PCMCIA NIC ...... PLEASE HELP!

[Electric Amish]

Ok, I bought my Mom a D-Link DFE-680TX PCMCIA NIC for her old Compaq Armada 4160T Laptop and it WON'T slide in the PCMCIA slot!!

Are there different standards for PCMCIA cards?? She has a modem that works just fine. It looks like one edge of the PCMCIA card is thinner on the Modem than it is on the NIC. That's why the NIC won't go in. Does this have to do with a standard? What kinda NIC do I need??

TIA

amish

 

[Electric Amish]

ttt

 

[sirfergy]

There are different types of PCMCIA cards. Type I, II, and III.

If it is an older laptop, it probably cannot take a type III. The main difference between the types is size.

 

[AndyHui]

The PC Card standard involves 3 card sizes and 2 different types of cards.

Type I, Type II and Type III all refer to the physical size of the card. Most PC Card cards are Type II, such as modems, sound cards, network cards, CF adapters, that sort of thing. Type III cards are exactly twice the height of the Type II card, and are generally PC Card hard drives, or such cards as the Xircom Realport cards.

In most laptops, the PC Card slots come as two Type II card slots stacked on top of each other, so you can insert either up to 2 Type II or 1 Type III.

The second item that you have to be aware of is two different card types: the older PCMCIA 16-bit 5 volt ISA standard, and the newer CardBus 32-bit 3.3 volt PCI standard. You will find that just about all laptops that are Pentium MMX or later, will be CardBus type slots. CardBus cards are notched at the interface end and cannot be inserted into the older PCMCIA slots, but PCMCIA cards can be inserted into CardBus slots.

Generally, very slim laptops do not provide the standard double-decker Type II slot, and only give you a single Type II slot, preventing you from using Type III cards.