T61p and GemPC400 Smartcard reader

I've rebuilt my T61p from scratch with Vista Ultimate (x86) today. Everything seems to be working fine except for the GemPC400 smartcard reader. It works like a champ in my M4 but when I plug it into my T61, I don’t get prompted for drivers, nothing shows up in device manager and there’s nothing in the event log. Device manager shows the Ricoh R/RL/5C476 PCMCIA controller to be working and Vista’s Smart Card service is running.

I've utilized all my Ninja Hardware Troubleshooting Skills and yet I've got nothing. And I'm screwed if I have to go to my company's helpdesk for support since they only support Vista Enterprise (which I blew away for Ultimate).

Any ideas?

 

I'm not sure if it's the same for Vista but have you tried plugging the smartcard in then going to Control Panel > Add Hardware?

If that doesn't work, here are some extra info I digged up for you:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?sitestyle=lenovo&lndocid=MIGR-46226

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?sitestyle=lenovo&lndocid=MIGR-46239

I'm not sure but hopefully maybe this driver will help?:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-67791

Best of luck Towjam.

 

Arkit3kt,

Thanks for the links - VERY much appreciated! I'll give these a shot when I get into the office today. Although the first link you pointed to appears to be for NT, the 3rd link looks like it might have some potential. I've tried "forcing" the update through the "Add Hardware" wizard but until now, I've not been able to find a suitable Vista driver.

Based on the behavior, I have a bad feeling that somehow Vista has either picked up the wrong PCMCIA driver - or I've actually got a bad PCMCIA slot. (The card itself still works in my M4.)

As a last resort, I will re-flatten the box and re-install Vista from scratch - then test the card reader before updating the drivers from Lenovo's site. If that doesn't work, then I'll have no choice but to turn it over to our helpdesk.

thanks again!!!!

 

I've (sort of) narrowed this down. The problem appears to be specific to the GemPC400 card itself. I've tested a couple of other manufacturer's SC readers and they're working fine. So at least I know it's not a hardware issue with the T'Pad.

 

That's great news Towjam. External replacement is always easier than an internal hardware one. Hope you're enjoying your T61p!

 

As a further reference point, my T61p, running Vista Ultimate x86, also refuses to notice that I've inserted my GemPC400 smart-card reader.
There would appear to be an incompatibility between the Thinkpad T61p and the GemPC400 smart-card reader.
As with ToeJam, I've successfully used the GemPC400 several times in a Thinkpad T40, but the T61p doesn't even recognise that I've plugged anything in.