Before purchasing this product please ensure that your laptop is equipped with the correct expansion slot.  To learn about the differences between an Express Card and a PCMCIA Card, and how to identify which slot(s) your system has, please click here.

The StarTech serial (RS-232) Express card adapter gives your computer 2 (two) additional serial ports.  This is the best possible solution for computer users who need a serial port (client or writer hook-ups) but do not have a PCMCIA Card Slot on their computer.

PCIe based - not USB based like other cards

This card belongs to the "Performance Series," promising perfect functionality at faster speeds and efficiency than other card protocols. It also means that it operates based on PCIe power control and design core rather than USB. The PCI-e design allows the card to directly use I/O space addresses and interrupts, thus more closely emulates built-in ports than can be done via USB-based design. Moreover, because there's no USB stack for the drivers to contend with, throughput can be higher and latency will be lower (considerably so in many cases). Being expresscard-34, this card will work in both expresscard-34 and expresscard-54 slots.

In other words, most of the Express Card Serial Adapters on the market are "USB Based", meaning that Windows actually see's those devices as a USB-to-Serial Adapter rather than an express card solution.  In fact, most of those cards actually use the same drivers as a USB-to-Serial adapter, which are prone to sporadic blue screens and realtime freezes.  Because this card is seen as an actual express card and an actual COM port by Windows, the risk of realtime freezing and blue screens disappears.

Package Includes
Single Port RS-232 Serial Express Card Driver CD
Express Card Slot Sizer Adapter (for use with 54mm slots)

Specifications
Two independent RS-232 serial interfaces
New generation of I/O expansion for notebooks
Supports PCI Express Base Specification Revision 1.1a
Installs in any ExpressCard slot
Supports Windows XP/Vista/7 operating systems
Hot plugging and how swapping features
High speed ExpressCard with plug-n-play
Lifetime Warranty (through StarTech)