ExpressCard woes for N3510/3511

I bought the 3510 to do some ExpressCard development, and so far to date I have been very disappointed in Fujitsu's implementation of ExpressCard.

Basically the BIOS is flawed in the assumptions it makes about the kind of devices (number of PCI busses and devices) it expects to see behind the PCIe link on ExpressCard. In one case we plugged in an ExpressCard with a number of PCI devices (an expansion kind of device) into the ExpressCard slot, and the machine would not POST or boot, it was completely dead.

It sort of works when you hot plug, except all the resources are allocated to the first PCI device, leaving none for the second (and a yellow ! on that second device).

These are known issues with ExpressCard that are being fixed by an ammended rule from the ExpressCard standards body (pcmcia.org). We have asked Fujitsu about their plans to release a BIOS upgrade to address the issues, but to date the response has been that the rule doesn't affect machines already in the field (true) and basically bad luck, it isn't going to be fixed.

So buyer beware, if you want an ExpressCard slot that works (with PCIe devices) don't get the Fujitsu. Since ExpressCard has both PCIe and USB 2.0 on the connector, you will probably be OK if the ExpressCard only uses the USB portion. There are machines which do it right, such as all HP/Compaq ExpressCard equipped Notebooks. Interestingly IBM and Toshiba currently have issues....

- Tim

 

I doubt they'll maintain that stance should the standard be revised. It's a little hard for the manufacturers since there were no ExpressCards on the market when the machines were released.