Predator G5 -793 Unused ports

Ahaja

Hello everyone,

I've bought a Predator G5-793 in 2016 and recently I had to replace my RAM. As all of the ram was in the slots on the other side of the motherboard, I had to completely disassemble the laptop. During the disassembly I have noticed couple of unused ports. One of them, it seems, is a slimline SATA port and it perfectly aligns with sealed cd/dvd caddy also the backpanel has a mounting rack that can easily facilitate a HDD/SSD or a cd/dvd drive (the side panel can be removed by removing two screws in the middle of the mounting rack). The caddy won't fit as there are two plastic columns that block access, so I bought a male slim SATA to female SATA cable that can be used to mount the drive directly. I'll post pictures when I am done (waiting for the cable to arrive). Does anyone know anything about the other two ports?

(Thread was edited to add model name to the title)

brummyfan2

Hi,
Unknown port next to keyboard connection is Debug connection which is used by software programmers, the other port is for HDD connection.
https://www.techopedia.com/definition/16373/debugging
You need a cable kike this to connect the HDD to the motherboard:https://www.amazon.com/Acer-50-Q04N5-001-Cable-HDD/dp/B01DQXFP9S

Ahaja

brummyfan2 said:

Hi,
Unknown port next to keyboard connection is Debug connection which is used by software programmers, the other port is for HDD connection.
https://www.techopedia.com/definition/16373/debugging
You need a cable kike this to connect the HDD to the motherboard:https://www.amazon.com/Acer-50-Q04N5-001-Cable-HDD/dp/B01DQXFP9S

Thank You brummyfan2,

I completely forgot that my laptop already uses one HDD port , I borrowed the picture from someone else.
Do you think slimline SATA port will work as a second HDD?

xapim

I suppose it will work fine with another hdd seem it was made for a sata optical drive so any 2.5 hdd would work fine there (either in a caddy adapter or directly connected to it) but dunno about the port speed might be a bit less than the normal sata hdd port but as i said it should work just fine

Ahaja

Thank you,

i'll try the cable and see how it works.

xapim

Ahaja said:

Thank you,

i'll try the cable and see how it works.

Let us know the results

Ahaja

It is an old post but I owe you a resolution. It seems that the unused ports are firmware or bios locked, it seems that you would need to flash the bios to enable these ports which is shame as the harware is there but the ports are disabled.