32 or 16bit PCMCIA Cards. How To Tell Difference?

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware,comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

Hi,

I've been on the trail of this info for a while after buying an
external laptop PCMCIA CD\DVD drive recently.

The included caddy & PCMCIA card were sold as 32bit however it just
doesn't seem to get the speed.

I have had quite a few people identify it (by type) as 16bit however
the seller is insisting it is 32bit and he has run it as such.

My problem is is this is a white label, no brand, no information
chinese manufactured card.

I am told that all 32bit PCMCIA cards have the gold strip along the
connector end however being a cheap chinese import does this apply
here?

That's why I'm now asking you guys as your a more international bunch


I eventually located the company that make these but they have very
little info on their site.

There are some pictures of this card on my site (center page):

http://www.firststep.clara.net/temp/drive/index.htm

The drive manufacturers site is here:

http://www.sunvalley.com.cn/en/pro [...] asp?id=623
and
http://www.sunvalley.com.cn/en/products/producte.asp
(These pages load very slow)

I haven't been able to find any software yet which can identify the
card. tried SisoftSandra and Everest but neither can get into the
PCMCIA card (or the card has no stored info..)


Any thoughts or ideas?

regards

Pete

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

Pete <nospam@me.not> wrote:
>The included caddy & PCMCIA card were sold as 32bit however it just
>doesn't seem to get the speed.

Wha speed tetst have you run to determine that it's not running at
full speed?

>I am told that all 32bit PCMCIA cards have the gold strip along the
>connector end however being a cheap chinese import does this apply
>here?

It's not a "gold strip" it's another set of ground contacts. Sure
looks like PCMCIA (16-bit), not CardBus (32-bit) to me...

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware,comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

On Sat, 9 Apr 2005 21:28:28 -0700, "Johnnie Leung"
<jsleung@telecom-digest.zzn.com> wrote:

>> I have had quite a few people identify it (by type) as 16bit however
>> the seller is insisting it is 32bit and he has run it as such.



>The 'no external power' needed is a dead giveaway. CardBus only supplies
>3.3 V (versus 16-bit PCMCIA's 5V) which is not adequate to power most, if
>not all, CD drives.

I know my picture book requires external power to achieve cardbus but
wasn't sure how many other drives\laptops needed this.

I tried the drive on another full blown laptop and same problem to see
if it was a electrical current supply problem but it was just as
slow..

I have just been testing the drive under PCIC (16bit only) set in the
BIOS so I think I'd be right in saying that if it was a 32bit card it
just wouldn't work! The drive he sold me does work under PCIC.


Cheers though. That gives me another arguement to throw at him.

Pete