Dual PCMCIA Laptop?

The gear needed for wardriving

14 posts • Page 1 of 1

Postby whitedice » Sun Sep 24, 2006 1:16 pm

Does anyone make dual pcmcia slot laptops anymore? I have an old Dell Inspiron 8100 w/ dual slots. I guess thats the downfall of consumers wanting everything already built in.

Postby jrcsnet » Sun Oct 01, 2006 7:15 am

Very few do... and most new Dells and Toshiba's that I've seen recently don't even have PCMCIA slots at all... just a single, currently worthless, ExpressCard slot.

Postby bobfunland » Thu Oct 05, 2006 2:56 pm

My Dell Inspiron 8600 (about 3 years old now) has them right on top of each other, although I happen to find them pretty useless since alot of the pcmcia cards I have tend to bulge out at the end, blocking the other slot.
All of the new laptops I've seen lately have just one or none.

Postby Tech^CF » Thu Oct 12, 2006 8:42 am

I know some new HP's have both PCMCIA and ExpressCard slots. (Think it's the NC6320). But havent seen dual PCMCIA in a while, but there is quite a few PCMCIA USB adapters if you really need more than one slot.

Postby AxlMyk » Fri Oct 13, 2006 10:24 pm

My HP has dual PCMCIA ports..
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/gene ... R1002_USEN

Postby littledave » Fri Oct 13, 2006 11:09 pm



Are you sure?

Postby Dutch » Sat Oct 14, 2006 1:17 am

Not according to that link :
PC Card Slots :
1 ExpressCard/54 Slot (also supports ExpressCard/34)
1 Type I/II 32-bit card bus (also support 16-bit)
Dutch
[url=http://www.wigle.net/gps/gps/StatGroup/listusers?groupid=20041206-00006][img]http://home19.inet.tele.dk/dutch/netstumblerwigle.gif[/img][/url]

Postby AxlMyk » Sat Oct 14, 2006 12:07 pm

Well heck.. Upon closer inspection, 1 slot.. Sorry bout that..
I had an old IBM thinkpad that had dual slots, and the docking stations had 4 more each..
If so many laptops have only one PCMCIA slot and ExpressCard slot, why is there no EC equipment available? Doesn't make much sense to me..

Postby Tech^CF » Mon Oct 16, 2006 9:18 am

Well there is wireless, esata, memory card readers and more available for expresscard in stores. (The 'fake' wireless exploit video-demoed on an Apple Macbook was an expresscard). Just search eBay for expresscard and see some of the available equipment.

Postby whitedice » Mon Oct 16, 2006 5:09 pm

The "Official Home Page for ExpressCard Technology" lists 23 cards, of which more than 1/3 are memory card readers. Searching Google, Ebay, Best Buy, Circuit City, Comp USA, Micro Center, and Dell reveals ONE wlan card, and it doesn't even have a detachable antenna. Therefore, in a forum dealing mostly with using wlan cards, I would say expresscard technology is worthless.

Postby Tech^CF » Wed Oct 18, 2006 8:45 am

True, I have only found three WiFi Expresscards (Dell, Gemtek, SparkLAN) and none have external antenna plugs.

The poster, if unable to find a dual PCMCIA laptop, could either use USB-to-PCMCIA adapters or dig further into this post I found:

http://www.sewellsupport.com/archives/e ... ia-adapter

Postby argh » Sun Oct 22, 2006 6:31 am

for wardriving, there are dozens/hundreds of old laptops that have dual PCMCIA slots. There are tens of slim SMC/Senao cards that will fit into two slots including their integral antenna. The antenna is removable, and has jacks for external antenae.

old laptops may not fulfill all online needs, but hardware is cheap now!

Postby whitedice » Sun Oct 22, 2006 3:43 pm

I actually just picked up another Dell Inspiron 8100 w/ dual slots off ebay. Hopefully it will come tomorrow. I'm going to run kismet_drone on one networked to kismet on the other with a combination of SMC and Senao cards.

Postby argh » Sun Oct 22, 2006 10:14 pm

After a while, continued wardriving (or any use of laptop in vehicle) can be a harsh environment on them. It makes perfect sense to get a cheapie for this use, that won't kill you if something happens to it.

I use an old Gateway celeron 450 that a co-worker gave to me. I maxed it out on RAM, and it works quite well (has dual slots also) for Kismet and GPSDrive. It had a dead battery and a faulty charging circuit on the motherboard, but a USD $9 DC adapter from Ebay runs it straight off the cigarette lighter, no inverter needed.

It's 14" screen is a boon actually, it's not so crowded in the vehicle. I drive in a fullsize van, and there's a little console between the front seats where I mount it. If I had a nice 17" more modern laptop, it would be in the way more.

I only put it on the console when I'm going into a new area, and want to be able to see GPSDrive. If I'm casually wardriving, it's often folded up on the floor in back. Kismet has been reliable for me, I don't need to babysit it anymore.

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