Question

Oops. Express Card, not PCMCIA

Asked by: KellyCraig

Hey Guys.
I feel like an idiot, not double checking the actual specs of my laptop before buying this.
I just spent $216 on a Cingular Wireless PCMCIA card to get me mobile brodband.
Naturally, since my laptop has built in bluetooth and wireless, I have NEVER used the (what I thought was PCMCIA) card on the side of my machine.
So when the sales rep asked me if I had a PCMCIA card slot, I said yea.

So I get home, install the software, and to my suprise the card wont go all the way in.
So I get my flashlight and look in the slot, and HA!
Its not a real PCMCIA slot, sure, its just as wide, but there is a square piece of plastic on the far end making sure you dont slide PCMCIA cards in as the pins only go to about 1/2 of the width.
So I hop on Dell.com and look up my service tag (D80GV81) only to find that my XPS M140 has this Express Card, which I had never heard of.
After doing research, cool, I get the whole thing, but where does this leave me?
It was dell being decietfull and laving the card slot its full width ><

So, now I have this card, and I can't place it in my laptop.
I googled a USB to PCMCIA converter and all I can find is a really ugly $200 bulky converter that I would rather not carry around when I am on the go.
Kinda defeats the whole laptop thing.

So my question to you all is, do you know of a cheap converter that hopefully is small and not ugly.
Maybe something bluetooth?

Point is, I really dont want to be hooking all sorts of devices to my laptop just to get this to run.
I also checked if cingular had an express card, NO!

So, I guess if you guys cant help me out here, ill be stuck getting a new laptop with a PCMCIA card slot in it, but id prefer not to spend all that money.

--Kelly

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Asked On
2006-08-30 at 14:30:23ID21973244
Tags

express

,

pcmcia

,

card

,

PCMCIA

Topic

General Laptop

Participating Experts
2
Points
500
Comments
10

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    Answers

     

    Expert Comment

    by: garycasePosted on 2006-08-30 at 14:59:59ID: 17424553

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    by: jamietonerPosted on 2006-08-30 at 16:50:02ID: 17425188

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    Expert Comment

    by: KellyCraigPosted on 2006-08-30 at 18:54:13ID: 17425657

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    by: jamietonerPosted on 2006-08-30 at 19:08:13ID: 17425719

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    by: garycasePosted on 2006-08-30 at 19:11:19ID: 17425739

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    by: garycasePosted on 2006-08-30 at 19:13:16ID: 17425748

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    by: KellyCraigPosted on 2006-08-30 at 20:44:14ID: 17426036

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    Expert Comment

    by: KellyCraigPosted on 2006-08-30 at 20:57:49ID: 17426082

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    by: garycasePosted on 2006-08-30 at 21:52:10ID: 17426233

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    Expert Comment

    by: KellyCraigPosted on 2006-08-31 at 07:49:32ID: 17429379

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