UTC to PCI Success

[Freshy-ZN]

I have ordered ADSL so I decided to give a friend my UTC. Only problem ishe has a P3 733Mhz desktop PC running on Win98. So after a bit of research I bought a PCMCIA to PCI card from Vodashop in the Pavillion (R299) and after a bit of fiddling I now write to you from his machine connected to Iburst.

So yes it is possible.

 

[fergus]

Well done. Its something I've been wanting to try to. Can you post the exact make and model of the convertor you got.

 

[Freshy-ZN]

Its an Elan though the packaging is unmarked. There was a thread somewhere about it being in Vodashops so I called and they had it. Basically you need a generic PCMCIA to PCI bridge and not one that only works on proprietry cards. Im sure you arent running Win98 but if you are are be advised theres an error in the instructions that you get when you download the drivers from IBurst. Give me a PM if thats the case. Had me stumped for a while

 

[regardtv]

www.miro.co.za also has something similar that's "known to work" ...

 

[opelboy]

I got a PCMCIA to PCI converter from Ebay for $28 which worked out to be about R200 with postage and a lot cheaper with a UTC than buying a UTD (saved me R600)

Its a generic type I/II/III PCMCIA with a Ricoh chipset and works perfectly, XP picks it up straight away with no drivers needed and you can hot-swap like a regular laptop card slot.

My case is placed so that the antenna is in direct LOS to Durban CBD tower (I am 6 floors up!)

Anyway, just thought I would share that with anyone planning on going the UTC - PCI route...

Opelboy

 

[tangra]

I got a PCMCIA to PCI converter from Ebay for $28 which worked out to be about R200 with postage and a lot cheaper with a UTC than buying a UTD (saved me R600)

Its a generic type I/II/III PCMCIA with a Ricoh chipset and works perfectly, XP picks it up straight away with no drivers needed and you can hot-swap like a regular laptop card slot.

My case is placed so that the antenna is in direct LOS to Durban CBD tower (I am 6 floors up!)

Anyway, just thought I would share that with anyone planning on going the UTC - PCI route...

Opelboy

opelboy - I also got a Ricoh card from a local supplier which also got picked up by XP quickly but didn't pick up the iBurst card!
can you post the exact description of your card pls? thanks!

 

[opelboy]

tangra - it was quite a mission to get it into my case because of the release buttons, so I don't wanna remove it to check - but by device manager tells me this:

Ricoh R/RL/RT/RC/5C475(II), R5C520 or Compatible CardBus Controller

Hope this helps.

 

[tangra]

tangra - it was quite a mission to get it into my case because of the release buttons, so I don't wanna remove it to check - but by device manager tells me this:

Ricoh R/RL/RT/RC/5C475(II), R5C520 or Compatible CardBus Controller

Hope this helps.

thanks opelboy and i know what you mean by not wanting to open your machine! Well I took back my Ricoh card and actually got my cash back from the supplier!

Anyway - patience is a virtue i do not have so before reading your post i already got the one from vodacom for their 3G cards and it works = R300!
I hope it doesn't gove me problems in the future because it is cheaper this way and one retains the option to use a laptop if need be!

thanks for your input though