PCMCIA to Express Adaptor

[priscus]

Has anyone experience of using PCMCIA to Express card adaptors in older PCs?

These things: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/PC-Expres...Adapter-/121172081917?&_trksid=p2056016.l4276

I have been using one in a Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo Pro 2030, and I thought it was coping fine. A range of Express card Add-Ons all worked well. even USB3 Ports, though probably not attaining their potential full speed.

As not many 32 bit XP systems came with Express card ports, the Belkin Docking Station, which utilised such is available for more or less the cost of postage.

Here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000W9TIAM/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Have tried both using supplied drivers, and those available for download from Belkin, but machine freezes when card inserted. Upon removal, it reports a USB device not recognisable. (Device manager shows two levels of USB device unable to start.)

When it freezes it will not respond to ctrl alt del: only option is remove card or power button.

Do you think this is a limitation imposed by the PCMCIA to Express adaptor?

 

[Mike_Walsh]

Has anyone experience of using PCMCIA to Express card adaptors in older PCs?

These things: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/PC-Expres...Adapter-/121172081917?&_trksid=p2056016.l4276

I have been using one in a Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo Pro 2030, and I thought it was coping fine. A range of Express card Add-Ons all worked well. even USB3 Ports, though probably not attaining their potential full speed.

As not many 32 bit XP systems came with Express card ports, the Belkin Docking Station, which utilised such is available for more or less the cost of postage.

Here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000W9TIAM/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Have tried both using supplied drivers, and those available for download from Belkin, but machine freezes when card inserted. Upon removal, it reports a USB device not recognisable. (Device manager shows two levels of USB device unable to start.)

When it freezes it will not respond to ctrl alt del: only option is remove card or power button.

Do you think this is a limitation imposed by the PCMCIA to Express adaptor?

Hiya, priscus.

Mm. Could be, could be. We all know just how fussy Windows is about non-standard stuff.

My 14-yr old Dell Inspiron laptop is one of the last models that I know of which came with a PCMCIA slot as standard. The 1100 never came with a built-in wireless card, unlike its 'big brother', the 5100.....which did.

It only has 2 USB ports. For a while, I used a TP-Link 'nano' 'N' USB wifi dongle, but that meant I only had one port available. So I treated the old girl to a 'period' PCMCIA wireless adapter, which worked just as well, and had the advantage of freeing up the other USB port.

Then, less than a fortnight later, I found, in our local Maplins store (a UK version of RadioShack), a PCMCIA card with 4 USB ports, and a 5V power jack built-in. So I now have the option of using whichever wifi adapter I want to, depending on how many USB ports I'm likely to need....

However, I've never needed to use of these ExpressCard adapters. As I understand it, the ExpressCard was a later development of the original PCMCIA card, and was able to support mini-PCI. That, right there, could be part of the problem..... Windows has never liked things being 'hot-swapped' around, unlike Linux; where the kernel has all drivers built-in, and was designed to support 'chopping & changing' from its very inception!

I can swap my PCMCIA cards around while 'Puppy' Linux is running, and it's quite happy...responding to, and correctly reporting the changes straightaway. And this is on the very same hardware where XP used to get its knickers in such a twist..!


Mike.

 

[priscus]

Thanks for you reply, Mike. Sorry belated: only just spotted it.

I seem to have become a bit obsessed with keeping/getting old stuff working. Last night saw me messing around with 5.25 Floppy Disks: the fist time I have used them since the early 1990's.

All the nearly three decades old tech worked perfectly.