Bad PCMCIA port?

[carls]

I recently got a 3COM 3C589C (EtherLink III) PCMCIA card and decided to try it out in one of my A1200s (I've got three: One is towered with an X-Surf, one is a normal desktop and one is currently in pieces )

I downloaded 3c589.device, CardPatch and CardReset from Aminet and installed all that software according to instructions. I then turned the computer off, inserted the PCMCIA card and cold booted.

The green light on the NIC's dongle goes on, but neither Miami nor Prepcard can find the card. Prepcard just says "No card inserted" and Miami says "Device might be busy".

The card itself works fine in all the PCs I've tried it in (two different laptops).

Is my PCMCIA port broken? I could try the card in my other desktop A1200 but I'm afraid it's the card that broke the port - I have _NEVER_ used my PCMCIA port for anything before. Admittedly, my A1200 has taken a lot of beatings but as far as I understand the only _mechanical_ action on the PCMCIA port is when you insert the card, so it couldn't be wear and tear.

Aside from this the computer works perfectly. Dunno about the MoBo revision but it's 3.0 ROMs on which I've installed OS3.1 (came with my A1200T). I've currently  got my Blizzard 1260 in this machine and it's fitted with 64MB of memory. I've also got a 3.5" hard drive. Could it perhaps be a power issue?

Any suggestions/ideas are most welcome. It would be nice to get online with a desktop A1200!

[blobrana]

Hum,
Just a wild guess ,
but doesn`t the 1200 slot only support type I & II Cards?
Perhaps the EtherLink III is a type III?

If no, perhaps it could be a software issue in miami....(?)





Don`t think it`s power or a memory slot conflict with accelerator though...(if that helps)

And aside from checking that the pins aren`t bent there`s not much that can be fixed with the cards...


anyone else...

[Colmiga]

blobrana wrote:
Hum,
Just a wild guess ,
but doesn`t the 1200 slot only support type I & II Cards?
Perhaps the EtherLink III is a type III?

PCMCIA Types have to do with the size of the card. Type I is the original PCMCIA specification and is 3.5mm thick if I recall. Type II is the common variety like the Etherlink III is and is 5.5mm thick. Type III cards are 10.5mm and therefore take two card slots in the host computer. Some Xircom cards used this type of card size to include a integrated Ethernet port and avoid a dongle.

The A1200 cannot use Type III cards, obviously, as it only has the one slot. As the 3COM EtherLink III PCMCIA is a Type II and 16 Bit it should work. Perhaps it is the A1200? Has any other PCMCIA cards been tried?

[adolescent]

Try removing and inserting the card when hot (ie. while the Amiga is already booted).  This gets around the PCMCIA but in the A1200 (although, cardreset is supposed to fix this if working).  You can also try the CARD_INFO utility from the cnetdevice.lha package (although, once again, prepcard should have at least seen the card).

[carls]

The 3COM driver 3c589.device is said to support my card (at least in the docs) and the card fits in the PCMCIA slot, no problems there.

I've tried hot-plugging it both with and without the CardPatch/Reset programs running but to no avail. I don't own any other PCMCIA cards so I can't test with that.

I guess I'll have to try and reassemble my other A1200D and try the card in that one...

[mikeymike]

I don't have either CardReset or CardPatch running and just hot-plug the PCMCIA card when I start my A1200, always works for me.

[carls]

Hooray, it's working!
I reassembled my other A1200D and this time the card was found.
I guess I did have a bad PCMCIA port in my other A1200D.

Anyway, I'm writing this in AWeb, 640x256 on my A1200 with a
now working 3COM card. Life is good :-)