PCIe card Whitelist in Lenovo Desktops

[kohenkatz]

Hello,

I have two Lenovo ThinkCentre desktops, one is M90p and the other is M71e.
I also have two PCIe network cards, SuperMicro AOC-SG-I2 and HP NC360T.

When I put the HP card in the M90p, it works perfectly. However, when I put the HP card in the M71e or when I put the SuperMicro card in either one of them, the OS does not see the card. (This is true in Windows 7, Windows 10 Preview, and FreeBSD.)

Because the M71e is still in warranty, I called Lenovo support, and they told me that the BIOS of these machines has a whitelist of what PCIe cards it accepts. The tech support guy didn't know for sure, but guessed that the HP card is similar enough to something else on the whitelist in the M90p, but that card is no longer allowed in the M71e. (Note that, despite the numbers, the M71e is newer than the M90p.)

I have long known about the Wifi restrictions in the laptop BIOS, and I see that there is a forum here for that, but I wasn't sure what to do about these - they aren't wifi cards, so they don't really qualify for that board.

What should I do? Has anyone had any experience with these (or similar) issues?

Thank You!

[BDMaster]

Hello,

I have two Lenovo ThinkCentre desktops, one is M90p and the other is M71e.
I also have two PCIe network cards, SuperMicro AOC-SG-I2 and HP NC360T.

When I put the HP card in the M90p, it works perfectly. However, when I put the HP card in the M71e or when I put the SuperMicro card in either one of them, the OS does not see the card. (This is true in Windows 7, Windows 10 Preview, and FreeBSD.)

Because the M71e is still in warranty, I called Lenovo support, and they told me that the BIOS of these machines has a whitelist of what PCIe cards it accepts. The tech support guy didn't know for sure, but guessed that the HP card is similar enough to something else on the whitelist in the M90p, but that card is no longer allowed in the M71e. (Note that, despite the numbers, the M71e is newer than the M90p.)

I have long known about the Wifi restrictions in the laptop BIOS, and I see that there is a forum here for that, but I wasn't sure what to do about these - they aren't wifi cards, so they don't really qualify for that board.

What should I do? Has anyone had any experience with these (or similar) issues?

Thank You!

Ok friend,
all Lenovo Laptops have the Whitelist into Bios and It manifests itself giving Error 1082 or 1084 at Bootstrap Bios.
So if You can Boot your System without issue, but Windows cannot find the WiFi Card thre is a compatibility issue may be a Pinout issue and You can try to tapeing Pin #51 for Blutooth and Pin #20 for WLan Power Switch On !
If do You want to check Whitelist presence into your Bios then use these tools both for any laptop and run them as Admin, then upload results files here and I will analyze them for You :

http://rghost.net/58219938

http://rghost.net/53128665

Let me know
Regards

Look here :

https://www.bios-mods.com/forum/Thread-T...ware-Flash

[kohenkatz]

Hello,

I have two Lenovo ThinkCentre desktops, [...].

[...], I called Lenovo support, and they told me that the BIOS of these machines has a whitelist of what PCIe cards it accepts.

[...] they aren't wifi cards, [...]

all Lenovo Laptops have the Whitelist into Bios [...]

[...] Windows cannot find the WiFi Card there is a compatibility issue [...]

Thank you for the reply. However, as you can see from the differences that I highlighted in the quotes above, what you said doesn't really address the issue. I'll run those tools anyway to see what I get, but I want to know if talking about desktops changes anything.

Thank you again.