[UnaClocker]

Editted for the RunCore drive, removed information about the defunct Generic SSD this article was originally about.

And a video, on...

Click here to read the entire tutorial

[xokeman]

Originally Posted by scottyrox

anyone tried any of this with a super talent SSD?

this does work on Super Talent Drives Just use the same wiring as you might for the STEC .. mine works great!

[Thorsteenster]

So when you were probing for a signal to use to power the LED, were you seeing the voltage fluctuate? In my mini 10 I have a ST SSD and I had the cover off probing all the unused terminals on the SSD board, plenty had power but none I saw fluctuate. I kept rebooting figuring that should definitely cause some flutter in voltage.

[UnaClocker]

Originally Posted by Thorsteenster

So when you were probing for a signal to use to power the LED, were you seeing the voltage fluctuate? In my mini 10 I have a ST SSD and I had the cover off probing all the unused terminals on the SSD board, plenty had power but none I saw fluctuate. I kept rebooting figuring that should definitely cause some flutter in voltage.

I did no probing. I identified the chips, got the pin outs, and figured out which pin was the one I needed.

[vrg3]

Great writeup, UnaClocker! Thanks for documenting your hack for us. I have a few thoughts and comments:

The JM20330 requires a 3.3-volt power supply for its logic; you can tap that power supply directly on the drive if you like. It looks like my RunCore drive is a little different from yours, but you should still be able to find it. One of the larger capacitors on the board is a bypass cap for the 3.3v supply and so one side of it should be +3.3v and the other ground. I soldered a resistor directly to it to minimize the chances of a short circuit even if one of the wires gets cut.

Also, to make sure I could remove the SSD any time I wanted, I put a connector on the wire pigtails, kind of accomplishing something similar to your idea of asking RunCore to put a header on the drive for this purpose. I had these lying around, but they look the same as 609-2176-ND and 609-3519-ND from Digi-Key.

Like jhayden, I ran my wires through one of the WWAN socket mounting holes. I thought it made more sense to mount the LED to the motherboard than to the palmrest, though, so that you can still remove the palmrest. I ran the wires along the edge of the motherboard and used double-sided tape to mount a rectangular red LED right by the battery LED. You have to mount it a little off the board to make sure it clears the palmrest's supports. Also, when assembling everything, you have to make sure the wires stay clear of any screw holes.

I'm attaching some pictures. Like I said, my drive I bought on eBay seems to be different from yours (I know mine wasn't meant for the Mini 9 because I had to file away part of one of the mounting standoffs to make it fit), but they should still be of some use. In the last picture you can also see some unrelated mods -- masking tape over the power LED (why on Earth did they make it so freaking bright to begin with?) and a microcontroller for controlling my keyboard LED (I'll post a writeup of this one soon).

turtle2472 - There's very little current going through these wires. 32 AWG is fine. I used 30 AWG.

khamm01 - If you're using a blue LED and a 3.3-volt supply, you might be able to get away without a resistor, but you're risking damaging the LED or (more likely) the chip on your SSD.

paultman - The two LEDs on the motherboard from the factory don't have leads; they're tiny surface mount units. It actually is easier to install an additional LED.

[ReanimationXP]

Forgive the noob question, but is it possible to perform this or something similar on a Mini 10v? Has anyone done the research, or done it and taken pics? Very interested if someone can point me in the right direction.

Thanks! and great work!

[Atan3]

Scoured the forums so i'm just gonna put this out there, one thing I miss on my mini 9 that comes in handy on my Inspiron and XPS are the communication LED's... any way to add a WLAN or BT activity led???