[Thinkpad] GigE PC Cardbus adapter (Slightly OT)

[Frank K-F]

Stuart, Alex...

I have to confess ignorance to the issues you raise, thus my question 
seeking your experience.

It was suggested to me that a GigE PC card adapter is needed with the 
camera.  We are looking at a 2MP imager chip, 12 bits per pixel.  What I 
haven't been told yet is the frame rate, and if that frame rate can step 
back if the bandwidth is limited as for example the 10/100 that is built 
into my A31p system.  I have worked with 1394 cameras with hi-res chips 
where the frame rate adjusts to the bandwidth, if for example you use 
the binning function, e.g. lower res allows higher frame rate.  In 
virtually all applications in my area, machine vision in manufacturing 
processes, the camera rolls along at some frame rate (actually idling) 
until a trigger via a sensor or an event calls for the next frame to be 
captured .. to record some image or event.

It is good to learn however that you found such a GigE card as a 
resource hog ... as I had visions of running 2 cameras simultaneously 
... the other being an interline analog 8 bit  at about 303KP per frame 
and 30 FPS .. into a PC-Card frame grabber in the other PC Slot.   
Initially this is for a portable demo setup, so we are trying to do more 
with less.

Nonetheless, the basic question is still there.  Is there a PC Card 
Adapter .. one with the Intel chips .. or do I need to look at an add-in 
card for one of my Dock-II units, and where do I find that?

Frank K-F
--------------
Stuart F. Biggar wrote:

>>My A31p has a 10/100m ethernet connection capability ... I need to 
>>connect to a camera with GigE, and am on the hunt for an appropriate 
>>PC-Card adapter.  I have been told that such adapters for GigE really 
>>fall short of the mark, except those with the Intel chip-set.
>>
>>Has anybody in this community experience in conjunction with their 
>>ThinkPads?  I'd like to hear from you.
>>
>>Frank K-F
>>Brighton, MI USA
>>    
>>
>
>Frank,
>
>Does the camera really need GigE on the computer?
>Would plugging it into a GigE switch and your A31p
>into the same switch work or is the camera data
>rate too high for the 100 Mbit in the A31p?
>
>We deal with large (multiple GB) imagery data sets.
>Our servers have GigE and fast disk systems so they
>can serve up data quickly.  I didn't like the waiting
>for data to get to my notebook so I did some limited
>experimenting with GigE with an older A21p which dual
>booted Windows and Sun Solaris.
>
>I have installed a server Intel GigE PCI board in
>a dock for an A21p - it worked but the throughput
>was not great (but better than with the 10/100 built
>in Intel ethernet).  One problem is that the PCI slot
>in the dock is 32-bit rather than 64-bit and slow.
>You will probably have the same issues but maybe
>magnified by additional layers of hardware and
>software with Cardbus - I think that Cardbus is
>limited to 32-bit.
>
>It was several years ago that I experimented and I
>don't remeber details but sooner or later the data
>goes to disk and that will probably be the limiting
>factor unless you have a raid box (multiple spindles
>going at once) with a fast, low overhead interface
>to it.  Transfer to/from RAM will work quickly for
>a short while :-)  Notebook disks, even the modern
>7200 RPM ones, are relatively slow compared to GigE.
>
>The GigE in my T43p works reasonably well but I do
>get better performance with Unix (Sun Solaris) than
>I do with Windows XP.  Again the inbound limit is how
>fast you can offload the data to the final destination
>(RAM or disk or another ethernet or firewire or ???).
>
>Stuart
>
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