X220 Expansion slot fit 54mm 3 port USB 3.0 Express Card?

[presque_vu]

Hey guys,

has anyone tried a 54mm 3 port USB 3.0 Express Card in their X220?

I found this one on eBay... AKE Laptop Notebook 54mm Express USB3.0 3 port 5GB/s HUB T Card adapter FL1100

http://www.ebay.com/itm/AKE-Laptop-Notebook-54mm-Express-USB3-0-3-port-5GB-s-HUB-T-Card-adapter-FL11...

I've noticed a lot of 54mm 2 port USB 3.0 cards on ebay and in other notebook forums X220 users have said they are using 2 port cards with no issues and no need for power cable so I'm wondering if 3 port USB 3.0 would work?

Cheers

[goretsky Community Moderator · Accepted solution]

Hello,

I would imagine that as long as you used a USB 3.0 device which did not require external power (like a USB flash drive) or had an external power adapater (like a hard disk drive enclosure) that things would be fine.  You might want to contact the seller and ask what the maximum current is for each USB 3.0 port, and whether or not the card can supply that simultaneously for all three ports.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

[presque_vu]

Hi Aryeh Goretsky,

thank you that is excellent advice. I'll contact the seller now.

Cheers

[presque_vu]

I wrote to the seller and got this response (Please note the seller is from China and probably used google translate to answer my question)

Hi,dear,
Thank you for your message.
The USB3.0 slot have 900MA,What is the need to see you use external devices.if all use HDD,will can't works great,but if use the USB disk,no have problem.You can try it.2ports and 3ports no have big differnt.
Thank you very much! 

I've ordered the card and when it arrives I'll post the results

[presque_vu]

So the Express card arrived with mine CD.

Windows recognized it but couldn't install the drivers. No biggie I thought. I ripped the drivers off the CD and they didn't help.

So I searched various websites including the manufactures and tried a bunch of drivers. Nothing worked.

All of this taking about half an hour. I could feel the Expansion slot heating up.

I ejected the card and it was almost smoking it was so hot. Maybe it is a faulty card.

I'm going to ask the guys at my local computer shop what they think and I'll send the card back after that and perhaps get a new one.

Has anyone else had success with a 54mm 3 port USB 3.0 Express Card?

 I'll keep everyone posted with my progress

PS I'm super busy with university that's why it has taken me so long to write this- nothing to do with the sellers posting time- which was about 2 weeks from memory.

[goretsky Community Moderator]

Hello,

I purchased one of these via eBay and it arrived without a driver CD.  I did determine that it had a Fresco Logic FL1100 controller and used the device drivers I had obtained from Fresco Logic's support for an earlier card to install this new one. 

I would imagine that if you contact their technical support they will probably send you the drivers as well.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

[firemonkey]

What the heck has Lenovo done to the PCMCIA slot (54mm Express card)?!!  I have been using these slots for years to hold various DBs on CF memory  in the same mapped drives as my clients so that I don't have to recode various apps, and for back up of my day to day work.  As far as I am concerned I have wasted good money on a machine which not only doesn't recognise the PCMCIA cards, but has them sticking 50mm outside of the PC!! 

If something works, why the hell change it!!!

[lead_org Microsoft MVP Contributor]

PCMCIA and ExpressCard are two different type of interface.

The PCMCIA is too slow for many modern applications, this is why it is replaced by the ExpressCard interface, which allows faster transfer speed.

The only constant in life is change, and technology is all about change.

[goretsky Community Moderator]

Hello,

As I understand it, IBM started introducing ExpressCard slots with the T43 in 2005.  I cannot even recall the last time I used a CardBus or PCMCIA card, actually.

You might want to look into using SDHC or SDXC cards, which are a newer, faster standard for flash media and have kind of taken over the place of CompactFlash for most devices.  On the X220, SD?C cards sit flush when inserted into the built-in 4-in-1 card reader.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

[presque_vu]

I gave up trying to get the thing working