Laptop wanted (car related!)

[BenzBoy]

I need a laptop to run the BMW diagnostics tool I have.

It needs to have Windows 98 or higher, and must have a serial port so an old one would do perfectly. Oh, must be cheap too ;D

Anyone have anything?

[arthurbrown]

Are you in a mega hurry?

I am thinking of upgrading, mainly as my HD is too small and it's labouring a bit on start up. Has serial port, XP, 40GB HB 1GB processor.... but it is stuffed full of Very Useful Software and I need to work out how to transfer it to a new machine, without install disks IYSWIM.....

[BenzBoy]

Well... I could do with finding one this week, if only to put an end to the constant griping from Father Benz about tiny problems that anyone else wouldn't lose any sleep over.

If I'm still looking when you come to sell yours though, I'll be interested!

No idea about transfering software and stuff... I'm the computing equivalent of one of those car owners who drive their car every day even though it's making a grinding, horrible noise and then calls the AA when the engine's seized due to lack of oil. ;D

[rysz]

Dude, did you try these?

shop.ebay.co.uk/?_from=R40&_trksid=m38.l1313&_nkw=serial+pcmcia

Alternatively, if you can borrow M. Pog's laptop sans drive, I have a 30GB one here that will be more than big enough for your BMW program (Which is on my shelf here incidentally.... Ah, you might need that. - walks away whistling.)

Rysz.

[BenzBoy]

Hehe, I forgot you had that CD! Yeah I'll need that ;D
I could get a PCMCIA card, but it would mean installing it on this Vista laptop I have, and I'm not sure that a) the BMW thingy works on Vista, and b) I wanna tear into a new laptop when I really have no idea about computers... unless the PCMCIA card will just slot in somewhere?

I did manage to install the two PCI cards on my desktop PC though without blowing anything up! Go me!

[rysz]

Vista should install it on its own - the driver support is relatively good now and it just slots into the side of the laptop - no potential b0rking there!

No idea if it will run on Vista - but you can run things in Vista in "Compatibility mode" that makes it pretend its XP etc.

Go you for installing the PCI cards!

Rysz.

[BenzBoy]

GRRRAAAH! It looks like this laptop doesn't have any expansion ports. The only one I can see is labelled "ExpressCard/54" and doesn't look like it would take a PCMCIA card.

Back to looking for an old laptop