![[PCMCIA logo]](../image/pclogo.gif)
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Customer Service & Technical Support
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- Free technical supports from Amtron Technology and manufacturers.
- Please contact our service department by E-mail at service@amtron.com , Phone (323) 265-8076, or Fax
(323) 265-8077.
FAQs:
Terminology:
Drive Bay
Drive bays of a computer are commonly used to
house data storage devices such as CD & DVD drives, floppy
or Zip drives, etc. Drive bays can also be used for
front-end card readers, USB ports, I/O bays, and other uses.
5.25"
drive bay is the standard housing for CD or DVD
drives in modern computer, but is sometimes used for other
devices. Its name does not refer to the width of the bay
itself, but rather to the width of the disks used by the
drives which mounted in the bay. Its dimension is
approximately 1.75" high by 5.75" wide. It is better-known
as 5.25" (5¼-inch) bay in comparison with 3.5" bay.
3.5"
drive bay is generally used for floppy or Zip drives.
3.5" (3½-inch) drive bay, like its larger counterpart, is
named for diskette dimension. Its actual dimensions is 4"
wide by 1" high.
When installing a device in a
drive bay, it is usually secured with 4 screws that hold the
device in the bay. There are adapters, sometimes called
"3.5"-to-5.25" mounting kit" or "sled", which can be used to
mount a 3.5" device in a 5.25" drive bay. Then, any necessary
power and other cables are routed into and connected to the
rear of the device. The drive bay is usually just big enough
for the device to fit inside.
PCI Expansion
Slot
PCI is acronym for
Peripheral Component Interconnect. The PCI specifies a computer bus for
attaching peripheral devices to a computer motherboard. The PCI expansion
slot is a local system bus standard and is common in modern PCs, where it
has displaced ISA and VESA Local Bus as the standard expansion bus. PCI
slots are found in both PCs and Macs. The PCI bus will eventually be
succeeded by PCI Express. PCI slots allow numerous types of expansion cards
to be connected inside a computer to extend the computers functionality.
Examples of PCI expansion cards are network card, graphics card, sound card,
etc.
32-bit PCI
expansion slots on a motherboard of PC |
64-bit PCI
expansion slots on a motherboard of Macintosh G4 and earlier G5 |
PCI
Express Expansion Slot
PCI Express (PCI-E
or PCIe) is a computer expansion card interface
format introduced by Intel in 2004. It was designed to
replace the
PCI expansion bus, the PCI-X bus, and the
AGP interface. Unlike previous PC expansion interfaces
rather than being a bus, it is structured around point to
point full duplex serial links called lanes. In PCIe 1.1
each lane (the most common version as of 2007) carries 250
MB/s in each direction. PCIe 2.0 doubles this and PCIe 3.0
doubles it again. Each slot carries one, two, four, eight,
sixteen or thirty-two lanes of data between the motherboard
and the card. Lane counts are written with an x prefix e.g.
x1 for a single lane card and x16 for a sixteen lane card.
Thirty-two lanes of 250MB/S gives a maximum transfer rate of
8 GB/s (250 MB/s x 32) in each direction for PCIe 1.1.
However the largest size in common use is x16 giving a
transfer rate of 4 GB/s (250 MB/s x 32) in each direction.
Putting this into perspective, a single lane has nearly
twice the data rate of normal PCI, a four lane slot has a
comparable data rate to the fastest version of PCI-X 1.0,
and an eight lane slot has a data rate comparable to the
fastest version of AGP.
PCIe slots come in a variety of
sizes referred to by the maximum lane count they support. A
larger card will not fit in a smaller slot but a smaller
card can be used in a larger slot.
A connection
between any two PCIe devices is known as a
"link", and is built up from a collection of
1 or more lanes. All devices must minimally
support single-lane (x1) link. Devices may
optionally support wider links composed of
2, 4, 8, 12, 16, or 32 lanes. This allows
for very good compatibility in two ways:
- a PCIe
card will physically fit (and work
correctly) in any slot that is at least
as large as it is (e.g. an x1 sized card
will work in any sized slot);
- a slot
of a large physical size (e.g. x16) can
be wired electrically with fewer lanes
(e.g. x1 or x8) as long as it provides
the power and ground connections
required by the larger physical slot
size.
In both
cases, PCIe will negotiate the highest
mutually supported number of lanes. It is
not possible to place a physically larger
PCIe card (e.g. a 16x sized card) into a
smaller slot, even though the two would be
signal-compatible if it were possible.
PCI Express slots (from top to bottom:
x4, x16, x1 and x16), compared to a traditional 32-bit PCI slot
(bottom)
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The mechanical
(physical) board connectors come in one of four types: x1, x2, x4,
and x16 (see illustration above) in order to meet different peak
bandwidth requirements.
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Card Reader Hardware / Software
Installation
PCI Interface Card
Reader/Writer:
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No special driver is needed when
the PCI interface PCMCIA Card Reader is installed in system running Windows XP or Windows Vista. Please do not use the software driver on the
supplied diskette. The supplied drivers are for Microsoft Windows 95 /98 /98SE
/ME /2000 operating systems. The Windows XP and Vista will detect the
hardware and install the Windows built-in driver automatically.
[If the drivers for older Windows were installed by accident or the
special drivers supplied by other vendors, for a previously purchased
PCMCIA card reader, still exist in the computer system, please
uninstall these "foreign" drivers. Otherwise, these "foreign" drivers
will cause conflicts with the Windows XP/Vista native driver.]
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If your computer's Windows XP
or Vista operating system fails to install the Windows built-in PCMCIA driver, please
click here for
driver issues.
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If you have problem with Compaq Deskpro EN,
EN (SFF) and EN (SFF-v) Series computers, please upgrade your BIOS (686P2/P3
ROM) from http://www.compaq.com/ .
If BOIS upgrade does not help, please try to insert the PCI interface card to the # 3 slot
from the CPU (the #1 or #2 slot is the 2nd choice). This may resolve some Compaq models'
problems.
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For Dell Dimension 4100 and other PCs using
Intel 815 chipset motherboard, please upgrade your BIOS to version 06.
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If a 32-bit Cardbus card
is used,
Windows 98SE may not automatically detect it. Please go to control panel to
"Add Hardware", then the card will be detected.
Driver Issues:
(1) If an end user ever purchased a
similar PCMCIA card reader from other vendors and installed the special
driver supplied by the vendor, please uninstall the "foreign" driver.
That foreign driver, if still existing in the computer system, will
generate conflicts with the native PCMCIA driver built in Windows XP or
Windows Vista. [To verify it, please check "Device Manager" to see if
there is a strange mark next to the PCMCIA controller: TI PCI1510, Ricoh
R5C475II, ... etc.. If a strange mark shows, it means driver
conflicts.]
(2) If the drivers for older Windows 95
/98 /98SE /ME /2000, supplied in the package, were installed by
accident, please uninstall it. Otherwise, these drivers will cause
conflicts with the Windows XP/Vista native PCMCIA driver.
(3)
In some rare cases, the Windows native PCMCIA drivers are not present in the
system since end users purchase computers from vendors
with Windows XP or Windows Vista pre-installed and the CD-ROM (a
restore disk) they get with their system is not a full copy of
Windows although they paid in full for Windows. The end users need
to contact their computer system vendor and tell them that they need the
"signed Microsoft Windows XP/Vista drivers for the PCMCIA controller CB1410,
R5C475II, R5C476II, R5C485, R5C486, PCI1410, PCI1510, TI1225, .. etc." depending on
which controller their PCMCIA PC Card Reader/Writer uses.
The
drivers may already be on a computer system in
"C:\\WINDOWS\system32\DRIVERS\pcmcia.sys", and instructing the
installation routine to that file may help. If an end user has a retail CD-ROM of the Windows XP or Windows
Vista installation disk, then this isn't an issue. Simply inserting
the CD-ROM during the new hardware found routine will allow Windows
to find and install the correct drivers.
- For further helps, please send e-mail request
along with your invoice number to service@amtron.com.
SRAM PC Card
PCMCIA SRAM PC Card does not
come with drivers. Asking SRAM Card or Card Reader vendors to provide SRAM
drivers for computer operating system is like asking drive and disk
manufacturers to provide drivers for floppy disk or CD. It is the operating system (OS)
vendor's responsibility to include support for SRAM PC cards. Unfortunately,
SRAM drivers traditionally included in Windows distributions are not
included in Windows XP. The following process shows a work-around method to
get Windows XP to recognize and use SARM PC Cards with attribute memory. It
does not seem to work with SRAM PC cards without attribute memory. Be
certain your Windows XP is up to date with the latest Service Packs and the
host computer system supports PCMCIA PC Cards.
Please note that we provide this
work-around as a customer service and do not guarantee it will work with
every computer system configuration. For the best solution please see
Third Party Software Packages for SRAM PC Card at below. You can also
purchase an external PC Card Reader, one of the
CSM OMNIDrive Pro
series card readers, to read/write SRAM cards. These CSM
GmbH OmniDrive Pro PC Card Readers read and write both types of SRAM cards
(without and with the attribute memory).
- Insert the PCMCIA SRAM card into
the PC Card slot of the computer system
- When the 'Hardware Wizard' appears,
select 'Install from a list or specific location (advanced)'
- Click 'Next'
- Select 'Don't search I will
choose the driver to install'
- Click 'Next'
- Scroll through the list of choice
and select 'PCMCIA and Flash memory devices'
- Click 'Next'
- Double click 'generic' under
the manufacturer listing
- Select 'Generic PCMCIA Memory
Card' from the model listing
- Click 'Next'
- Click the 'Yes' button when the
warning dialog appears, to dismiss it
- Click 'Finish' when the 'Completing
the found new hardware wizard' dialog appears
Third Party Software Packages for SRAM PC Card
If the
work-around method does not work, the end user may consider purchasing
a third party PCMCIA support software package. There are several to choose
from and the following list is provided as a service, not a recommendation
or endorsement.
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IPI
SoftDrive Professional PC Card Storage Device Software is powerful,
extensive and well supported PCMCIA Memory Card software for use with
laptops with built in PC Card slot.
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Elan
Digital Systems MCE is PCMCIA Memory Card software for use with laptop
slots or PCI based card readers.
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SystemSoft Corporation
publishes several packages, including ones that support WinNT, Win2k
(2000) and WinXP.
CSM OMNIDrive Pro Card Reader
We don't endorse or recommend any computer
hardware suppliers. You can search on-line vendors who sell these SRAM card
readers.
- For further helps, please send e-mail request
along with your invoice number to service@amtron.com.
Copyright © 1997-2008 Amtron Technology, Inc.
111 N. Moore Ave., Suite C
Monterey Park, CA 91754 USA
Tel: (323) 265-8076 Fax: (323) 265-8077
http://www.amtron.com
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