PCMCIA card in old laptop

I have an old Dell Latitude laptop (circa 1997) running Win 98. It has a
couple of PCMCIA slots (one containing a dial-up modem, the other an
Ethernet adapter).

Everything works fine, albeit a little slowly by today's standards.

I recently decided to upgrade the machine to wireless. I bought a US
Robotics 802.11g Wireless Turbo PCMCIA card, but unfortunately the Dell
won't recognize the hardware. When I plug the card into the machine,
there is not the usual beep, and the PC Card dialog box says the slot is
empty.

[I have tried the card in new laptop, and that machine does recognize
it].

I suspect the old laptop is too old for up-to-date PCMCIA cards.
However, before I give up the whole idea, is there anything I can do to
make the wireless card work in it? (Win 98 is completely up-to-date).

--
Ian

news wrote:
> I have an old Dell Latitude laptop (circa 1997) running Win 98. It has a
> couple of PCMCIA slots (one containing a dial-up modem, the other an
> Ethernet adapter).
>
> Everything works fine, albeit a little slowly by today's standards.
>
> I recently decided to upgrade the machine to wireless. I bought a US
> Robotics 802.11g Wireless Turbo PCMCIA card, but unfortunately the Dell
> won't recognize the hardware. When I plug the card into the machine,
> there is not the usual beep, and the PC Card dialog box says the slot is
> empty.
>
> [I have tried the card in new laptop, and that machine does recognize it].
>
> I suspect the old laptop is too old for up-to-date PCMCIA cards.
> However, before I give up the whole idea, is there anything I can do to
> make the wireless card work in it? (Win 98 is completely up-to-date).
>
You didn't specify a Model, go to http://www.usr.com/support/s-main-menu.asp
locate you card and see if there are any drivers or support for Win 98
installation of the item.

nbt

Are the laptop slots PCMCIA or Cardbus?

A 32 bit cardbus card won't work in a 16 bit PCMCIA slot

Lee
--
Email address is valid, but is unlikely to be read.

"news" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> I have an old Dell Latitude laptop (circa 1997) running Win 98. It has a
> couple of PCMCIA slots (one containing a dial-up modem, the other an
> Ethernet adapter).
>
> Everything works fine, albeit a little slowly by today's standards.
>
> I recently decided to upgrade the machine to wireless. I bought a US
> Robotics 802.11g Wireless Turbo PCMCIA card, but unfortunately the Dell
> won't recognize the hardware. When I plug the card into the machine,
> there is not the usual beep, and the PC Card dialog box says the slot is
> empty.
>
> [I have tried the card in new laptop, and that machine does recognize
> it].
>
> I suspect the old laptop is too old for up-to-date PCMCIA cards.
> However, before I give up the whole idea, is there anything I can do to
> make the wireless card work in it? (Win 98 is completely up-to-date).

Yep, your suspicion is likely correct. The card you have requires a
Cardbus/32-bit PCMCIA slot and your laptop can probably only support 16-bit
cards. All is not lost, as you can buy 16-bit 802.11b cards, but not
802.11g.

HTH,

Alex Quant

~ Reply-To is set to a valid email address ~

~ www.alexquant.net ~

"news" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> I have an old Dell Latitude laptop (circa 1997) running Win 98. It has a
> couple of PCMCIA slots (one containing a dial-up modem, the other an
> Ethernet adapter).
>
> Everything works fine, albeit a little slowly by today's standards.
>
> I recently decided to upgrade the machine to wireless. I bought a US
> Robotics 802.11g Wireless Turbo PCMCIA card, but unfortunately the Dell
> won't recognize the hardware. When I plug the card into the machine,
> there is not the usual beep, and the PC Card dialog box says the slot is
> empty.
>
> [I have tried the card in new laptop, and that machine does recognize
> it].
>
> I suspect the old laptop is too old for up-to-date PCMCIA cards.
> However, before I give up the whole idea, is there anything I can do to
> make the wireless card work in it? (Win 98 is completely up-to-date).
>
> --
> Ian

I had the same problem trying to get a Draytek 802.11g card to work
with an old IBM Thinkpad 760 of about the same vintage.

In the end I bought a cheap 16 bit 802.11b card from eBay for less
than a tenner. This works fine and is more than enough for my 1Mb
ADSL connection. Running 98SE.

Sitecom PC Card 11M

http://www.sitecom.com/products_info...d=134&grp_id=6

(The model numbers on the Sitecom website seem to have changed but
it looks the same card.)

HTH

Ayde

In message <sDKTd.1378$(E-Mail Removed)>, Lee
<(E-Mail Removed)> writes
>Are the laptop slots PCMCIA or Cardbus?
>
>A 32 bit cardbus card won't work in a 16 bit PCMCIA slot
>
>Lee

Hmmm, as I thought.

Specifically, the laptop is a Dell Latitude 166. As far as I recall, it
supports PCMCIA -- I don't think Cardbus was around in 1997.

The wireless card is a US Robotics USR805410 "802.11g Wireless Turbo PC
Card". I haven't found anything that says it is a 32-bit card, but since
it is one of USR's current offerings I suspect it is.

I guess the only solution now is to find an old 16-bit card.

Thanks to everyone for your inputs.

--
Ian

On Fri, 25 Feb 2005 18:13:51 GMT, news <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>I have an old Dell Latitude laptop (circa 1997) running Win 98. It has a
>couple of PCMCIA slots (one containing a dial-up modem, the other an
>Ethernet adapter).
>
>Everything works fine, albeit a little slowly by today's standards.
>
>I recently decided to upgrade the machine to wireless. I bought a US
>Robotics 802.11g Wireless Turbo PCMCIA card, but unfortunately the Dell
>won't recognize the hardware. When I plug the card into the machine,
>there is not the usual beep, and the PC Card dialog box says the slot is
>empty.
>
>[I have tried the card in new laptop, and that machine does recognize
>it].
>
>I suspect the old laptop is too old for up-to-date PCMCIA cards.
>However, before I give up the whole idea, is there anything I can do to
>make the wireless card work in it? (Win 98 is completely up-to-date).


Are you sure you are putting the card into the correct slot? On my
laptop (Toshiba) there are two slots one above the other. One slot is
for 16bit cards the other for 32 bit. The 32 bit card will not work
in the 16 bit slot.

news wrote:

> The wireless card is a US Robotics USR805410 "802.11g Wireless Turbo PC
> Card". I haven't found anything that says it is a 32-bit card, but since
> it is one of USR's current offerings I suspect it is.

Yes it is
http://www.usr.com/support/5410/54xx-ug/index.html

There are no 16 bit 802.11g cards, but as others have said, there are
802.11b ones.
You would also have the same problem trying to use a USB adapter, as 1.1
is too slow for 802.11g

Lee
--
Email address is valid, but is unlikely to be read.

In message <(E-Mail Removed)>, Edward W.
Thompson <(E-Mail Removed)> writes

>Are you sure you are putting the card into the correct slot? On my
>laptop (Toshiba) there are two slots one above the other. One slot is
>for 16bit cards the other for 32 bit. The 32 bit card will not work
>in the 16 bit slot.

It won't work in either. Win98 reports the slot as empty even when the
card is plugged into either slot.

--
Ian