Thinkpads Forum

Hi All,

I just tried to buy a hsdpa pcmcia card and when I was trying to fit it into the bottom slot on my t61 and it wouldn't fit. I tried it on a old toshiba laptop I have and it worked, then I tried it on my wife's t61 and it didn't work. I also tried it briefly in the top slot, but looking into it I quickly realized that that definetly wasn't the right slot. Anyone heard of anything like this, is it that I'm not up on different pcmcia specs and I was buying the wrong card for the wrong slot ... anyway thanks in advance.

Mark

as far as i know the T61s have an ExpressCard slot, not a PCMCIA slot. They might still have one but i wasn't lead to think that. You have to get the express card version of the card you have.

the top slot is expresscard/54 but the bottom slot is a 32-bit cardbus slot and backwards compatible with 16-bit PCMCIA cards.

Well, I just checked the tabook from June, 2007 and it shows all the T61's as having a PC Cardbus slot, but only some models having an ExpressCard slot. Of course it is possible that there are some T61's without a PC Cardbus slot - I really am not up on the latest model features.

I am wondering if perhaps you have a HSDPA ExpressCard. See following link for more info on differences between the cards.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExpressCard

I think I have both, at least looking at the slots. From my invoice these two line entries are there:

42X1352 SBB PC CARDSLOT EXPRESCARDSLOT
42X0805 SBB PC CARDSLOT EX CARDSLOT

Which would lead me to believe I have both. The card I had was definetly PCMCIA card, as it worked in an old toshiba I had, it just didn't fit in either t61s we have. I'll see if I can take a picture of the slots and get some more feed back. To me it looks like there is a little metal tab that is in front of the left most pin blocking the card from going in all the way.

Thanks for thoughts, Mark

I know that on mt T61 I have both slot types with the bottom slot being the PCMCIA and the top is the ExpressCard slot.

I use my PCMCIA media reader card in the lower slot all the time, it's just a matter to get the card lined up properly when you insert it as it tends to try to go into the top one first.

At least this has been my experience.

Hi all, well yes I definetly do have a pcmcia slot, and it turns out that the Vodacom HSDPA modem cards must be bulit a little funky. I got a different vodacom modem today and it had a few troubles before I got it in, seems like it catches on the bottom lip. Other cards firewire card, a different hsdpa modem card all worked fine. Anyway thanks for all the replies.

Mark

Isn't the problem that the card is too short ? T-Mobile offers a PCMCIA UMTS cards over here (IPWireless). First series had this problem so they made them 3 mm longer to fit into various notebook models.

No I don't think it's because they are too short because I can get it to fit if I jigger the card around (press down the aluminum edges, etc).