USB2.0/Firewire PCMCIA card

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ronbo613 · #1 Post by **ronbo613** » Mon Nov 27, 2006 11:25 pm

I've been thinking about getting a USB 2.0/Firewire add-on card to get a little quicker external data transfer than the onboard USB 1.1 can provide.
Some of these cards seem ridiculously cheap, so, of course, I'm suspicious of the quality. A friend of mine told me a certain chipset in these cards cause problems and should be avoided, but I can't remember what chipset it was.
Here's newegg.com's selection of these cards, can anyone make any suggestions as to which card would be the best bet? Just because I'm suspicious of cheap cards doesn't mean I would not be stoked to find that a cheap card would do the job.

ashleys · #2 Post by **ashleys** » Tue Nov 28, 2006 3:17 am

I bought one of these for my T30 quite a while ago.
Has worked without any problems since.

http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductP ... _Id=122932

Musti · #3 Post by **Musti** » Tue Nov 28, 2006 3:41 am

Look what you've missed:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=33882

These cards are basically the same. Two USB 2.0 ports on top of each other, and two FireWire ports, one 6 pin the other mini 4 pin variety, all use OrangeMicro (now defunct) chipsets.

FireWire is no issue, in Win XP it is plug and play, but to be able to use 2.0 without XP complaining about power drainage on USB port, you need to install the drivers (forcing XP to recognize them as 2.0 ports as opposed to "enhanced USB"). Easy. And don't worry if yours don't come with the drivers, I have the latest. Also, high power USB devices will require an adapter (the card also has a mini adapter port so you can hook up 5 V DC).

This is the one I have:
http://www.syba.com/product/43/05/01/index.html

Got it from my local comp store for $30. Extremely generic but gets the job done (/me hugs his DVD writer)

rgds.

ambientscape · #4 Post by **ambientscape** » Tue Nov 28, 2006 7:17 am

ronbo613 wrote:I've been thinking about getting a USB 2.0/Firewire add-on card to get a little quicker external data transfer than the onboard USB 1.1 can provide.
Some of these cards seem ridiculously cheap, so, of course, I'm suspicious of the quality. A friend of mine told me a certain chipset in these cards cause problems and should be avoided, but I can't remember what chipset it was.
Here's newegg.com's selection of these cards, can anyone make any suggestions as to which card would be the best bet? Just because I'm suspicious of cheap cards doesn't mean I would not be stoked to find that a cheap card would do the job.

The combo USB and firewire cards need to draw power from external sources. Normally, there is a a cable provided in the package that connects the PC card to the on board USB to draw power for it to work. Basically, u need to reserve one on board USB to power this card.

Musti · #5 Post by **Musti** » Tue Nov 28, 2006 7:33 am

ambientscape wrote: The combo USB and firewire cards need to draw power from external sources. Normally, there is a a cable provided in the package that connects the PC card to the on board USB to draw power for it to work. Basically, u need to reserve one on board USB to power this card.

A slight correction is in order: This is not needed for 1) low power USB 2.0 devices like a mouse or sometimes a keyboard, or webcam, and 2) FireWire functionality of the card also. FW devices have to provide their own juice.

ambientscape · #6 Post by **ambientscape** » Tue Nov 28, 2006 7:56 am

Are you sure? I have a PCMCIA card equipped with combo USB/Firewire......that is unusable without the cable drawing the external power.

Musti · #7 Post by **Musti** » Tue Nov 28, 2006 10:08 am

ambientscape wrote:Are you sure? I have a PCMCIA card equipped with combo USB/Firewire......that is unusable without the cable drawing the external power.

Quite positive. In fact, I don't use the pass-thru cable that came with my card when I use anything FireWire. Or when I use a USB 2.0 Webcam or mouse.

ronbo613 · #8 Post by **ronbo613** » Tue Nov 28, 2006 10:14 am

I saw the Syba that was for sale. That is one of the models that did not get stellar user reviews on the newegg.com website, so I'm not too sure about it.
The external devices that will be used all have their own power sources; external hard drives and DV camcorders(although I'm not sure if I will use the camcorder with a 40G 5400rpm hard drive much). Maybe a compact flash card reader or joystick. that's about it for the unpowered devices.

BlueDevilTide · #9 Post by **BlueDevilTide** » Tue Nov 28, 2006 5:19 pm

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6839130003

This is what I use on my T23. No problems with it. It's power, if needed, can come from a PS2 port instead of the on-board USB. No firewire and only 2 ports, if that works for you.

Both my External HD and DVDrw are powered by plugs in the wall, and thus I don't need to use the power dongle. In addition, it works with my ipod and charges it, without the power dongle.

Looks like experiences with it are mixed, so keep that in mind. I've had good times, though.

ronbo613 · #10 Post by **ronbo613** » Tue Nov 28, 2006 7:13 pm

Those mixed reviews almost make things worse. Since everybody is using a different laptop and OS, it's tough to make heads or tails out of them.
Some of them are so cheap, you're only risking a few bucks, but what if the el cheapo fubars your computer? One of the reasons I want this PCMCIA card is so I can clone my T30 hard drive to an external drive for a backup.
I came across this USB2.0/Firewire card with an NEC and TI chipset, but it's going to wind up being about $50.
I wonder if Santa Claus has any of these things? I've been good.

#11 Post by **rkawakami** » Tue Nov 28, 2006 7:20 pm

ronbo613 wrote:One of the reasons I want this PCMCIA card is so I can clone my T30 hard drive to an external drive for a backup.

If that's your main usage for getting the USB card, then I would suggest another (costlier) method: an Ultrabay 2nd hard drive adapter.

ronbo613 · #12 Post by **ronbo613** » Wed Nov 29, 2006 10:27 am

I've looked into that, it's still a possibility. Can the Thinkpad be booted from a drive in the Ultrabay? If it does, it might be worth the cost.
I have a number of USB 2.0 external hard drives with data on them, photos mostly, that I would like to access with the laptop. I backup my photos on external hard drives, so I have "volumes", similar to books on a shelf. Using the Thinkpad and an external drive, I could take the "show on the road" when I'm away from my PCs.

#13 Post by **rkawakami** » Wed Nov 29, 2006 2:14 pm

Intrigued by your question about booting from an Ultrabay drive...

I had a cloned drive from my T21 laying around so I put it into the Ultrabay hard drive adapter, removed the existing hard drive and powered up. It took a long time before the IBM splash screen went away but the Windows OS was found and loaded. The drive still appears as C: and D: (drive is partitioned that way) so everything looks normal. I am typing this on the T21 at the moment.

I would NOT leave the existing hard drive mounted inside the laptop as there can be a problem with booting a system with two bootable drives present at the same time.

edit: I might add that the delay during the display of the IBM splash screen could be due to the fact that my BIOS boot order is floppy, CD (which there is none), then the hard drive.

ronbo613 · #14 Post by **ronbo613** » Wed Nov 29, 2006 6:00 pm

My thinking was; cloning the original drive to a newer, higher capacity 7200rpm drive in the Ultrabay using Acronis. I could swap the original drive for the newer one, saving the original as a backup. Then, if something happened to the laptop drive, I could use the original drive, stick it in the adaptor to boot the computer, then clone it to the fubared drive. When I didn't need the original drive, it would be in the file cabinet with the cloned boot drives from my other computers and I could use the adapter for a second hard drive for storage.
The laptop I have came with the full MS office suite so I wouldn't mind saving that. If I had a problem with the drive and needed to use restore discs, I'd lose it.

#15 Post by **rkawakami** » Wed Nov 29, 2006 6:09 pm

That's basically my backup solution for all of my laptops except I use a Ghost boot floppy to do the cloning. This way I know all of the files are static and nothing is going to get in the way of the clone operation (antivirus or spyware programs, or any other Windows programs which may alter files during the copy). The same process has also been used to do what you intend; upgrade to a faster and/or larger drive. I have had some problems with Adobe Creative Suite in asking to re-activate when running the cloned drive, so depending upon the software, you may have to be prepared for similar issues.

ronbo613 · #16 Post by **ronbo613** » Wed Nov 29, 2006 7:22 pm

I'm pretty sure you can do a similar thing with Acronis, clone a hard drive with the "Rescue Disk" a CD you make with the Acronis software. Apparently you can clone a drive with the disc without the Acronis program installed on the hard drive. I've cloned a number of drives with Acronis and never been asked for any permissions or anything like that. As far as I can tell, the clones are exact copies of the original. I don't know if you can have both the optical disc drive and an Ultrabay hard drive installed at the same time, not that familiar with the Ultrabay setup.
How about a USB external drive? Do you think a Thinkpad could be booted from a hard drive in an external enclosure, either from the onboard USB1.1 ports or the USB2.0 ports of a PCMCIA card?

#17 Post by **rkawakami** » Wed Nov 29, 2006 8:03 pm

The Ultrabay hard disk adapter REPLACES any optical drive you currently have in your T30. I'm not familar with the Acronis program but if you need to run/boot it off a CD then you can't use the Ultrabay 2nd HD adapter unless you use an external USB CD/DVD drive. Although that brings up the question of the possibility of booting off an external USB device (HD or optical), which I don't know the answer to at the moment.

When I mentioned that Adobe needs to be re-activated, I'm talking about what happens AFTER the cloned disk drive is booted and you try to run Adobe CS2 for the first time from the cloned drive. This happened to me when I upgraded my daughter's HD from 20GB to 60GB.

To fully describe how I do my clones/backups: I use the A/R/T/X port replicator (FRU 02K8668) with my T2x systems. Into that port replicator I plug in a 600-series external floppy drive. I swap out the optical drive for the 2nd HD adapter loaded with the backup drive. I put a Ghost boot floppy into the external floppy drive and power up. All my systems have been set to boot from floppy, CD, then HD in BIOS. Ghost loads, I specify the source and destination drives and then walk away for an hour or so. When the copy is done, I power off the laptop and remove the Ultrabay HD adapter with the backup drive and store it. It is a more costly (hardware-wise) solution but it's what I've been doing for some time now and is easy enough for my 19 year old daughter to do for her two systems at college. There is one danger in doing it this way: if the boot floopy is not mounted, the laptop will attempt to boot from the main drive with another bootable drive in the Ultrabay. That can mess up one or both drives. Careful setup procedures before applying power to the laptop is all that is needed to prevent that sort of error.

And to sort of get this thread back on track... I bought a PCMCIA USB 2.0 card several months back to use with an external USB backup solution (CMS ABSPlus) but never installed it. I believe it was a Apricorn EZ-USB 2.0. It occupies a single slot and uses a dongle for the USB connector, that way I could still have the wireless card installed at the same time. If the Ultrabay solution is not possible for you, then you're back to the original suggestion of a USB 2.0 add-on card.

ronbo613 · #18 Post by **ronbo613** » Wed Nov 29, 2006 8:28 pm

I think I'll try one of the cheaper USB2.0 PCMCIA cards and try to clone the Thinkpad hard drive to an external drive and see what happens.

schleptop · #19 Post by **schleptop** » Mon Dec 25, 2006 6:22 pm

Didn't want to start a new thread, as this seems related. I have a USB 2.0 PCMCIA card which is labelled as a PUC-102 and it seems to have an NEC chipset on it.

I'm trying to use it on my T23, but it doesn't seem to be too reliable when it comes to attaching a 2.5" USB drive. The drive works fine with USB slots on other PCs, but with this card, it never gets recognised. The card comes with a power cable which draws power from a PS/2 port (on my docking station), but that doesn't seem to help.

Has anyone managed to get this card to work with an external 2.5" drive?

Musti · #20 Post by **Musti** » Mon Dec 25, 2006 9:04 pm

schleptop wrote:Didn't want to start a new thread, as this seems related. I have a USB 2.0 PCMCIA card which is labelled as a PUC-102 and it seems to have an NEC chipset on it.

I'm trying to use it on my T23, but it doesn't seem to be too reliable when it comes to attaching a 2.5" USB drive. The drive works fine with USB slots on other PCs, but with this card, it never gets recognised. The card comes with a power cable which draws power from a PS/2 port (on my docking station), but that doesn't seem to help.

Has anyone managed to get this card to work with an external 2.5" drive?

This might be due to underpowering...Is it possible that you check operation while drawing power from the second USB port? Or with an external adapter, 5V?

ronbo613 · #21 Post by **ronbo613** » Mon Dec 25, 2006 9:54 pm

I got this generic USB2.0 PCMCIA card, like yours it has an NEC chip and a cord for external power. It runs a Sandisk CF card reader and a 3.5" hard drive in a powered enclosure, no problems.
However, even with the power cord that came with it plugged into one of the onboard USB ports, I really doubt it would have enough juice through the card to power an external drive.
If the laptop is running off the AC converter, maybe a slight chance, off the battery, I wouldn't think so.

schleptop · #22 Post by **schleptop** » Mon Dec 25, 2006 11:28 pm

Thanks for the responses. I'm trying it with the laptop using AC power, not the battery.

I'll test it out later with the 2.5" drive powered from an external source. However, at least on an X40, the drive works perfectly powered from a USB port, and in fact it also runs from a non-powered USB hub attached to that port.

Musti · #23 Post by **Musti** » Tue Dec 26, 2006 7:57 am

schleptop wrote:Thanks for the responses. I'm trying it with the laptop using AC power, not the battery.

I'll test it out later with the 2.5" drive powered from an external source. However, at least on an X40, the drive works perfectly powered from a USB port, and in fact it also runs from a non-powered USB hub attached to that port.

This might be due to the better general USB subsystem used on X40, plus the fact that X40 has USB 2.0. Most probably you'll get all working with an external DC adaptor hooked into the PCMCIA card...The problem is finding a 5V, 1A one...

ronbo613 · #24 Post by **ronbo613** » Tue Dec 26, 2006 3:50 pm

The Sandisk card reader I was using seemed to be struggling a bit so I didn't have much hope for a standalone hard drive. I was looking at something like this to power external drives because I'm going to try and put a new HD in my Thinkpad here soon. I'm going to try cloning the original drive to an external hard drive, then back to the new drive. If that doesn't fly, I might buy that adaptor.

USB2.0/Firewire PCMCIA card

USB2.0/Firewire PCMCIA card

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Re: USB2.0/Firewire PCMCIA card

Re: USB2.0/Firewire PCMCIA card

PUC-102 USB 2.0 PCMCIA card

Re: PUC-102 USB 2.0 PCMCIA card

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