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Engender

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 6, 2007
93
8
swap J2 with J3 on the card

or use an external antenna

I'll give that a shot. If swapping J2 and J3 don't work, could you link a suggestion for an external antenna? I tried to look through them on Amazon last night, but there are too many—kind of frustrating.

Thanks!
 

tommy chen

macrumors 6502a
Oct 1, 2018
907
386
ok, if your cMP is under your table swapping does not working good

sorry, the links goes to german amazon

antenna:

https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B00K8AJJFY

adapter:

https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B06VSRJFV9/


make a hole at the backside:

IMG_5209.jpg
 

Engender

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 6, 2007
93
8
Yeah, I switched J2 and J3, and there was a slight improvement, but the cMP is under the table. I think I'm going to find an antenna and drill a hole through one of my PCIe cards, so that I don't damage the case.

Thanks for the help!
 

h9826790

macrumors P6
Apr 3, 2014
16,611
8,537
Hong Kong
Yeah, I switched J2 and J3, and there was a slight improvement, but the cMP is under the table. I think I'm going to find an antenna and drill a hole through one of my PCIe cards, so that I don't damage the case.

Thanks for the help!

There is no need to damage the case. The IPX connector should be small enough to get through the holes.

IMG_7405.jpeg
 

Engender

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 6, 2007
93
8
There is no need to damage the case. The IPX connector should be small enough to get through the holes.

Great point. I went ahead and drilled into one of the blank PCI covers, though. It looks awesome, but isn't working great. In the process of installing everything, I messed up several of the IPX connectors, ended up cutting them off, and then stripped an twisted the wires together. That might not have worked so well, so I've ordered a new set of IPX connectors to try it again.

I have a new question. At mikas's suggestion, I got a Samsung 970 Evo and this NVMe to PCIe adapter. I purchased this one because I had a coupon that would give me a discount on purchases from Amazon sold by Amazon. Anyway, the PCI adapter I got has two slots, one for a M NVMe drive (using the PCIe interface) and one for a B NVMe drive (using a SATA interface). So, the 970 Evo is in the M slot, but does anyone have a suggestion for the B slot? I thought maybe I could get something for the B slot and run MacOS off of that instead of the 860 Pro I'm using now. I suspect the B NVMe drives are pretty inexpensive as well.

Thanks!
 

h9826790

macrumors P6
Apr 3, 2014
16,611
8,537
Hong Kong
Great point. I went ahead and drilled into one of the blank PCI covers, though. It looks awesome, but isn't working great. In the process of installing everything, I messed up several of the IPX connectors, ended up cutting them off, and then stripped an twisted the wires together. That might not have worked so well, so I've ordered a new set of IPX connectors to try it again.

I have a new question. At mikas's suggestion, I got a Samsung 970 Evo and this NVMe to PCIe adapter. I purchased this one because I had a coupon that would give me a discount on purchases from Amazon sold by Amazon. Anyway, the PCI adapter I got has two slots, one for a M NVMe drive (using the PCIe interface) and one for a B NVMe drive (using a SATA interface). So, the 970 Evo is in the M slot, but does anyone have a suggestion for the B slot? I thought maybe I could get something for the B slot and run MacOS off of that instead of the 860 Pro I'm using now. I suspect the B NVMe drives are pretty inexpensive as well.

Thanks!

There is no NVMe (SATA interface). It's a slot for SATA SSD that in m.2 form factor with B key. It's just a SATA SSD, not NVMe. It's one or the other, like Apple cannot be Orange at the same time.

Anyway, no point to use that slot on cMP. Better just leave it empty.
 

Engender

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 6, 2007
93
8
There is no NVMe (SATA interface). It's a slot for SATA SSD that in m.2 form factor with B key. It's just a SATA SSD, not NVMe. It's one or the other, like Apple cannot be Orange at the same time.

Anyway, no point to use that slot on cMP. Better just leave it empty.

Ah! Thanks. So, it would be a SATA SSD just like my 850 Pro. So, I would just be adding a long SATA to eSATA connector, when I could just get another 2.5" SATA SSD like my 850 Pro and attach it directly to one of the SATA interfaces. Correct?
 

h9826790

macrumors P6
Apr 3, 2014
16,611
8,537
Hong Kong
Ah! Thanks. So, it would be a SATA SSD just like my 850 Pro. So, I would just be adding a long SATA to eSATA connector, when I could just get another 2.5" SATA SSD like my 850 Pro and attach it directly to one of the SATA interfaces. Correct?

As I said in my last post, that's a "slot for SATA SSD that in m.2 form factor with B key". Not for 2.5" form factor SSD.

And why eSATA? You have eSATA card installed?

Anyway, this is m.2 SATA SSD. Not NVMe, not 2.5" SATA SSD.
Screenshot 2019-12-08 at 5.56.58 AM.png


And even you install that onto the card. You still need to connect the onboard SATA port to one of your native SATA II port (or SATA III port if you have such PCIe card installed). Otherwise, the SSD won't work.

The m.2 SATA SSD is quite a bit more expensive than 2.5" SSD, and won't run faster than any 2.5" SSD no matter you connect it to a SATA II port or SATA III card. In other word, no point to do so.

If you have a 2.5" SSD, you can simply plug that into the optical bay SATA port.
 
Last edited:

Engender

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 6, 2007
93
8
As I said in my last post, that's a "slot for SATA SSD that in m.2 form factor with B key". Not for 2.5" form factor SSD.

That why eSATA? You have eSATA card installer?

Anyway, this is m.2 SATA SSD. Not NVMe, not 2.5" SATA SSD.
View attachment 881379

And even you install that onto the card. You still need to connect the onboard SATA port to one of your native SATA II port (or SATA III port if you have such PCIe card installed). Otherwise, the SSD won't work.

The m.2 SATA SSD is quite a bit more expensive than 2.5" SSD, and won't run faster than any 2.5" SSD no matter you connect it to a SATA II port or SATA III card. In other word, no point to do so.

If you have a 2.5" SSD, you can simply plug that into the optical bay SATA port.

I have a 2.5. Samsung 850 Pro that I've been running off of a PCIe x1 adapter. I moved the 850 to the extra SATA port underneath the Superdrive for a bit, thinking that I'd need to free up a PCIe slot. But, under Mojave, I can't keep my original GT 150 in the PCI slot. So, I moved the 850 bacl into the PCI slot.

Thanks for the info about the SATA M.2 drive!
 
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