inserting or installing a SIM phone card into a HP ProBook 4540s notebook laptop thing

hi there

well, upfront, i dare say any IT or techno type reading this will pour scorn, laugh or shake their head in disbelief. that's fine, you do this sort of thing for a hobby or job, this info is not meant for you. it's meant for people who used google to work out just where, to quote a dear friend, in the blue blazes does a SIM card go on a HP "embedded 3G" laptop.

i was recently requested to source a new laptop for someone, or "NoteBook" as they are now called for some obscure reason. this i did. i selected, as the title suggests, the HP ProBook 4540s one for a number of reasons - the "specs" i believe they are called. what really sold it was an embedded slot thingie for a SIM card to allow you to do the internet and that. those USB "dongle" modems are often useless and easy to misplace, so having it built in to the machine was a bonus.

IMPORTANT NOTE - not all HP 4540s or other notebook / laptop things have the 3G modem "embedded" or installed on the machine. please DO NOT take your machine apart just to have a gander. check the hardware on the system if you are unsure, it will refer to it as a modem.

but where oh where does one put the SIM card? that's a very good question. the chap in the store was unsure, which was a warning sign. i am not surprised he did not know, as nothing in the manuals with the machine gave any indication as to where to put it. Dad, if you are reading this, the manuals that come with any sort of equipment are those books with writing on that you just discard.

i had a hunch that it was in or near the battery, and had seen similar PCs with a big sign saying SIM in that area. there was not, however, any such sign and no obvious slot.

a search of the internet - both the official HP site and those forum things - left me without an answer. i then, running out of ways to search for the info, clicked on a video on that youtube thing that showed one how to change the memory (whatever the hell that is) on the same machine. a-ha, i said, in a moment of revelation rather than in a moment of celebrating Nowegian pop.

here's how you do it, and sorry it is pictures and a guide rather than one of them youtube video things. i prefer reading and looking myself.

first off, flip her over and you will see this. you will know how to take the battery off, at the least, as you have probably put it in. i know i did to check the hardware system thing on the PC / laptop / notebook to check that the modem thingie was there! it's those two buttons below the battery if not, you push them inwards and the battery should be released.

there's the battery off, then. you can see that in the picture below. what you can't see is any evidence or indicator for where one puts the SIM card.

here is a picture of that, just for the sake of it.

although you can't see it yet, believe it or not we are nearly there.

what no one tells you - not the books with the machine, not the HP site, not any forums, is that if you, after taking the battery out, press those two buttons inwards a second time, the back or bottom panel comes off!

the buttons are circled here below for you for the sake of making this as straightforward as i can.

excuse my language and all that, but why the f*** do they not just state that on a guide or somewhere on the web? do they just take it as a given that everyone who buys a laptop / notebook will know exactly how it all works and how to take it apart?

my experience of laptops is limited to say the least, and i had no idea that they were now so robust that one could do a bit of self-maintenance. this would be why some IT people give all of them a bad name - they tend to be dicks about what they know, and assume that everyone else takes all of this knowledge as a given. well, we do not!

now that the back is off, here is a look at what is under this back / bottom panel. my best advice is do not touch a single thing you see.

but where is the SIM card port for the modem? well, not quite at the back or on the bottom, but on the side, just above the microphone and headphone ports. it is covered by the back case cover thing, there is no way to put the SIM in without taking the cover off.

here, see if you can spot it.

you did? great! if not, here it is with a red circle around it. well, not an actual circle, but a version of a circle that i did in MS Paint.

you install or insert the SIM card pretty much the same as you would do it in a cellular or mobile phone. writing up, chip thingie side facing down and at the bottom of the card. gently push it in and you should hear one of them "click" things, the sound that lets you know it is in the right place and in properly.

after that, put the cover on as fast and carefully as you can, and off you go! open up the HP Connect Manager thing (might be Connection Manager, frequently appears as HPCM). it should auto-detect the SIM and off you go; if not search out the details you need to connect from the service provider for the SIM and add the connection.

it does, with my limited experience, seem like an amazing machine. once the battle to find where the SIM goes was won, it was only one or two minutes after booting back up (or switching the machine back on if you want to get technical) that i had the internet thing working.

the above is nowhere near as bad an experience as the problems i had with a Samsung monitor and a PC running Windows 7 (search the blog for it, quite a few have and i am glad to hear it has helped one or two), but it is close. would it really kill HP to include a guide as to how to insert the SIM into this, if not in the manual with the machine then on their website?

if you got one of these laptop things, have been baffled by where the SIM goes and further confused by the lack of information from HP or anywhere else about where it goes, i truly hope this has assisted!



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!