How to locate a PC Card (PCMCIA) modem in your laptop.

Typically the modem installed in your laptop will be located inside one of the two PCMCIA sockets on the laptop.  At first appearance your laptop may appear to have no modem installed; however after pressing along the side of the modem in the PCMCIA socket a telephone jack should eject for connectivity, this is called a X-Jack modem.

IBM ThinkPad 760XL with
X-Jack modem.


Depending on the make and
model of the laptop the PCMCIA
sockets could be on either the left
or right side of the laptop.

1) X-Jack modems are for the most part very practical because if the cable is lost or damaged you can replace it with a normal telephone cable.  However the Jack on these modems are more fragile than a standard modem; pulled or pressed on with enough force the Jack can be damaged.

2) If you are unable to locate your modem please try the following:

Verify that you were invoiced for a modem and check the speed.
Locate your PCMCIA sockets to see if they are both empty.
Make sure that the modem isn't built into the laptop (not in a PCMCIA socket).
Try locating the modem in the device manager of the OS (shown below).

 

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