
@mouldy
What happened to the old way, you open back cover, pop out battery, pop in new one,
If you figure it out, let me know. We've become a "disposable" society. Those wanting to reduce our carbon footprint need to look at it's impact.
wizard
Big pile of OLD computers
Raining and must be bored, been surfing with the Acer. Seriously that nvme plus Puppy and its pretty usable. Youtube is 360p but it doesnt buffer or drop frames. It will if I put it up to 720p. But ok. Downloaded the portable version LibreOffice, that even loaded pretty fast. So yea its no powerhouse computer but it wouldnt annoy me too much, to use it as a daily driver, least for the usual mundane things. Celeron N3050 with 2GB RAM. That celeron has passmark score of 585. Thats LOW. Slower than the N2840.
@mouldy
That celeron has passmark score of 585
That's a v10 score, which is their current standard test. Generally a v10 score is about 2/3 of a v9. The V9 score = 874, my experience has been when you get much below a v9 = 600 the system will really start struggling with streaming video from the web. This will get worse as browsers become more demanding
wizard
Big pile of OLD computers
We have been a disposable society for some time. Especially bad once 'plastics' became prevalent. But yea, annoys me a lot when people start preaching "electric this and electric that" without realizing the real solution is to produce goods that last at least 50 year, not months. And are preferably as simple, repairable, and robust as possible. Course that isnt PROFITABLE. Have to sell ever more crap to ever more suckers to keep the crazy system going. More people are flying commercially than ever before. Seriously think of all the resources necessary to move one person across the planet, then back again in hours. And I still dont understand how I can order some small individual item from some seller IN CHINA cheaper than I can buy the exact same China made item from an importer here. I mean multiples cheaper. Guess fewer middle men? But seriously considering what it would cost to mail a pkg to somebody in bordering state or even next county, and they can ship individual items that cheap half way around the planet?
Oh and the real bizarro world thing, we now import food from China. Not exotic expensive luxury foods only grown in one small spot on the planet, but something like can of pumpkin! Yea I am looking at YOU, Walmart! This is considered efficient use of resources???? But I hear no complaints about that. Just stupid stuff like I shouldnt use a gas stove and I should buy a $100k electric car. Jeesh. Talk to me about passenger train infrastructure and local public "electric" street cars like existed before automobiles took over in USA. Then I might take these people seriously. Telling me everybody should own a Tesla Triangle Monster Truck to save the environment is laughable. While they ban import of $10,000 electric sub compact cars from China. Ok do you want electric cars to be popular or not? $10k new car (if it functions reasonably) of any kind would sell like hotcakes and yes seriously disrupt the existing luxury only car market. Or do you want to pretend everybody can buy $100,000 car from pocket change? Drives me nuts when the logic is missing in such arguments and actions. I am all for the old engineer's KISS mantra, Keep It Simple Stupid. But then I am just old.
Ok another adventure, super cheap $15 shipped HP Stream. This one 14-CB171WM or something like that has celeron N4020 and 8GB RAM. Seller said motherboard and RAM good, busted screen. Ok I get it and no the screen isnt busted or even cracked. But booting its black screen. Under bright light you can just make out HP logo and then the login screen for win10. Of course it has an account on it and apparently you cant get into the bios without the laptop screen functioning. Yea, with external monitor connected, pushing power button, closing the lid and spamming ESC key on external keyboard doesnt work. No idea how that makes it more secure, but nobody checks with me before manufacturing crazy stuff.
So its obviously a non functioning backlight.... So its 30pin screen. Just like the little 11in cheapies. I remove the screen on it and on the Acer Cloudbook. Hook up the Acer screen to the Stream and get the same very faint HP logo and login screen. Just barely make them out. So for giggles I hook the 14in screen to the Acer and turn it on. Bingo, bright easy to read screen. Seriously would like a 14in screen on the Acer.... LOL So the bargain Stream is truly a bargain, good motherboard and good screen and the backlight is fine.
So looking on youtube once again, it seems HP uses a tiny fuse soldered to the motherboard for power to the backlight on the screen. Yepper teeny tiny. I still havent for certain identified it on mine. The youtube video showed it on an older Fischer Price Blue 11in Stream. He replaced his fuse with one he salvaged off an old phone motherboard. But in comments many didnt bother, they ground off the fuse and replaced with drop of solder to bridge it. Unless you are skilled tech with soldering iron I suspect the drop of solder is most practical way to go.
@mouldy
but nobody checks with me before manufacturing crazy stuff.
Me either.
Have an old Acer CB3-532 chromebook, celeron n3060, 2gb ram, 16gb eMMc with broken 15 inch screen. Replacement screen cost more than buying a whole thing. Keep watching ebay for a bargain screen, but no luck so far. Could try to convert to Puppy using external monitor, but don't know if I'd loose external monitor control during that process.
wizard
Big pile of OLD computers
Yea like my experiment shows, you dont need an exact replacement screen, most of the low end ones without touchscreen have 30pin or 40pin and are pretty interchagable if you dont mind the rustic duct tape look. So yea you could duct tape even an 11in screen in place of your broken one, if same pin interface. So many of those surplus school chromebooks, the 11in screens are like $10 shipped for a good one. Wont be new at that price of course. Though if you keep eye out probably could get whole EOL chromebook around $10. Not much demand for those old ones with 16GB eMMC. Course as I found its usually possible to do the adapter+nvme to replace the wifi card. That mrchromebox UEFI bios supports nvme. No need for workarounds.
mouldy wrote: ↑Tue Jul 16, 2024 2:24 amYea like my experiment shows, you dont need an exact replacement screen, most of the low end ones without touchscreen have 30pin or 40pin and are pretty interchagable if you dont mind the rustic duct tape look. So yea you could duct tape even an 11in screen in place of your broken one, if same pin interface. So many of those surplus school chromebooks, the 11in screens are like $10 shipped for a good one. Wont be new at that price of course. Though if you keep eye out probably could get whole EOL chromebook around $10. Not much demand for those old ones with 16GB eMMC. Course as I found its usually possible to do the adapter+nvme to replace the wifi card. That mrchromebox UEFI bios supports nvme. No need for workarounds.
Inbuilt laptop screens are an unnecessary painful design. Laptops would be better sold like a tablet with interchangable screens that used standard interface. Maybe hdmi all of them? If anything gets broken early its usually the screen (I did this on near new business laptop) and tho hdmi monitors can be cheap they are usually not exactly laptop size... far from it...
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@mouldy
Pulled out the Acer CB3-532 (broken screen) today and hooked it up to an external monitor. Booted to ChromeOS and got an update to version 103. This model can also install Android apps so that extends its life a lot since you can get an updated Android browser. Battery takes and holds a charge and everything else works. CPU = N3060 + 2gb ram so not much power.
Decided to try the mrchromebox Legacy install. As I feared, the external monitor is not active at startup which made it a real challenge, working blind a lot. Downloaded the firmware-util.sh from the web using another computer and put it on a flash drive, then got it into developer mode on the Acer. Copied the script to the Acer and ran it. Rebooted, running blind again, luckily I knew what keys to press and was able to dual boot into either ChromeOS or BW64 from USB, everything working.
The 15" screen is a good size for video viewing, to bad it's broken.
wizard
Big pile of OLD computers
