Using WL100 with an old laptop (not cardbus)

[y_g]

Hi,
I have a wireless network which works great with both my NX70 and my new laptop. I have an old laptop at home, which I am looking to setup as a workstation via the wireless network. It is a P1 166MHZ machine running WIN98 and does NOT support CARDBUS pccards. I am looking for a wireless option to:
1/ make use of my WL100 card with my laptop
2/ use a converter to make the WL100 a regular PCCARD WLAN.

Any haelp would be appreciated.
TNX
YG

[n2ifp]

I don't see how you could possibly do that. Interesting. I thought all laptops had card bus slot. There are Bluetooth dongles that use a USB port.

[y_g]

There is also a WiFi usb thingy... the only problem is that this old laptop has no USB port ... I heard of some intel driver for a Pc-card to CF adaptor...Maybe I am wrong.

[Raybot]

Unfortunately, you can't turn a non-cardbus (16 bit) PC card slot into a cardbus one (loosely speaking, Cardbus is equivalent to bringing out the PCI bus, 16 bit PC card slots are equivalent to the ISA bus, obviously you can't get PCI functionality out of an ISA bus ... note that even if your laptop is PCI internally, it may still only bring the ISA side out to the PC card slots).

The downside of this is that you can't get nifty things like PC cards that give you USB ports running on non-cardbus laptops. There are wireless LAN cards that are compatible with 16 bit PC card slots (the good ol' Orinoco ones and clones thereof work for instance) ...

You can get PC card to CF adapters but again, if I'm not mistaken, you've got that same problem ... again loosely speaking, CF type 1 is sorta like ISA or 16 bit PC card, CF type 2 (such as the WL100) is sorta like PCI or cardbus ... so even if you got a CF type 2 adapter, if you plugged it into a non-cardbus PC card slot you'll only be able to run CF type 1 cards in it.


Hope this helps!

- Raybot

[n2ifp]

Originally posted by y_g
There is also a WiFi usb thingy... the only problem is that this old laptop has no USB port ... I heard of some intel driver for a Pc-card to CF adaptor...Maybe I am wrong.

There is a PCMCIA to CF adapter yes, but if you have no slot to put it in??

I figured if you didn't have a PC card slot, you wouldn't have USB.

Are you sure you don't have a slot?? I want to be sure we are talking the same thing?

Intel prowireless driver found below:

http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scripts-df/Product_Filter.asp?ProductID=450

[Unregistered]

Cardbus !=PC card.

Cardbus is a recent type of PC card architecture.

[skccs]

Dear Raybot,

can you tell me if any pc-card to cf adaptor will work to use a wl100 with a laptop? I'm asking that because in my local stores they have such adaptores where they sell memory-cards for digital camera's. But noone can tell me if they work for communications-cards too?

Greetings from Switzerland, Christian.

Originally posted by Raybot
Unfortunately, you can't turn a non-cardbus (16 bit) PC card slot into a cardbus one (loosely speaking, Cardbus is equivalent to bringing out the PCI bus, 16 bit PC card slots are equivalent to the ISA bus, obviously you can't get PCI functionality out of an ISA bus ... note that even if your laptop is PCI internally, it may still only bring the ISA side out to the PC card slots).

The downside of this is that you can't get nifty things like PC cards that give you USB ports running on non-cardbus laptops. There are wireless LAN cards that are compatible with 16 bit PC card slots (the good ol' Orinoco ones and clones thereof work for instance) ...

You can get PC card to CF adapters but again, if I'm not mistaken, you've got that same problem ... again loosely speaking, CF type 1 is sorta like ISA or 16 bit PC card, CF type 2 (such as the WL100) is sorta like PCI or cardbus ... so even if you got a CF type 2 adapter, if you plugged it into a non-cardbus PC card slot you'll only be able to run CF type 1 cards in it.


Hope this helps!

- Raybot