USB 1.0 Laptop and PCMCIA question

[kinetic (Steve)]

Hi,

I have a laptop that has unfortunately only a single USB 1.0
port at the rear. Dell Latitude C610 running XP Home Reg ver.
My question for the IT gurus is:

Does this limit the laptop to only ever being capable of USB
1.0 communication speeds?
IE no matter even if I plug in a USB 2.0 PCMCIA card
or
Plug in a USB 2.0 HUB into the USB 1.0 port
or
Any other combo I haven't thought of?

I have plugged in a USB 2.0 PCMCIA card (ST Labs) into there
years ago and it was just trouble from the word go.
Some devices were visible, some crashed etc...unreliable.

thanks in advance,

Steve

[chrisp9au (Chris)]

G'day Steve,

I have an old IBM Thinkpad T30 with the same situation, USB 1.0 on the back.
I have successfully used a PCMIA card to provide USB 2.0 functionality, although I seem to remember having to get the latest drivers to get it working well. No problems since then.
One way of checking latest drivers etc. is to use Driver Detective from http://wwwdriverdetective.com/
Give it a try, nothing to lose?

Cheers
Chris

[bert (Brett)]

I have used a pcmcia to usb 2.0 adapter to run a usb2 hub, 2 cameras, gpusb,fcusb. It was a little twitchy but worked well enough and was at usb2 speed.

Make sure you supply extenal power for the usb, as the pcmcia slot does not supply as much power as a usb port will, and I found that even running power from my usb1 port was insufficient. I had to use an external power supply.

Hope you aren't getting too soft with your remote observatory.

And be patient with setting it up.

Brett

[kinetic (Steve)]

Originally Posted by chrisp9au

I have successfully used a PCMIA card to provide USB 2.0 functionality, although I seem to remember having to get the latest drivers to get it working well.
Give it a try, nothing to lose?

Cheers
Chris

I went down that path a while back Chris and no luck.
I think it's just a rubbish brand of PCMCIA card.

Originally Posted by bert

I have used a pcmcia to usb 2.0 adapter to run a usb2 hub, 2 cameras, gpusb,fcusb. It was a little twitchy but worked well enough and was at usb2 speed.

Make sure you supply extenal power for the usb, as the pcmcia slot does not supply as much power as a usb port will, and I found that even running power from my usb1 port was insufficient. I had to use an external power supply.

Hope you aren't getting too soft with your remote observatory.

And be patient with setting it up.

Brett

Brett, LOL

I have heaps of patience , it's only taken 28 years to get to this
spot!
If getting accused of being soft means sitting inside in your
shorts and t-shirt while your scope and dome chugg away
covered in icicles...I think I can deal with that Brett

This one was certainly twitchy too. I did use external power with
it, hardly made a difference.
As I said to Chris, I think the problem all along is the quality of
the unit.

Thanks anyway fellas for the advice,

regards,
Steve

[Glenhuon (Bill)]

I used one on my old Dell, a generic one from China, seemed to work OK as long as you didn't put anything with too much power demand on it. Has a cable that draws a bit of extra power from one of the USB 1 ports. Played up occasionally if I used the DSI/PHD and DSLR focus/300D from it at the same time though.

Bill

[Astrobserver99 (Rob)]

I use one on my Toughbook. I run PHD and DSLR Focus with a Starshoot and Canon 300D with no problems. The power cable is connected to the USB1 port and Cameras to to the USB2 PCMCIA Card.

Cheers, Rob