CNVi Wireless... Impossible to upgrade now?

[mb300sd]

Just learned about this new "improved" wifi interface recently when trying to upgrade the wifi in my new laptop. Apparently now the wifi chipset is integrated with the CPU. I currently have an Intel AC 9560 card, that I'm trying to swap out for an AX201. Both are CNVi cards, but the laptop won't even power on after inserting the AX201. No charging LED, no POST, no nothing.

AX200 is a standard PCIe card, the laptop boots, but nothing is detected. I upgraded my older laptop that has a standard M.2 PCIe slot with an AX200 and it works perfectly.

So are wireless cards now locked to CPU/chipset versions? Seems like a major downgrade in my opinion.

Ordered an adapter to try to use the spare NVMe M-key slot for the wifi card, and another adapter to break out USB for bluetooth from the CNVi slot, and IPEX extensions, but hopes are low...

 

[chaoscontrol]

Especially laptops use whitelists for hardware in their BIOS. You can try and find a modified BIOS or modify one yourself.

 

[mb300sd]

Its definitely not a whitelist issue. MSI is not known for locking anything, and the issues are happening before the BIOS even loads.

A few more hours of searching, and it seems that the AC9560 uses a CNVio1 interface, while the AX201 uses a CNVio2 interface. Can't find any information on the details of how it works, but it seems like theres a pinout difference or something since the laptop EC won't even charge the battery while the AX201 is installed.

Hoping the M-key slot will take regular PCIe devices and not just NVMe now. Its insane that there's no way to upgrade the wifi on a 2 week old $4k laptop.

 

[pricklypunter]

I would draw your attention to the statement at the very bottom of this document

 

[mb300sd]

Well aware of that. I'm trying to upgrade from one CNVi card to another. Others have reported PCIe lanes wired on the slot working with standard E-key cards, but not on my laptop.

 

[Gabeeg]

Looks like Intel uses CNVi to allow for cheaper Wifi Modules for manufacturers. CNVi spec uses CPU/chipset to offload processing, memory,etc. with CRF and the interfacing the only thing needed on the module (vs. PCIe/USB where it has its own resources and processing onboard). Unfortunately CNVi2 is not very well documented (at least by rudimentary search which I did), but I would be highly surprised if CNVi is forward compatible with CNVi2 cards (pin out looks the same though...but what they do or how they do it may be different). I am very curious to find out what changed between the two specs for CNVi...if anyone finds out. Looks like we maybe stuck with 9560's and AX201 maybe a bridge too far. Cost cutting bites again.