# PCMCIA video cards for laptops. Do they exist?



## Nevaziah

So a friend of mine got shafted buying a VAIO laptop. the salesdude said it had 256mb of memory. Turns out the ACTUAL PHYSICAL memory is 8MB the rest is virtual video memory.
He cant add a video card in the laptop, so he's looking for ways to ugprade. Lokking at PCMCIA devices, is there such a thing as a PCMCIA video card or is he better to sell the damn thing and buy a modable lappy or just buying a desktop on the side?
The model is SONY VAIO PCG-7Y2L


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## DuckieHo

No such thing as a PCMCIA video card.

There are some ExpressCard (aka PCIe) external video card boxes... but not sure if they ever were released.


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## FrankenPC

Yeah, there are PCMCIA video cards.

http://sewelldirect.com/vtbookpcmciacard.asp?adpath=/Google/Video>Misc/VTBook%20PCMCIA%20Card&keywords=pcmcia%20video%20c ard&search=search&gclid=CIDmtrrPj5ACFQU6awod8BEYtw

Google: PCMCIA video card


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## FrankenPC

My bad...they stopped making them about 3 or 4 years ago. There might be large external solutions like this:

http://www.fareastgizmos.com/computi..._computers.php


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## DuckieHo

Quote:


Originally Posted by *FrankenPC* 
My bad...they stopped making them about 3 or 4 years ago. There might be large external solutions like this:

http://www.fareastgizmos.com/computi..._computers.php

That's not PCMCIA... that's ExpressCard.


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## havoc531

Its still awesome...


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## FrankenPC

Does the laptop have USB 2.0? If so you friend may be in luck:

http://www.ohgizmo.com/2007/12/06/more-usb-video-cards/


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## rwm1948

Follow this link

http://sewelldirect.com/product.aspx...FQU6awod8BEYtw


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## Acreo Aeneas

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Nevaziah* 
So a friend of mine got shafted buying a VAIO laptop. the salesdude said it had 256mb of memory. Turns out the ACTUAL PHYSICAL memory is 8MB the rest is virtual video memory.
He cant add a video card in the laptop, so he's looking for ways to ugprade. Lokking at PCMCIA devices, is there such a thing as a PCMCIA video card or is he better to sell the damn thing and buy a modable lappy or just buying a desktop on the side?
The model is SONY VAIO PCG-7Y2L

A piece of advice for the future: never ever take the salesperson's word on this or that with regards to computers (or technology) as the final trustworthy word. Try to do the research on the laptop before jumping on the purchase. Most of the time those sales people have no clue what their talking about (example: Best Buy sales reps).


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## Asus Mobile

There are some external GPU's but at this point the connection interface is the bottleneck. So no you are out of luck. Oh and this old! USB/anything else just lacks the bandwidth.


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## burrbit

http://game.amd.com/us-en/shop_AMILOGraphicBooster.aspx

its not pcmia, but it may be worth looking at


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## Diabolical999

Posted: 12-04-07


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## burrbit

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Diabolical999* 
Posted: 12-04-07









oh wow


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## darksuffering

hate to keep bringing this post alive but I do have a Sony Vaio with the crappy Intel GMA 950. IS there any retailers still selling theses? I wouldnt mind a 7900 in my vaio, because right now all I can play is Warcraft 3


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## Asus Mobile

Great discussion? Does anyone get a PCIex16 is 4,000MB/s? What external card are you talking about? OK just for arguments sake I will take the highest external bus? eSATA what 250MB/s? The one you might be talking about is less than 40MB/s? DO you see a fundamental problem? And by the way I did not mention PCIe 2.0 x32? Sorry all these external fantasies lack bandwidth. Sorry guys.


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## Acreo Aeneas

Quote:


Originally Posted by *darksuffering* 
hate to keep bringing this post alive but I do have a Sony Vaio with the crappy Intel GMA 950. IS there any retailers still selling theses? I wouldnt mind a 7900 in my vaio, because right now all I can play is Warcraft 3

Short answer: no. It's not worth the time or money to replace the mobo on one of those just to "upgrade" the chipset to a 7900. You'd be better off with a new gaming laptop instead. You can get the ASUS G50VT-X5 now for $900 through BestBuy.


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## cccccc

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Asus Mobile* 
Great discussion? Does anyone get a PCIex16 is 4,000MB/s? What external card are you talking about? OK just for arguments sake I will take the highest external bus? eSATA what 250MB/s? The one you might be talking about is less than 40MB/s? DO you see a fundamental problem? And by the way I did not mention PCIe 2.0 x32? Sorry all these external fantasies lack bandwidth. Sorry guys.


throughput of 2.5 Gbit/s through PCI Express and 480 Mbit/s through USB 2.0 dedicated for each slot, versus CardBus's shared 1.06 Gbit/s bandwidth.

so pcmcia has less than half the bandwidth of the express card slot.
so what?

would it be possible to buy the asus XG External Graphics station and connect it using something like:
http://www.darkwire.com.au/html/pcmc...d_adapter.html


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## cccccc

ok how about using a miniPCIe port as an express port with this:
http://www.bplus.com.tw/Adapter/PM2.html

then you could use the asus xg graphics and you should get a good speed.

somebody correct me if I'm wrong.


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## Asus Mobile

Quote:


Originally Posted by *cccccc* 
ok how about using a miniPCIe port as an express port with this:
http://www.bplus.com.tw/Adapter/PM2.html

then you could use the asus xg graphics and you should get a good speed.

somebody correct me if I'm wrong.

It is a x1? If so it lacks bandwidth. Whatever others say. It just lacks bandwidth.


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## Mason92

Quote:


Originally Posted by *DuckieHo* 
No such thing as a PCMCIA video card.

There are some ExpressCard (aka PCIe) external video card boxes... but not sure if they ever were released.

I'm pretty sure they were designed priced in the fortunes and never released to man that really needed them. I wish they did!












i cant find one for sale


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## nerdy_swagger

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Asus Mobile* 
It is a x1? If so it lacks bandwidth. Whatever others say. It just lacks bandwidth.









can you stop friggin repeating that? that is not the point

it 'lacks' bandwidth that will most likely never be used or make much of a difference, as pointed out it lacks roughly 50% bandwidth and seeing as less than 50% can still bring out similar (actually in many cases identical, between PCI-E 8x and 16x) performance in a GFX I'd have to say you are only technically correct, and these solutions can still be used on a practical basis.

you are a number junkie, in this case a 'PCI/PCI-E bandwidth whore'. most bandwidth is even never used and I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt by assuming there is some reduction in performance.

if you were using the cards for CUDA, then I'd agree there could be 10% loss in computation time


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## Mason92

Quote:


Originally Posted by *nerdy_swagger* 
can you stop friggin repeating that? that is not the point

it 'lacks' bandwidth that will most likely never be used or make much of a difference, as pointed out it lacks roughly 50% bandwidth and seeing as less than 50% can still bring out similar (actually in many cases identical, between PCI-E 8x and 16x) performance in a GFX I'd have to say you are only technically correct, and these solutions can still be used on a practical basis.

you are a number junkie, in this case a 'PCI/PCI-E bandwidth whore'. most bandwidth is even never used and I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt by assuming there is some reduction in performance.

if you were using the cards for CUDA, then I'd agree there could be 10% loss in computation time

hey now, people are just trying to help out!


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## nerdy_swagger

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Mason92* 
hey now, people are just trying to help out!

......
so am i

his tone was very aggressive and he responded to two people's well-thought out and detailed posts with one sentence encapsulating the EXACT SAME one-dimensional argument they just disproved with absolutely nothing new. while insulting them.


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## cccccc

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Asus Mobile* 
It is a x1? If so it lacks bandwidth. Whatever others say. It just lacks bandwidth.









yeah but will it work with the asus graphics? that is the question.
because if it does it will be better than my intel card.

the asus gets 4493 on 3DMark05, my intel gets 533. so I think it's worth it if it will work through the miniPCIe port.


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## DesertRat

Where can I buy one of those PM2 mini pci-e to pci-e x1 things?


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## nerdy_swagger

Quote:


Originally Posted by *DesertRat* 
Where can I buy one of those PM2 mini pci-e to pci-e x1 things?

try http://www.logicsupply.com, they sell ITX stuff and itx boards have mini pci-e slots, they have converter thingies for all sorts of slots honestly its pretty amazing.

it might cost you ~$10, dunno if you consider that a lot for such a simple thing, the thing is its really specialized though.


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## cccccc

Quote:


Originally Posted by *DesertRat* 
Where can I buy one of those PM2 mini pci-e to pci-e x1 things?

I would also like to know that. If I find one I will be sure to post where I got it.

Also this one I think is better:
http://www.bplus.com.tw/Adapter/PM2C.html

but they are very simmilar.


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## DesertRat

Quote:


Originally Posted by *nerdy_swagger* 
try http://www.logicsupply.com, they sell ITX stuff and itx boards have mini pci-e slots, they have converter thingies for all sorts of slots honestly its pretty amazing.

it might cost you ~$10, dunno if you consider that a lot for such a simple thing, the thing is its really specialized though.

I didn't see it there.









Been there b4. Usually end up having to clean drool off my KB


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## Asus Mobile

Sorry some guy's don't get math!

There are no external cards at this point that can render better than IGP's and actually worse. Sorry I commented on what I thought was common sense. I just thought it would be understood? I guess I gave too much credit. Anyway Stupid is as Stupid does? Have a great night!

It ain't going to happen you keep making fun of me fool!


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## cccccc

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Asus Mobile* 
Sorry some guy's don't get math!

There are no external cards at this point that can render better than IGP's and actually worse.

It ain't going to happen you keep making fun of me fool!


have you been reading my posts or not? the asus xg graphics station gets 10 times the 3dmarks compared to my IGP.

read this:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...hics,1933.html

there are a few external graphics cards which use an express card slot on your laptop. they have great performence compared to integrated graphics. they can double your frame rate.

the only problem is my laptop does not have an express card slot so I am thinking of using either the PCMCIA card slot or the mini PCIe card slot.

So stop saying how **** external graphics are untill you read the reviews.


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## DesertRat

Quote:


Originally Posted by *cccccc* 
have you been reading my posts or not? the asus xg graphics station gets 10 times the 3dmarks compared to my IGP.

read this:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...hics,1933.html

there are a few external graphics cards which use an express card slot on your laptop. they have great performence compared to integrated graphics. they can double your frame rate.

the only problem is my laptop does not have an express card slot so I am thinking of using either the PCMCIA card slot or the mini PCIe card slot.

So stop saying how **** external graphics are untill you read the reviews.

wow. Didn't realize there was a solution availible yet. WAAAYYY too expensive for what's essentially a Express slot to pci-e adapter tho.

+rep, good find.


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## cccccc

ok I think this is a PCMCIA graphics card which should give some decent performence.
only problem is that for the price of it you could buy a new laptop with descrete graphics.
speaking of WAAAYYY TO EXPENSIVE $1299+
http://www.cinemassivedisplays.com/cineport.php

also does anyone know if the MSI external graphics card is available yet?


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## cccccc

I have found a site from which you can buy the PM2C
PCI-E / Mini PCI-E adapter. here is the link:
http://www.hwtools.net/Buy_It_Now.html

just click on the PM2 or PM2C tab in the adapter section.
It's $40 bucks. But I don't know if this site is legit or not.

now I'm waiting for the Asus graphics to get cheaper to test if this will work. I don't want to pay almost $400 for one.

Also if anyone knows where they sell PCI to express card or PCI to PCMCIA or PCI to mini PCIe card adapters, please post a link here.


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## Asus Mobile

You guys just don't get math? Sorry PCI-E x1 is not worth anything!The more you guys talk about the more confused you show to be. I don't have this kind of time! Get it together!

Edit: At least I am drunk? What about you?


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## cccccc

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Asus Mobile* 
You guys just don't get math? Sorry PCI-E x1 is not worth anything!
Edit: At least I am drunk? What about you?


x1 no good is BS! it's good compared to intergrated.
also look at this:
http://forums.techarena.in/monitor-v...ds/1142418.htm

this is x1 but it seems good.

drunk, I'm not drunk but I have been drinking.


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## DesertRat

Asus is partially right...

X1 PCI-e is a MASSIVE bottleneck for modern GPUs.

However!

There will still be a huge performance increase over most integrated chipsets.
You can even think about this. There are still PCI GPUs out there(albatron anyone?) and PCIe x1 still has more bandwidth than PCI. So while FAR FAR FAR FAR FAAAAARRRR from optimal, it's still a big improvement.

Ooo! good find there w/ the adapter for sale 5c. $40 is too much for a passing fancy of an experiment tho :/ +rep regardless for the effort of finding it.


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