Customer Reviews

Cables Unlimited IOC-5900 USB 2.0 and Firewire 1394a Cardbus Card

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This Cardbus adapter installed painlessly in my Acer Aspire 3500 laptop. Windows XP Pro recognized the adapter immediately and installed the drivers from it's own driver cache - I did not have to use the driver disc supplied with the adapter. In Device Manager, the adapter is indicated as a "Texas Instruments PCI-1410 Cardbus Controller", with a "VIA OHCI Complient IEEE 1394 Host Controller". I have tested the USB ports with a couple of different USB thumb drives and a Logitech IR mouse. I tested the firewire ports with my Canon HV-20 camcorder, and these also work (NOTE, the Acer Aspire turns out to have insufficient processor power and HDD access is too slow for capturing video from the camera, however, this is NOT the fault of the cardbus adapter being reviewed here). So far the adapter appears to be exactly what I wanted. It adds two USB 2.0 and two Firewire ports (1 four pin and 1 six pin) - this is a nice addition to my older laptop for only $30. It sticks out about 1.25" from the side of the laptop, so plan on having to remove it to put your laptop back in most carry bags. NOTE: This is a PCMCIA card-many new laptops are using a newer type of adapter called "Express Card". This product WILL NOT work in laptops with an Express Card slot, so make sure which kind of adapter your laptop uses before you order this or any other adapter card.

Build quality of the card appears to be at least average - time will tell if the card has good quality components and manufacturing inside.

The adapter is supplied with ULEAD Video Studio Version 5. This is a VERY old version of Video Studio, which is currently on Version 11. VS-5 has some severe limitations; there are freeware Video editing utilities you can download that offer more functionality, but VS-5 will let you capture 720x480 video from MiniDV camcorders and do some rudimentary video editing. However, I don't think VS-5 will capture from High Def (HDV) video cameras.

SUMMARY: Good value for the price, but if you are purchasing this card specifically to capture video from a MiniDV video camcorder, make sure your laptop has enough "mojo" in the CPU, databus, and hard drive. My Acer Aspire 3500 turns out to be unequal to the task of capturing HDV video, so the cardbus adapter being reviewed here will only be useful to me for the two USB ports.

The installation of drivers for this card was easy, and I now have easy access to firewire and USB 2.0 on my notebook. There is an optional AC adapter available for this product, but for use on my desk, I just use a firewire/USB hub combo that is powered. I have nine hardware devices daisy-chained from this card to powered hubs with no problems at all. It is recommended to only use one USB port at a time unpowered, such as on the road. I don't expect to need more than that if I'm mobile.

Plug and play product, no installation needed, works flawlessly with my IPOD.

Pros: Worked right off the bat (computer: ibm laptop from the 2000s currently running XP) -- did not need to install any special software.

Cons: Resulted in my computer hanging intermittently, while operating my usb device.

Disclaimer: This may be because I was connecting to a custom built circuit board with a usb 2.0 interface (requiring very high data transfer rates), and may be no fault of the card. I haven't tried this with other cards, but the very fact that this one worked off the bat was surprising and somewhat gratifying.

This product does the job if you need the features, but i was suprised it would not work for me with my Dell Inspiron 1501. I worked with Dell for over an hour before we realized that this is a PCMIA card and a number of recent laptops require a express card. Luckily we have a older Acer which would support this card.....Other than that the product itself is good.

I have bought this piece for my notebook that had all of its USB 2.0 ports spoiled with mostly broken power connections.

The only things that work with this adapter for me are my printer, a few memory sticks (not all) and nothing more. The power wire that comes along with this adapter is useless for me because the power cable tries to derive power from my already present USB port of the notebook. Since that USB power port is broken, there is no way I can make sure that the adapter gets enough power.

I have returned this product.

So, I suggest you first identify what exactly is the problem with ur USB port (power/port itself) and then get this one.

I was skeptical to buy this product without a review. But ordered it, got it in timely manner from TigerDirect and installation was a piece of cake. It is so far working flawlessly for last 1 month.