HP Elitebook 840 G6 SSD in WWAN Slot

[adnane27]

Hello everyone, 
my laptop has a WWAN Slot that is not populated, i want to install a second SSD in it, i purchased a 2242 m.2 SSD and installed it in it, it did not show up in windows at all, there is no option in the UEFI that lets me configure my SSDs, is there anything I can do to make the SSD show up.
Thank you all in advance.

[TzortzisG]

Hi adnane27, what type of 2242 m.2 drive did you buy?

[adnane27]

I used KingShark Gamer SSD M.2 2242 256GB Internal Ngff SSD 42MM SATA III 6Gb/s (256GB M.2 2242), I bought it from Amazon

[TzortzisG]

Hi adnane27 and thanks for the info!

I was afraid of this because I saw that you had opened up another thread with this question (prior to this thread) and unfortunately you got a bit of bad advice.....

You see, you have a WWAN slot that is: M.2 3042-S3 Key B PCI Express. You can definitely use the narrower 2242 m.2, however trying to make a SATA m.2 work there is like filling up an electric car's trunk with gas and expecting it to charge its battery. That's your FIRST problem right there!

[adnane27]

So, is there a way or an ssd that i can buy that would work just fine? or am i out of luck here, 
and thank you for your precious time.

[TzortzisG]

- thank you for your precious time

I'm not the president of the united states you know (yet).

Anyways, I can't really answer your question with 100% certainty, because every system is different, and I've never actually worked on yours. On the other (previous) thread you'd posted, Banhien EXPERT Level 20 gave you some solid info, but he did use the term "in theory". In theory and on desktops, every pcie and sata port can support storage drives. In reality though and on laptops, and specifically on YOUR EliteBook 840 G6 Notebook PC you have to actually try a pcie m.2 ssd to KNOW how HP wired its port. I can tell you however from my experience that HP doesn't wire the short m.2 ports for both SATA and PCIE and also that it almost NEVER allows storage to be used on the pcie ones, it only has them used for wifi/bt or wwan. I've bought in the past 3 ultra-compatible m.2 2242 pcie ssds of small capacity (Kingston, Samsung, Hynix) and I try every probook/elitebook I come across.  After gen1 and gen2 (some of which DID in fact support SATA m.2 ssds), I have yet to come across one that can see these drives. The telltale sign for me that a laptop will be able to actually see and use a m.2 ssd in these ports is a separate BIOS option (like the one in gen1 and gen2 I mentioned).

If I were you I'd try to get my money back for the drive and not pursue this any further. However, if you think it's worth your while, you can exchange it for a pcie m.2 SSD and hope that your system is the exception. Best answer I can give you unfortunately......

Take care.

[adnane27]

Well, that's a detailed explanation of why this will probably never work, thank you so much for answering my question, i can't return this drive because i bought like 4 months ago lol, but i'll sell it online.
Thank you again and have a wonderful week.

[AleixJF]

Hey! I found your posts some days ago since I was trying to install an SSD on my WWAN slot too (on an HP EliteBook x360 G8)… but unfortunately, the one I bought wasn’t compatible since it was a SATA III SSD, despite the size & the connector + pins matched.

However, I’ve just installed another drive I’ve bought which uses NVMe instead of SATA III interface, and the drive is recognized on my laptop and fully working!

I hope you (or any other future reader) find this information useful 🙂

[TzortzisG]

Thank you VERY MUCH AleixJF for your valuable input and for chipping in!

If possible, could you also mention the exact x360 g8 elitebook you upgraded and with what pcie ssd (brand,model)? To be honest with you, I have seen quite a few successful upgrades reported online (mostly Reddit) concerning the elitebook g8s, and even some cases where a g6 or g7 was working well with a wwan m.2. In fact, I own a g8 business model myself (probook 650 g8) that clearly states in the manual "Primary storagePCIe, NVMe, M.2 2280 or 2242 solid-state drives", yet I've never found a way to get it to work with one (2242 ssd). It seems that even if one reports success on a model online, another two users with the same exact model pop up and ask why their laptops don't see the drives. It's obvious that HP doesn't like their laptops running storage on the wwan slots, and that because of this the whole thing is kinda hit-and-miss....

On a side note, I just ordered a g9 (elitebook 650) that officially supports ssds in the wwan slot, and I had the HP authorized reseller/service center install a 256gb ssd before giving it to me (80€/$ just for the work-not the parts). If I understand correctly, the g9s support storage on their wwan ONLY if you bought the versions that lack the wwan module. What the resellers told me was that only those versions (different motherboards) have this ability enabled. Go figure.....

Just goes to show you how difficult HP wants to make using storage on  their laptops' wwan slot.

[AleixJF]

Sure thing! My HP model is the HP EliteBook x360 G8 (Product #1G7F5AV), and I installed a 2nd hand NVMe I bought (LiteOn CL1-4D128) which was apparently originally installed on a Lenovo laptop.
I can't tell you about other HP laptops unfortunately, but my experience has been that SATA disks, as they told you, don't work on WWAN, but NVMe disks do 🙂
It's been very useful and I'm very happy with it (performance too), since I've been able to install Linux there with a separated /home partition, which I can also access from Windows 11 with WSL2. This has allowed me to have 1 shared repository for developing in any OS 🙂

As a final note, WOW, 80€ for installing the NVMe... Next time, be sure to check HP's phenomenal Service Manuals (for your HP model, of course) if you are a little handy...