Compal POST diagnostic card

From DP

In the cases of BIOS failure or a minor hardware malfunction, POST codes could be really helpful to find out why your computer is not booting, at what booting stage it is stuck. You could write down these codes and look them up online or ask knowledgeable people.

Example: incomplete list of coreboot POST codes . Other codes could be found by running

cd ./coreboot/
find . -type f -print0 | xargs -0 grep "post_code"

Many desktop motherboards have a POST display for these codes, but probably there are no laptops with it. If you have a laptop and would like to see its' POST codes, you need to buy a special POST card like this:

[*] Compal POST diagnostic card - example 1 (~$15.18)

[*] Compal POST diagnostic card - example 2 (~$16.44)

This card could be inserted to MiniPCIe port of Compal laptop motherboard instead of WiFi adapter, or connected to a special header with included wires. Compatible with Compal, Quanta and some other laptop motherboards!

Note: the example links above are for 2013 revision of POST card. You could see its' supported interfaces at this table: (MiniPCI interface can't be seen at new laptop designs so it was omitted)

To understand if this card is compatible with your laptop's motherboard, find out a motherboard's manufacturer - this is not equal to laptop's manufacturer! (which in fact just assembles a laptop and puts their logo on it) . Usually you could find this information, as well as motherboard's model number, written on a motherboard (need to disassemble a laptop to look), or maybe try to look it up online. If this manufacturer is not Compal/Quanta, you could try looking through a datasheet for this board (if it is available publicly) to see if it is exposing the POST codes, and - if yes - through what interface