Is there 2 types of PC-Cards (PCMCIA or something like that) 16 and 32 bit or other? Are they interchangeable? Is the less ‘advanced’ card usable in the more ‘advanced’ slot?
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- PCMCIA cards are only for laptops, that I’ve ever seen. Laptops have a tiny slot that these cards fit in. I have not ever ran across a desktop PCMCIA card adaptor, but someone might make one.
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- “Typical” desktop computers now use just regular “PCI” cards for accessories, and AGP 4X or AGP 8X slots and cards for video. The AGP and PCI slots are physically different. Many cheaper computers (many business computers, many retail computers sold in Europe) do not have AGP slots for video, and so use a PCI card for that–and you can still buy PCI videocards, if your AGP slot stops working or you want to add a decond monitor and your videocard is not a dual-head. PCI video cards are poor for 3-D gaming but work fine for most anything else.
- The new/incoming standard is “PCI-e”, only available on a few expensive motherboards right now. For example normal motherboards cost around $75-100; I know one PCI-e motherboard that costs around $270, and has dual PCI-e slots for the video and regular-PCI slots for everything else. Really good PCI-e videocards are expensive also.
- ISA is the ancient-hardware standard, it fell out of use back with 586-class CPU computers. ISA is the “long black plastic” slots you sometimes hear people ask about. Typical desktop computers this old are essentially worthless, even if they are fully functional. You can run Linux on them, but the newest MS operating systems you can install (without resorting to hacks) are probably Win98/ME and NT.
… - Might help more if you said what computer you are dealing with (and what type, laptop or desktop) and what card you are wondering about.
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There’s actually three types of PCMCIA slots, aptly named types 1, 2, and 3. Type one and two can fit into the same slots, with two being the more advanced one. Type 3 is pretty much the same as a type 2 (AFAIK), except that it’s alot thicker, and takes up two normal sized slots.
Hope that answers your question.
A unknown notebook preloaded with Win ME that I am looking to install a wireless PCMCIA card into next time I get to it (at which time I can find out what brand notebook, but I want to have the card in hand at that time).
I remember there being a ‘newer’ type of PC-card which I didn’t think is backwards compatible with the older one. When I saw them in the store the ‘newer type’ had on the box something along the lines, made for notebooks designed to take advantage of the new 32 bit …, if your notebook does not have this get our other product that does the same thing and is cheaper. Well those are not he exact words, but you get the idea.
So is it pretty safe to just pick up any PC Card or might I run into trouble?
(BTW there was an adapter to allow desktops to run PC cards, most likely still is)
There are 16 and 32 bit cards for laptops. The 16 bit cards are usually called PCMCIA. The 32 bit cards are usually called “PC Card”, or “CARD BUS”. PCMCIA type 1 & 2 cards will fit into PC Card slots. Type 3 cards will if the slot is tall enough. PC Card cards won’t fit into PCMCIA slots. They’ll slide about 7/8 of the way in, but will not engage.
Generally, if the laptop is a Pentium II or newer it takes PC Card cards. The only way to check for sure is to look through the specs in the manual, or on the manufactures website.
So I would be safe getting the older 16 bit PCMCIA card as it will work in all (if type 1 or 2)?
You’re probably talking about the (relatively) newer 32 bit CardBus standard, but even that is ancient, dating back to 1995. So any problems you encounter are unlikely to be due to new-fangled 32-bit PC Cards, because modern operating systems know all about them.
“Type” just refers to the thickness of the card. Most PC Cards are Type II.
Huh? PCs in Europe are the same as in America. We also have running water and television.
PCMCIA cards have two ridges on one side of the edge of the card connector, presumably for proper adjustment purposes. With a 16 bit card, the other side will have a short ridge on the bottom. a 32 bit card should (I don’t guarantee) have a ridge two or three times wider.
The effect of this is to prevent the newer cards fitting in the older slots. Should your usually m4d Google skills fail you, and you end up not figuring this out, Dremelling the ridge down to make it fit will allow it to plug in to the older boards, but performance will almost assuredly (100% in my case) be nil.
P.S. Usram - I have an AGP Matrox G200 and a PII 300 PC that you poor people can have for free 
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- Yea, but it’s a yucky second-rate water. It’s not as wet. ;>|
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well fudge, somehow I hit some mysterious Firefox key-combo that resulted in a premature post…
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I think it had something to do with periods I was trying to type…
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maybe not.
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Hmmmm…
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-Anyway, what I meant to have included in that earlier post was that it seemed like lots of Euro people would ask online what hardware to upgrade to improve their computers for gaming, and they’d end up finding out that their PC had no AGP slot. In the US, most-all PC’s sold retail for home-use have an AGP slot. The only ones that won’t are very-very low-end computers, usually sold as “business” computers, through business sellers. Sometimes these models get sold as regular home-computers but not often, like if you bought the absolute-cheapest model off the Dell, HP or Gateway sites. And real, actual “server” motherboards too (it’s always somewhat amusing to read someone pay for a “dual-CPU fileserver” motherboard at a computer show on which to build the ultimate gaming machine, only to find they can’t get a decent videocard in it…).
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nuts. I’m sure it was the damn periods…
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CardBus cards are immediately recognizable from the gold-colored metal strip on the top of the card, on the connector end. Virtually all new laptops, or ones made in the last 7-10 years or so will support CardBus, at least up to Type II. Many newer laptops no longer accept Type III cards due to their size and relative rarity. CardBus card slots are backwards compatible with 16-bit PCMCIA cards. CardBus cards are not backwards compatible with 16-bit card slots, though. Given a choice, you should choose CardBus cards, as they are faster and use less power.
Type I cards are memory cards, and are the thinnest. They are rather rare nowadays.
Type II cards are the most common, slightly thicker than Type I cards, and are generally expansion cards, analogous to PCI cards.
Type III cards are about twice as thick as Type II cards, usually to accommodate built-in connectors. A Type II network card or modem will require a dongle to connect the jack to the card. A Type III card is thick enough to fit the jacks inside the card.
CompactFlash cards, BTW, are mini-PCMCIA cards. There are inexpensive adaptors that allow CompactFlash cards to be used as PCMCIA cards.
Your statement here is incorrect; you can find PCI-E motherboards in the same price range as AGP/PCI motherboards - like this
Foxconn Nforce 4 board for $84, that has one 16x PCI-E slot, one 1xPCI-E slot, and two regualar PCI slots. The only PCI-E boards that are really expensive are the SLI ones, that allow you to use two video cards in to render a single game, like this Gigabyte Nforce 4 SLI board, and it is only $150, not $270.
And the price for PCI-E videocards is about the same as comparable AGP video cards, and is sometimes cheaper - the PCI-E Geforce 6600GT is about $180, while the AGP version is usually about ten bucks more. Or for the really high end cards, like the Geforce 6800 GT, the PCI-E version runs for $380 or so, while the AGP version is $360. On the lower end, a Geforce 6200 will provide decent gaming performance for a $100, for PCI-E.
All prices above taken from newegg.
I have 2 cards with me now (‘wired’ LAN cards) one has that gold strip, one doesn’t. The one that has it is about 3 years old, the other one is about 9. Besides the gold strip I can’t really see anything different betweeen the 2, some small ‘slots’ on the side seem to be the same sizes. does all CardBus cards have that gold?