Well the hackers at MyHPMini have done it again, this time they’ve rewrote the bios to allow for the addition of a 3G Wireless card or a mini wifi card to the extra PCI-E slot in the HP Mini 311. This is definitely a warranty-voiding hack so don’t undertake unless you know what you’re doing.
As you may or may not know the HP Mini 311 is one of the best netbooks out right now (mainly because of the ION graphics). This meant of course that as soon as they started shipping someone would tear one apart and look for ways to upgrade it. One interesting thing found inside was an empty mini PCI-E slot which could theoretically be used for many different additions including 3G cards, Wifi cards, or even additional storage.
Well 2 of those are now a go with the hacked bios made by forum member “icelord”. With this hack you can add in a mini wifi card which allows for the removal of the original card freeing up a full size PCI slot for additional usage. You can also add in a 3G WWAN (wireless wide area network) card for wireless broadband roaming if you’d like.
If you want to give this hack a try take a look at the thread over at myhpmini, which also includes a hack to convert the Nvidia ION LE included with the Mini 311 into full ION graphics.
