PCMCIA Cards
 

Mrs SHJ has an older laptop with USB 1.1 ports and has been trying to connect a webcam with little success so far. The problem seems to be that most webcams are USB 2.0, even one or two that claimed to be 1.1. So.... someone suggested that we purchase a PCMCIA card with USB 2.0 ports on it and use that. Great! However, after reading articles on the web there are doubts as to whether these ports will support/power a webcam, although you'd think that it would.

And finally she has a mac, even though the sellers of said cards don't mention mac support (usually Windows 98 etc) would said card function as long as the cardbus was an industry standard ?

If anyone has any thoughts or had experiences with these PCMCIA cards i'd be be grateful to hear anything.




SHJ

You can get PCMCIA / Cardbus USB adapters that are Mac compatible.

Whether they have enough power to drive a webcam is a different matter. Some have a connector for a plug-in external DC power source - not very portable, but that may not be a problem for you.

Example (not a recommendation): IOgear GPU202

A webcam is, realistically, a small power drain. IIRC, a USB port can handle 500mA and you would be amazed at what you can run under that.

To return to the original issue, I was under the impression that USB 2.0 was backwards compatible with other USB standards. I may be wrong, and will happily be corrected, but maybe the issue is nothing to do with USB 2.0

Yes, insofar as a USB 2 port should accept all 1.1 devices, and USB 2 devices are supposed to work in a USB 1.1 port, but this does not always happen.

Where I have seen this is where a USB1.1 port fails to provide sufficient power to a USB2 device (hard disk) - not a problem if you can add additional power via an external supply, or draw power from 2 USB sockets or even a PS/2 keyboard / mouse port.

SD

I think that the problem referred to by the original poster is that if the USB interface is provided by an add-on card then any power supplied to the webcam will ultimately have to come via the PCMCIA interface. That could result in the available current being less than you would expect to be available from a motherboard USB port.

Many such cards support an external 5V power brick, and ship with it. I use this solution with one of my own notebooks, which seems to lie to the devices it's powering via its internal ports (USB devices can negotiate their power requirements).

Thanks for the replies chaps!

That sums it up better than i could have! The laptop is great, but old and Mrs SHJ doesn't want to spend loads, as after a certain point it's easier to bite the bullet and go for a new steed. I wouldn't have thought that a webcam would draw too much current, but it seems as if this might be the case.



SHJ