ADS Technologies USB Host PCCard for Notebook - Type II

Rating:
Summary: Poor product
Review: I have a HP Pavilion Notebook ZT1180. It is 3 years old, in great shape, but the only drawback is that it has USB 1.1 ports. The primary reason for purchasing the PCMCIA card is because I need it for an 802.11 SuperG USB adapter.

I installed the card and downloaded updated drivers from the adstech website. I was running XP Home SP2. Installation and detection of the hardware was what I call "finicky". It required some tweaking and troubleshooting. Finally I got it up and running. I tried my wireless USB dongle, and had a couple of problems. First, it required A LOT of effort to insert the USB dongle into the card. An extraordinarily amount of effort to the point that I was afraid of breaking the contacts. I finally was able to insert the dongle into the card. The dongle could not get enough power from the card, so the notebook could not detect the device. I wanted to avoid a PCMCIA card that would require the use of an AC adapter to power USB devices. After that, I tried plugging in my Rio Carbon to see if it could be detected via the card. This device was already powered by its own AC adapter. It didn't work. Nada. Nothing. Zip. Not detected by my notebook. Again, both ports were difficult to insert the USB male end of the peripheral devices.

I would give it zero stars if possible since the product did not even work at all! I returned it promptly. Go with adaptec USB2connect. I have had success with this item.