HowToIdentifyADevice/PC_Card

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?Discussion

How to identify a PC Card

$/!\$ PC Card is a generic name for two technologies of hot-pluggable cards (the size of a smart card, but about 5mm thick):

16-bit PC Card (PCMCIA)
32-bit CardBus

This page covers "16-bit PC Card" devices, previously named "PCMCIA".

pccardctl

Install the pcmciautils package to provide the pccardctl utility.

pccardctl ident

Socket 0:
  product info: "The Linksys Group, Inc.", "Instant Wireless Network PC Card", "ISL37300P", "RevA"
  manfid: 0x0274, 0x1613
  function: 6 (network)

pccardctl info

PRODID_1="The Linksys Group, Inc."
PRODID_2="Instant Wireless Network PC Card"
PRODID_3="ISL37300P"
PRODID_4="RevA"
MANFID=0274,1613
FUNCID=6

pccardctl status

Socket 0:
  5.0V 16-bit PC Card
  Subdevice 0 (function 0) [unbound]

Under GNOME: hardinfo

Hardinfo doesn't list PCMCIA cards.

Under KDE: KInfocenter

KDE's KInfoCenter (in K Menu / System / KInfoCenter Info Center, from package kcontrol) has an information page on PC Cards.

Note: Sometimes, KInfoCenter doesn't detect PCMCIA cards.

dmidecode

The motherboard DMI zone has information about the system's slots. dmidecode can be used to retrieve this information.

dmidecode -t 9
# dmidecode 2.9
SMBIOS 2.4 present.

Handle 0x0020, DMI type 9, 13 bytes
System Slot Information
        Designation: ExpressCard Slot 1
        Type: x1 PCI Express
        Current Usage: Available
        Length: Other
        ID: 0
        Characteristics:
                Hot-plug devices are supported

Handle 0x0021, DMI type 9, 13 bytes
System Slot Information
        Designation: CardBus Slot 1
        Type: 32-bit PC Card (PCMCIA)
        Current Usage: Available
        Length: Other
        ID: Adapter 1, Socket 0
        Characteristics:
                5.0 V is provided
                3.3 V is provided
                PC Card-16 is supported
                Cardbus is supported
                Zoom Video is supported
                Modem ring resume is supported
                PME signal is supported
                Hot-plug devices are supported

lspci

32-bit CardBus devices are usually visible (bridged) as a PCI device.

/proc/bus/pccard/*

TODO

/sys/bus/pcmcia/*