PCMCIA card missing 12 volts on Vpp line

The Cardbus spec does not put 12v anywhere on the slot.

Also Several dells put only 3.0v instead of 3.3v on the bus which causes power problems for modems and wireless cards.

WIN2000 and XP disable support for 16 Bit PCMCIA altogether

The schematic here shows the VPP 12v you are referring to.  Unfortunately I would guess that there are NO 12v devices anywhere in the laptop and therefore the VPP is 5v instead of the PCMCIA 12v spec.

http://www.amd.com/epd/29k/200_pcmcia/200_pcmcia.pdf

Thank you for your reply - just a few questions:

You say that the Cardbus spec does not put 12 volts on the slot - true.  But it does put Vpp1 and Vpp2 on the slot, and these are suppose to be settable to 12 volts, if the power switch connected to the PCI controller has a 12 volt source.  Also, according to the Cardbus spec, the PCI controller Cardbus Socket Control Register bits 2 thru 0, when set to 001, are suppose to switch 12 volts to Vpp (again, if the power switch is capable).  Bits 6 thru 4, when set to 010, are suppose to switch 5 volts to the Vcc line. 

You say the Win 2000 and XP disable support for 16-bit PCMCIA altogether, yet many PCMCIA cards work just fine under XP with updated XP coded drivers.  Why do you say this?

The Cardbus spec provides for legacy support for 16-bit PCMCIA cards with ExCA Socket Interface registers, one of which is a Power Control register.   Do you mean that XP does not support these legacy registers? 

Setting this register to 99h on a Dell C840 will put 5 volts on Vcc and 12 volts on Vpp1.  When I write to the ExCA Power Control register on the Dell D800, the Vcc and Vpp levels change, but they go to values different from those specified.  I have tried all combinations of settings, and Vpp will only go to 12 volts when Vcc is 3.3 volts.  What is the problem with getting the correct combination of Vcc= 5v and Vpp = 12 volts?

In the Microsoft XP Device Driver Kit, the programmer is supplied with a PCMCIA library named NTDDPCM that offers a funtion to switch Vpp to 0 volts, 12 volts or Vcc (intended for flash memory cards).  This code does not work correctly on the Dell D800 - it gives the wrong voltage levels.

The schematic that you linked me to is of an Am29200 PCMCIA PC Card controller from 1994.  Why?  It mentions 12 volt Vpp on its first page.  How about sending me a schematic of the Dell D800 Cardbus controller and power switching circuitry?

Lastly, you guess that there are no 12v devices on the D800 laptop, so it cannot generate 12 volts on the PCMCIA slot.  We have a 3.3 volt flash memory card that gets 12 volts on its PCMCIA Vpp line the minute that you insert it into the D800.  So the laptop can generate 12 volts and it does have a 12 volt-capable power switch.

What does the Texas Instruments TIUMFLT.SYS filter driver, that is installed with the PCMCIA.SYS driver, do?  Is this what is causing my driver's PCMCIA power settings to be mis-interpreted?

1. I dont work for dell. 

2. Dell schematics are not forthcoming.

3. Many Dells are known now to not put out sufficient 3.3v power let alone 12v power. I'll bet even the RS-232 serial lines dont put out +/- 12v swings on the port. This causes serial mice and other devices that need 12v not to operate.

4. Most All Dells now ship with WIN2000 or XP with a service pack. 2000 SP1,2,3,4,5 and XP SP 1, 2, DISABLE
the ISA to PCI irq routeing. Most ALL 16 Bit PCMCIA cards REQUIRE ISA to PCI routing and therefore they do not work out of the box.

5. The 12v was used for INTEL/TOSHIBA ZV cards and specific PCMCIA or Cardbus Controllers. Since most dont need an MPEG accellerator anymore nobody designs or tests or supports this anymore.


16-bit PC Card (PCMCIA) devices stop working after you apply Windows 2000/XP Service Pack.


After you apply Serice Pack to Windows 2000/XP, or install Windows 2000/XP slipstreamed with a Service Pack , some Personal Computer Memory Card International Association (PCMCIA) devices, AKA PC-Card, don't work correctly.


Windows 2000/XP service packs disable PCMCIA-to-PCI IRQ routing. Many 16-bit PC Card devices require PCMCIA-to-PCI IRQ routing.

You can enable PCMCIA-to-PCI IRQ routing:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Pcmcia\Parameters]
"SoundsEnabled"=dword:00000001
"IsaIrqRescanComplete"=dword:00000001
"DisableIsaToPciRouting"=dword:00000000

1. Use the Registry Editor to navigate to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Pcmcia\Parameters.

2. Add Value Name DisableIsaToPciRouting, a REG_DWORD data type, and set the data value to 0.

3. Shutdown and restart your computer.

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=279256

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=257458

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=279491

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=327947

This symptom may occur with the Dell Truemobile 1150 or
Lucent/Orinoco 802.1x wireless network adapter.
After you install this adapter, the network appears to be
available and the signal strength remains the same.
However, the network is unavailable, and
the network connection icon has a red "X" over it.

Sorry SpeedStep, I thought from the large logo at the bottom of your posts that you were a Dell official.

Thanks again for your help.

We tried your registry hack, and unfortunetly it did not help.

With the number of PCMCIA modem cards (that use Vpp 12 volts) that are out there, I am surprised that other people have not experienced this problem.  Maybe they are all 3.3 volt cards - ours is 5v.

If anyone can shed some light on this, my team would be very greatful.

You could add a boost regulator to get the desired vpp.  I'm quite positive that the output voltages from the slots are not correct due to engineers not testing 5v 16 bit PCMCIA designs sufficiently.  A pcmcia developer slot extender with voltage meters will show you that the slots do not put out the correct votlages even for 3.3v.  This causes CDMA1000 wireless and 802.11 wireless cards and other devices that need the higher voltages to fail with error code 10 device cannot be started.

http://www.linear.com/go/dnLT1961

Unfortunetly, we do not have the option of re-designing our PCMCIA A/D card, since we have an installed base in the field.  We are however prepared to re-code their EPROM CIS data if necessary.  We tried that here and it did not work.

We have two PCMCIA card extenders with voltage monitors. The 12 volts (11.17) that we get is suffecient for our Vpp current draw - we just can't get a 5 volt Vcc to match it!