new to me modded t480!

[kylemiwa]

Got a i5 8250u t480 for $120 which I got with the intent of modding - it came with the backlit keyboard and fingerprint sensor so I figured $120 reasonable
$302 later and I've done: Dual heatpipe, 400nit IPS panel, used 72wh battery, 1tb m.2, wifi 6e, PTM 7950, and 32 gb of ram
I've been using it daily for a few weeks now I've loved every minute.
Upgrading to PTM 7950 has made a massive difference over the kryonaut stuff I tried before, while video editing or playing beamng (which runs shockingly well) my CPU barely crack 81C. Before PTM I would hit upwards of 90C under the same loads. This has resulted in a laptop which I can actually use on my lap. Might sound silly, but my framework 13 (which I LOVE) gets way too hot for lap use even under fairly light loads + worse battery life. I find myself using this MUCH cheaper and older t480 more often than my framework or even my gaming pc. The extra weight is a bit annoying as I'm a student who also works for my universities I.T. desk, but the battery buldge gives me something to securely grab so I don't really mind all that much. I think it's such a confidence and creativity inspiring laptop - but I'm probably just too young and have a low bar for laptops lol. On windows 11 + debloat script, this thing feels amazing and I've really never enjoyed using a laptop this much, but maybe the money I sunk is affecting my judgement, I guess time will tell.

I really want to make use of the WWAN slot, but don't need the extra storage enough to warrant the $$$. I do however have a M+B key 512gb 2230 NVMe drive, but if I try to use it in the WWAN, I get a 1802 unauthorized network card error which prevents me from even going into bios or OS. I did some light research but didn't really get anywhere. I saw a lot of people saying that compatability in the WWAN slot is a bit weird and people always recomend a specific drive. I was curious if anyone had some ideas on how I could get this 2230 to work or even just boot while it's in the slot. I have a cheap adapter extension thing, but it only extends the drive to reach the screw holding it down, maybe I need a different adapter? Someone said they were able to boot and recognize the drive by hotplugging, but I'm too scared to try this.
Last Q - I got a Lenovo battery off ebay that came with 62wh of life, I'm guessing it was a recell since battery report says that the design capacity is 62wh but I'm really not sure. I was wondering if there are any "knockoff" batteries with high quality cells that have closer to (or even more!) than the 72wh from factory. I've heard the horror stories about cheap batteries, but if I could find one that I can verify has quality cells, I really could care less.

First post here, not sure if this is an appropriate post, but I wanted to share my enthusiasm and hear other people's stories so I can justify this financially irresponcible decision
I would love to hear any and all quality of life mods/tips/tricks you use!
Also thank you avidthinkpad user for that t480 modding guide post, It was immensely helpful!

[RealBlackStuff]

Welcome to the Forum.
My T480 has a WD Blue SN500 250GB NVMe SSD in the WWAN slot, which has W10 installed on it.
See here for more info.
The main bay currently has a 500GB 2.5" CT500MX SSD for storage.
I also have an adapter with NVMe SSD for that main bay in reserve.

[755cdxd]

I really want to make use of the WWAN slot, but don't need the extra storage enough to warrant the $$$. I do however have a M+B key 512gb 2230 NVMe drive, but if I try to use it in the WWAN, I get a 1802 unauthorized network card error which prevents me from even going into bios or OS. I did some light research but didn't really get anywhere. I saw a lot of people saying that compatability in the WWAN slot is a bit weird and people always recomend a specific drive. I was curious if anyone had some ideas on how I could get this 2230 to work or even just boot while it's in the slot. I have a cheap adapter extension thing, but it only extends the drive to reach the screw holding it down, maybe I need a different adapter? Someone said they were able to boot and recognize the drive by hotplugging, but I'm too scared to try this.

You can flash libreboot firmware, it has no whitelist so your ssd should work in wwan slot.
https://libreboot.org/docs/install/t480.html

[kylemiwa]

I really want to make use of the WWAN slot, but don't need the extra storage enough to warrant the $$$. I do however have a M+B key 512gb 2230 NVMe drive, but if I try to use it in the WWAN, I get a 1802 unauthorized network card error which prevents me from even going into bios or OS. I did some light research but didn't really get anywhere. I saw a lot of people saying that compatability in the WWAN slot is a bit weird and people always recomend a specific drive. I was curious if anyone had some ideas on how I could get this 2230 to work or even just boot while it's in the slot. I have a cheap adapter extension thing, but it only extends the drive to reach the screw holding it down, maybe I need a different adapter? Someone said they were able to boot and recognize the drive by hotplugging, but I'm too scared to try this.

You can flash libreboot firmware, it has no whitelist so your ssd should work in wwan slot.
https://libreboot.org/docs/install/t480.html

So does this mean the t480 has a whitelist? I've seen conflicting info on this - I'd guess because I'm getting that 1802 error, that means there must be a whitelist?

[kylemiwa]

. I was curious if anyone had some ideas on how I could get this 2230 to work or even just boot while it's in the slot.

You can flash libreboot firmware, it has no whitelist so your ssd should work in wwan slot.
https://libreboot.org/docs/install/t480.html

It looks like LibreBoot disables tpm on the t480 https://libreboot.org/docs/install/t480 ... m-disabled
Would this require me to reinstall win11 and bypass the tpm requirement? Or if I already have win11 would it not matter as long as I don't use bitlocker

[RealBlackStuff]

As long as it is an NVMe SSD with B & M keys, it will work in the T480/T480s WWAN slot.
If it has only an M key, it will not work.
AFAIK there is ONLY a whitelist for WWAN cards in that slot, nothing to do with SSDs!

If you are daring and into modding, have a look at this beauty.
It's for T480s but also applies to T480 (which has its BIOS chip at location U49, near the RAM slots).

[kylemiwa]

As long as it is an NVMe SSD with B & M keys, it will work in the T480/T480s WWAN slot.
If it has only an M key, it will not work.
AFAIK there is ONLY a whitelist for WWAN cards in that slot, nothing to do with SSDs!

If you are daring and into modding, have a look at this beauty.
It's for T480s but also applies to T480 (which has its BIOS chip at location U49, near the RAM slots).

This and libreboot are very interesting and I plan to purchase another thinkpad to use with linux + libreboot since I want to learn about BIOS and linux stuff. I think I will likely bite the bullet and buy a known working drive because while these are great options, this is my daily and I really want to maintain current reliability.
My drive is a 2230 M + B key nvme drive, and on reddit I've seen people say that SK BC01 family of drives should work, so I'm not sure why I get the 1802 error. Thanks for the inspiration, one day I'll give bios modding another look!

[755cdxd]

It looks like LibreBoot disables tpm on the t480 https://libreboot.org/docs/install/t480 ... m-disabled
Would this require me to reinstall win11 and bypass the tpm requirement? Or if I already have win11 would it not matter as long as I don't use bitlocker

I don't think its possible to use windows11 with libreboot. I've seen a guy booting win10 but its not something most people would do.

[RealBlackStuff]

My drive is a 2230 M + B key nvme drive, and on reddit I've seen people say that SK BC01 family of drives should work, so I'm not sure why I get the 1802 error.

What make/model is your 2230?
Well-known or Chinese knock-off?

[kylemiwa]

It looks like LibreBoot disables tpm on the t480 https://libreboot.org/docs/install/t480 ... m-disabled
Would this require me to reinstall win11 and bypass the tpm requirement? Or if I already have win11 would it not matter as long as I don't use bitlocker

I don't think its possible to use windows11 with libreboot. I've seen a guy booting win10 but its not something most people would do.

Maybe one day I'll try, but I think if I'm going to put in the work to use libreboot, I might as well use linux and actually reap the rewards of libreboot. I have a w550s with the quadro on loan to a friend at the moment. When I get it back maybe I will mess around with that. I've heard getting nvidia discrete cards to work on linux can be tricky, but It would be fun to give it a try.

[kylemiwa]

My drive is a 2230 M + B key nvme drive, and on reddit I've seen people say that SK BC01 family of drives should work, so I'm not sure why I get the 1802 error.

What make/model is your 2230?
Well-known or Chinese knock-off?

To my knowledge its real, its a SK Hynix drive out a used dell from a business. Here's the link to it on newegg https://www.newegg.com/p/3B8-0086-00017 ... na_ubvB6hI
I was told it was wiped and formatted, but will use an adapter at my work to verify this. It looks identical to the one linked above, so I believe it's authentic, if you know of ways to test this with an m.2 adapter I'd love to hear it. I also have the original nvme 2230 from my steam deck, but it is only an M key drive. I saw a post where someone cut out the plastic notch on their t480 to make a m key work, but the thought alone hurts me. I can get a KingSpec 512GB M.2 NVMe SSD, 2242 PCIe Gen3x2 drive for $46 which I could stomach. I've seen a few ppl use them succesfully so I assume it should work out of the box. If I can't get this SK drive to work in the next week, I'll probably just cave.

[RealBlackStuff]

When I look at a 2230 to 2242 adapter such as this, I have my doubts that they work for a B & M card.
It adapts an M-slotted 2230 card to fit in a 2240 B&M slot.
It does NOT adapt an B&M-slotted 2230 card to fit in a 2240 B&M slot.
Look at the pictures in that link.
The M on the male B&M connector has 5 pins, the M in the female adapter-slot only has 4 pins.
And in that female adapter-slot I don't see a B slot/section either.

Me thinks if you put your Hynix 2230 card directly into the WWAN-slot and make some contraption to hold it in place properly, then it should work.
(e.g. cut a strip of an old credit card to 'bridge' the gap from card-hole to slot-screw-hole)

And your steamdeck M-card SSD will most likely work with that M to B&M adapter.

[axur-delmeria]

To my knowledge its real, its a SK Hynix drive out a used dell from a business. Here's the link to it on newegg https://www.newegg.com/p/3B8-0086-00017 ... na_ubvB6hI
I was told it was wiped and formatted, but will use an adapter at my work to verify this.

If your SK Hynix SSD looks exactly like the one in the newegg link, then it will fit on the T480 WWAN slot, but will be too short as it's only 30mm long. There are extenders like this one that will allow you to screw it into the WWAN slot.

[kylemiwa]

Me thinks if you put your Hynix 2230 card directly into the WWAN-slot and make some contraption to hold it in place properly, then it should work.
(e.g. cut a strip of an old credit card to 'bridge' the gap from card-hole to slot-screw-hole)

And your steamdeck M-card SSD will most likely work with that M to B&M adapter.

Using this method I still get the 1802 error. I tried just taping it down, and also tried this m.2 bracket extender I had lying around that happened to fit perfectly. I've seen in other posts that people taped over certain pins on their wwan card which allowed them to at least boot, this case was with an actual wan card not an ssd so I'm not sure it would work. Are there bios settings I can try before installing the ssd? I've heard people have success with hotplugging but I haven't tried it in hopes of finding a less sketchy troubleshooting step. I am considering purchasing a chip programmer so I can try some bios modification that just removes the wwan whitelist but that would be a last resort. I haven't been able to plug in the drive to verify that it's wiped and formatted properly, but I don't really think that would fix the 1802 error but who knows.

[axur-delmeria]

Using this method I still get the 1802 error. I tried just taping it down, and also tried this m.2 bracket extender I had lying around that happened to fit perfectly. I've seen in other posts that people taped over certain pins on their wwan card which allowed them to at least boot, this case was with an actual wan card not an ssd so I'm not sure it would work. Are there bios settings I can try before installing the ssd?

If wonder if the 1802 error is due to it being a Dell part, in particular the subsystem vendor ID. TBH I've never encountered any report of a T480 showing an 1802 error due to the WWAN SSD except yours.

[kylemiwa]

Using this method I still get the 1802 error. I tried just taping it down, and also tried this m.2 bracket extender I had lying around that happened to fit perfectly. I've seen in other posts that people taped over certain pins on their wwan card which allowed them to at least boot, this case was with an actual wan card not an ssd so I'm not sure it would work. Are there bios settings I can try before installing the ssd?

If wonder if the 1802 error is due to it being a Dell part, in particular the subsystem vendor ID. TBH I've never encountered any report of a T480 showing an 1802 error due to the WWAN SSD except yours.

It very well could be. Are you aware of anyway to alter/modify a drives vendor ID? I've seen a few reports of people with this error and many of them resolved it by just getting a different drive.

[RealBlackStuff]

It is maybe possible, look at this.
Scroll down till you see username AnotherCableGuy.
I saw more posts about modding the VID, but no one showed success.
IMHO you're wasting your time and very likely it will brick that SSD.

So either get a proper 2242 M&B drive, or get a WD SN500 or SN520 in 2280 format and cut that down to 2242, as shown here.
My T480 has such a modified SN500.
2280 models are often cheaper than 2242, but not all 2280 can be cut down to size, so be warned.