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BIOS-Approved PCI Cards For Laptops
derek_farn writes "First there were printers that would would only work with vendor annointed ink cartridges; now we have laptops that will only boot with vendor annointed PCI cards. Keeping a list of approved PCI cards in the bios is one way of ensuring that customers renew their maintenance contracts. How else are they going to be able to plug in a PCI card released after the last BIOS update?" My HP laptop is several years old; can anyone confirm this?
Is this just Compaq/HP? If so, just don't buy from them?
Please work to undermine the Great Strength of the PC market, the open architecture.
Brilliant move.
They should find everyoen who supported this decision and make sure they never work in any decision-making capacity anywhere again.
We can keep our own list of venders who do this... ..and don't buy from them.
It's too bad TFA doesn't say what kind of mini-PCI card. He probably bought some generic made-in-god-knows-where card from JustDeals or somewhere like that. Now, I'm an opponent of the direction "Trusted Computing" is going, but in this case there's something to be said for a manufacturer locking out shitty peripherals so they don't kill your system. It saves them one more support headache. Apple does the same thing. Sure, lot's of us Mac-heads bitch about it (myself included sometimes), but at the end of the day we can always brag about how plug-and-play Macs are. It looks as though PC manufacturers are following in footsteps of Apple again.
Per Square Mile, a blog about density
Laptops have a lifespan of 2-3 years typically -- by the time this is an issue, the next generation laptops will obviate the older.
I personally would vote with my feet. Companies who try to tie you to proprietary solutions are not on my short list of where I spend my money.
And yes, that would include Apple.
Which is what the blogger is referring to. Those cards, if I am not mistaken, are the kind of "built-in" cards that you can install, typically under the keyboard, but that you don't remove and re-install all the time. I think you are thinking of PCMCIA cards that you take in and out all the time. And in response to what the blogger is posting, he could remove the MiniPCI card and it would boot fine, and then revert his BIOS back to his old version (unless for some reason it had some VERY critical fix) and then put his card back in and simply not do the BIOS updates unless he really, really has to. But so basically, you don't have to worry at all, me thinks :)
The capitalist way would be to just sell your services re-fitting/flashing BIOS's with this turned off, of course since the DMCA came into effect capitalism now comes second to campaign financing.
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...because apple does not market it as a miniPCI slot, but rather an AirPort card slot. It doesn't claim to be something that it's not - a place to plug in whatever you feel like plugging in. It's there just for the AirPort card, and nothing more.
No, that seems in line with how capitalism works in this day and age.....
Seems to me that if they don't want their computer to be compatible with PCI cards, they shouldn't advertise it as being compatible with PCI cards.
But maybe I'm crazy.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
(note: this is not Apple fanboyism -- I don't complain about the proprietary slot on the lid of of my Compaq laptop either.)
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I'd want to make sure that customers weren't trashing laptops by putting in things that destroy them then quietly removing the offending card and returning them for repair.
When you buy a laptop, it IS proprietarty! Can you go to Fry's and just buy a laptop Mobo? or how about a case?... So, while we are at it, Why don't we just start cramming in non-standard batteries into our laptops! You buy a laptop for it's current features, not it's upgradabillity. If you want to expand it, there are USB/1394 devices that will allow you to do that.. I just went to fry's and picked up a junky 9.99 usb2.0 G adapter...
Your post is hilarious because IBM has been known to be doing this for some time now. You ahve been fortunate to only use IBM whitelisted products so far.
In fact your post reminds me of an incident I experienced a few years ago. I was approached and reprimanded by a WWII veteran for driving a "Jap car". At the time I was driving an Isuzu. After the man was finished reprimanding me, he jumped into his Chevrolet and drove away. I burst out laughing because the particular model of Chevrolet that he was driving was actually a re-branded Isuzu.
If Carly were still in office, she'd probably find a way to convince you that your printer is out of ink and you need to buy refills!
Aside from that, if this under-handed marketting strategy is going to keep us from running servers/workstations, what's next - BMWs whose engines suddenly stop working because there's a Fram oil filter installed? What if I decide to use a generic dollar-store bulb in my socket instead of the "approved" Philips bulb? Based on this theory, can you imagine what would happen if I were to eat a bag of knock-off raisin bran?
It sounds to me that this is just a marketting gimick to screw customers over and force them to buy what the manufacturer wants you to buy. God forbid I should find a better alternative to what the manufacturer wants me to buy.
-- Game Developers: Stop porting badly-textured games from crappy console systems!
Your misuse of apostrophes is making my eyes bleed... Not one of them was needed :-)
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Look, guys, Mini-PCI is not meant to be a route for user extensibility; it was meant to be a mechanism for the vendor to add individual cards to a standard motherboard. If you want to configure a high-speed a/b/g device, go through your USB ports.
The only Apple peripheral I use at all is the keyboard that came with the machine. You're an idiot.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
The FCC regulations don't actually require what IBM does - the closest is a requirement that you not be able to use unauthorised antennae with an authorised card, which is the direct opposite of IBM's solution. The amount of the planet over which the FCC have jurisdiction is also fairly small compared to the size of IBM's market...
I'm using a Belkin 802.11g card in my Powerbook without problems and using an out-of-the-box version of OS 10.2. No third-party drivers needed. Even if I did need an additional driver, there's a difference between merely not supporting third-party products and actively preventing their use via whitelist.
-b.
Actually, the old rule is:
If you don't have anything interesting or insightful to say about the parent post, waste everyone's time by blasting the mofo for stupid grammar rule violations
Bull, I say. Putting a WLAN PCI card in your desktop PC doesn't change its FCC certification!
That's because the desktop PCI card comes complete with a built-in antenna. In a laptop, the antenna's built into the case and the card plugs into it.
Because of this, it's possible to venture outside the FCC certification by using a different miniPCI card.
Er, if it's on the spec sheet, it's advertising. If it doesn't work, it's fraud.
Now, since I don't know which particular models are in question, I can't check. But it seems pretty cut and dried to me: If you sell me something, and it's designed to not work as advertised, you've defrauded me.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Your Mini-PCI slot was never intended to be user upgradeable. Frankly, I always assumed they wouldn't be compatible between laptop vendors, models, or nescessarily even between two laptops of the same model that came off the assembly line on different days.
If you want to upgrade to a better wireless connection, use a PMCIA card.
There have already been opening salvos of FUD fired at the Open Source movement for not having a "certified" credential system for contributing programmers and writers.
I can give anyone a certificate right now. Just give me some scrap paper and a green crayon, and I'll certify you for anything. Heck, I'll even ask you a few lame questions first to make sure you're qualified.
And that's about how I'll feel about certificates for as long as there are VeriSign certificates for spyware companies, MCSEs, and the like.
> ....if you car detected something trivial like a non OEM starter and refused to crank
."
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You need to preceed that with "If the federal government required all combinations of starters and engines to be approved before sale, and . .
In spite of the slashdot-grade bad description, this isn't about all peripherals . .
hawk