ExpressCard 34 Laptop Port Expansion Cards

ExpressCard 34 Laptop Port Expansion Cards

ExpressCard slot adapters provide up to 280 megabits per second and the ability to connect a vast array of devices to a standard laptop PC. This includes mobile broadband modems, Ethernet ports, eSATA storage units, and extra sound cards.

If you're using a Windows or Linux laptop, then you can connect FireWire ports to your ExpressCard slot. When the machine is powered down, connect your FireWire adapter to the express port and reboot. You'll probably receive a message about your computer finding new compatible components. Once the automatic installation process completes, you can use an IEEE 1394 cable like any regular USB wire to attach your machine to your MacBook. If you're using a Mac OS X SSD, then you'll want to install HFSExplorer on Windows. Linux users already have read and write support for HFS+ file systems built into their computers.

Dell incorporates the ExpressCard jacks into almost all Precision notebooks. All 17-inch Precision laptops have ExpressCard jacks exclusively while smaller ones have both ExpressCard and PCMCIA slots. Dell also features ExpressCard connections on the following machines:

• Inspiron
• Studio
• Vostro
• XPS
• D820, D830, and E-series Latitude laptops

As long as your Express Card adapter features the Express Card 2.0 logo, you can connect SuperSpeed USB 3.0 equipment to it. You should experience similar speeds you'd get from a desktop PCI slot. These slots feature much higher speeds than those designed solely to offer video through an external graphics card, so you can expect full performance from an external serial hard drive attached to one of them.

Since removable graphics cards for notebook machines use the same standard NVIDIA outputs that an integrated graphics card attached to a motherboard would, you probably only have a VGA feed. Simply attach a standard VGA cord to the output and then wire it into the female side of a VGA DisplayPort converter. Take the male DisplayPort end and connect it to whatever component you need for a DisplayPort feed. If you're configured to use an external monitor through your new graphics card, then you'll be all set.

You can use any of the normal PCI systems if you'd like. An eSATA drive connected to the card jack on the side of your machine is almost the same thing to a regular PCI disk. Mac OS X can actually boot off these disks if they're formatted with HFS+ software. Linux and Windows users might want to use NTFS. There's software available to configure even some of the largest disks as FAT32 drives.