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?

Comments

There's a simple solution.

[Anonymous Coward]

We can keep our own list of venders who do this... ..and don't buy from them.

Re:IBM has been doing it for years!

[Anonymous Coward]

...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.

Re:IBM Thinkpads are the same way

[Moofie]

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.

The key word is: STANDARD

[mrchaotica]

What I don't hear about is apple and there slots not taking anything but "AIRPORT" cards? why is nobody bitching about that?

Because Airport is completely proprietary. I don't expect to be able to put a 3rd-party card in my iBook's airport slot because there are no 3rd-party cards that would fit. On the other hand, if IBM or anyone else advertises that their laptop has a [standard] mini-PCI slot, then it damn well better actually be a mini-PCI slot! And it should work with any [standard] mini-PCI card.

(note: this is not Apple fanboyism -- I don't complain about the proprietary slot on the lid of of my Compaq laptop either.)