Toshiba A10 Satellite PCMCIA slot Ubuntu Feisty

Hi all,
I am now running Ubuntu (Feisty Fawn) on my Toshiba A10 Satellite Laptop and enjoying it very much.
Unfortunately I am unable to get the PCMCIA slot to work at all. I really want to use it for my wireless broadband modem (IPwireless). I have tested it with another PCMCIA card and it does not show up either.
I have not had success with this when running SuSE or Slackware either. I know the slot and cards do work, because I can use them if I boot in Windows.

I have Ndiswrapper installed and have a cd with the windows drivers for the card I wish to use, but I don't think my computer even knows there is a card in.

Is there some sort of PCMCIA slot monitoring tool hidden somewhere around here? or a command to check the status of the PCMCIA slot?
Anyone else have any advice or had any experience with this in the past?

Thanks for your time,
Austin.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but it doesn't seem to work in Linux:

Here

However, others may come up with inventive solutions.

I know this is off topic, but I'm looking for a power cord for the same laptop, and I can't find a cord that works. Does your power input have a male piece in addition to a female piece? Or to be possibly more clear, does it have a metal stick on the inside of the hole, so the plug can go around it? Thanks.

bebarino, I think I'd answer yes to your question about the power plug, if I'm understanding you correctly. Just in case, I just took a couple of photos and put them up on my website:
http://boyle.austin.googlepages.com/quickstuff.html
Hope that helps

... still very interested if anyone manages to get their PCMCIA slot working on this laptop?

Thanks, the link isn't working now.. but maybe googlepages is down? Anyway, if you say yes, I think my laptop is broken! It would be nice to see those photos though, and hopefully figure out some way to fix it, possibly through soldering.

On the topic of the post, have you tried out lspci and checking to see if you have any cardbus devices listed? If you don't you probably don't have the proper kernel module loaded into your kernel.

Another program you may have is lspcmcia which would show that at least you have power going to your pcmcia slots.

Hope that helps for you!

Alright now it's working. Thanks a ton! and sadly the laptop I have is missing the little metal piece.

Thanks for the suggestions bebarino. I played around with those two commands, I think it looks like there may be a glimpse of hope!
Here are the outputs, can anyone try help me interpret them?

With nothing inserted in the slot:

root@austin-laptop:/home/austin# lspci

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82852/82855 GM/GME/PM/GMV Processor to I/O Controller (rev 01)
00:00.1 System peripheral: Intel Corporation 82852/82855 GM/GME/PM/GMV Processor to I/O Controller (rev 01)
00:00.3 System peripheral: Intel Corporation 82852/82855 GM/GME/PM/GMV Processor to I/O Controller (rev 01)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82852/855GM Integrated Graphics Device (rev 01)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation 82852/855GM Integrated Graphics Device (rev 01)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-M) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev 83)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801DBM (ICH4-M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 03)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801DBM (ICH4-M) IDE Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.6 Modem: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Modem Controller (rev 03)
01:08.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB PRO/100 VE (MOB) Ethernet Controller (rev 83)
01:0b.0 CardBus bridge: Toshiba America Info Systems ToPIC100 PCI to Cardbus Bridge with ZV Support (rev 33)

root@austin-laptop:/home/austin# lspcmcia status
Socket 0 Bridge: [yenta_cardbus] (bus ID: 0000:01:0b.0)

root@austin-laptop:/home/austin# lspcmcia reset
Socket 0 Bridge: [yenta_cardbus] (bus ID: 0000:01:0b.0)


I then insert a PCMCIA card to test ("DSE USB2.0 + IEEE 1394 + Lan CardBus Card")

root@austin-laptop:/home/austin# lspcmcia reset
Socket 0 Bridge: [yenta_cardbus] (bus ID: 0000:01:0b.0)
CardBus card -- see "lspci" for more information

root@austin-laptop:/home/austin# lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82852/82855 GM/GME/PM/GMV Processor to I/O Controller (rev 01)
00:00.1 System peripheral: Intel Corporation 82852/82855 GM/GME/PM/GMV Processor to I/O Controller (rev 01)
00:00.3 System peripheral: Intel Corporation 82852/82855 GM/GME/PM/GMV Processor to I/O Controller (rev 01)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82852/855GM Integrated Graphics Device (rev 01)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation 82852/855GM Integrated Graphics Device (rev 01)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-M) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev 83)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801DBM (ICH4-M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 03)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801DBM (ICH4-M) IDE Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.6 Modem: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Modem Controller (rev 03)
01:08.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB PRO/100 VE (MOB) Ethernet Controller (rev 83)
01:0b.0 CardBus bridge: Toshiba America Info Systems ToPIC100 PCI to Cardbus Bridge with ZV Support (rev 33)
02:00.0 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 61)
02:00.1 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 61)
02:00.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB 2.0 (rev 63)
02:00.3 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments TSB43AB22/A IEEE-1394a-2000 Controller (PHY/Link)

Where should I go from here?
It seems like it knows my card is in there, do I need to do something to "start" it? When I insert devices such as a flashdisk into the card nothing happens.

I tried inserting my IPWireless broadband card (the one I REALLY want to get working!)

root@austin-laptop:/# lspcmcia ident
Socket 0 Bridge: [yenta_cardbus] (bus ID: 0000:01:0b.0)
Socket 0 Device 0: [-- no driver --] (bus ID: 0.0)

root@austin-laptop:/# lspcmcia reset
Socket 0 Bridge: [yenta_cardbus] (bus ID: 0000:01:0b.0)
Socket 0 Device 0: [-- no driver --] (bus ID: 0.0)

root@austin-laptop:/# lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82852/82855 GM/GME/PM/GMV Processor to I/O Controller (rev 01)
00:00.1 System peripheral: Intel Corporation 82852/82855 GM/GME/PM/GMV Processor to I/O Controller (rev 01)
00:00.3 System peripheral: Intel Corporation 82852/82855 GM/GME/PM/GMV Processor to I/O Controller (rev 01)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82852/855GM Integrated Graphics Device (rev 01)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation 82852/855GM Integrated Graphics Device (rev 01)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-M) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev 83)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801DBM (ICH4-M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 03)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801DBM (ICH4-M) IDE Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.6 Modem: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Modem Controller (rev 03)
01:08.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB PRO/100 VE (MOB) Ethernet Controller (rev 83)
01:0b.0 CardBus bridge: Toshiba America Info Systems ToPIC100 PCI to Cardbus Bridge with ZV Support (rev 33)

Things are looking up a bit!

root@austin-laptop:/home/austin# cardctl status
Socket 0:
3.3V 16-bit PC Card
function 0: [ready]

root@austin-laptop:/home/austin# cardctl info
PRODID_1="IPWireless"
PRODID_2="3G Data Modem"
PRODID_3="V 0.1"
PRODID_4=""
MANFID=02f2,0100
FUNCID=255

root@austin-laptop:/home/austin# cardctl config
Socket 0:
Vcc 3.3V Vpp1 3.3V Vpp2 3.3V

So my computer knows there's a card there, with power going to it, and knows the name of it!
Great, now I'm trying to configure it as a dialup modem, because the lads on the Woosh Broadband help desk said that's how they set it up in Vista, but I need to know the "modem port", like '/dev/ttyS1' or something.
What would I use for a PCMCIA device?

If anyone else is trying to set up the IPWireless PCMCIA I have had success by following the instructions on this tutorial:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Ip...elessPcmcia%29

Or direct link to the drivers:
http://kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/p...ipwireless_cs/

I am with woosh wireless and had to put "@woosh.co.nz" on the end of my username before it worked.