LAPTOP FORUM

The USB Ports on my laptop are completely dead. I would like to use a PCMCIA
USB card to give it some new ones but all the ones I can find require power
from an existing USB port which I no longer have. Does anyone know how I can
add USB ports to my laptop without the use of an existing USB port? TIA.

th@would.be.telling wrote:
Belkin, among others, make a PCMCIA to USB2 adaptor, which will power a
memory key running from the PCMCIA bus, & comes with a wall wart supply
for heavier drains, such as external HDs or webcams.

This one:-

http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product Id=123940

(The part number is F5U222vuk1 )

It works for me:-)

I got mine from PC World a year or two ago.

--
Tciao for Now!

John.

John Williamson wrote in message
news:fhungv$182$1@stable.tornevall.net...

Be careful, there are CardBus to USB cards that do a fine job, but there
are no PCMCIA to USB cards. If you plug a CardBus only card into
PCMCIA only, it will not work... (CardBus is essentially hot swapable
PCI on soft of a PCMCIA interface. It is NOT PCMCIA)

Is your computer PCMCIA or CardBus? While every computer Ive
seen with USB were CardBus, that is not a guarantee.

Mike

...snip...

Isnt there also a difference of 32-bit (Cardbus) vs 16-bit (PCMCIA)?

Paul DS

Paul D.Smith wrote in message
news:1205168573.22592.0@proxy00.news.clara.net...

Yes, BIG difference.

PCMCIA is 16 bit. Its pretty much a PC-AT 16 bit bus on a card with
enhancements.

CardBus is essentially Hot Swapable PCI. In fact, CardBus controllers
appear as PCI bridge devices and the CardBus card appears, in most
cases, EXACTLY as a PCI device does.

MOST CardBus controllers will also was as if they are PCMCIA
socket controllers and will accept PCMCIA cards, with the caveat that
some, but not all, require use of the PCI rotateable interrupts. A
number of early CardBus implementations also supported what was
called sideband interrupts, where they could generate IRQs directly
to the interrupt controller from the socket controller.

Mike