A PCI card is connected directly to the motherboard. I was wondering if its possible somehow to rewire the PCI motherboard connector, soldering wires to each side(card side and motherboard side) ? So by doing that you can make the card stand parallel to the motherboard, and not vertically. Is the idea possible? If it is, how many wires do I use? Is each side of the PCI card different in its connectors? When I solder the motherboard, do I need to worry about not making the 2 sides of the PCI connector meet?
I really wouldn't recommend it. Not only will your soldering need to be exact, but by extending the length of the connections, you will affect the timing of the PCI bus as well.
Dont quote me on this, but dont some low profile server mobos have a PCI riser that accomplishes this?? I seem to remember seeing some on eBay and thinking theyd be handy. im sure someone here knows more about it than me...
There's a couple of options. The most ridiculous and difficult one is to get an old PCI card and cut the connector off, then get an old mobo and unsolder a PCI slot, then solder some wires. It'll greatly reduce the PCI performance if it works at all I'd guess. The other option is to buy a riser card. You can either get a hard, fixed one which will mount your card at 90degrees to your mobo. You can get them facing in either direction and at a variety of heights so there should be one that's okay for you. Or look for the slightly rarer but more versatile ones which are more as described above. They have a tiny board that slots into the mobo PCI slot then a ribbon cable to another tiny board with a slot on for your card. These are more useful since you can use them in any configuration you like providing the ribbon's long enough.
maybe you know something i dont... but why would extending the wires slow down the card? NiHiLiST, never knew those products existed... i hope i can find one
Well basically, you'll want all the wires to be very high grade and also have great soldering skills using high conductivity solder. Thinking about it more, you'd probably get errors rather than slow-down, but I don't know much about the PCI bus's error-checking etc. All I'm saying is that motherboard traces are designed to carry data without losing integrity, whereas home-soldered wires generally aren't as good. Might be worth a shot though if you have the necessary bits lying around. If you're in the UK then these bits are quite hard to find. It's best to try eBay and the trading forum here. In the US I believe there's a few vendors around. Try doing a search on this forum for "PCI riser".
thx mate, I was thinking of using old IDE wires, will they be any good? I have an old pc that i can test this project on.. so i wont just messup my new pc... so thats not a problem. My question is are there two sides to the cards pcb connector? will i have to make wires for each side or just for one side. also, since i can use old cards connectors and old motherboard connects there is less to worry about messing up the cards or motherboard with soldering... about the risers... I dont live in the uk or the u.s, I live in Israel.. not many modding stores here
Yeah, IDE wires are worth a try. There's a LOT of connections, not sure how many, but yes, they're on both sides. You could ask around in the trading forums here and see if anyone will sell one to you from the UK or US.
omg i cant belive it! its my lucky day! one of the only companies that sell a pci raiser is an israeli company! http://www.icpc.co.il/index.asp?Page=/ProductsDB/Product.asp?ID=506 ya baby
well, sup turbahn? thats me, ThEfReAk from fresh ;p never thought posting this here.. back to the topic: i found a one slot PCI riser, but it's no good. my mobo has an on O/B LAN and O/B sound card. the only yhing i need is the GFX card. I've looked for a 1 slot AGP riser but couldn't find one. has anyone found smtn like that (prefrebly shipping to israel)?
thx for the links everyone you freak! sup man! good to see you here http://www.icpc.co.il/ as you can see in the link above, they have those kind of stuff, email them and ask them if they have the agp raiser.. i think they will. for me personaly its better to get the 3 in 1 (1 agp, 2 pci) + 1 pci raiser, since i have two network cards + one gforce + sound blaster live
it can be done. I was thinking of a project once and I needed 90º thingies. Well, I found LOTS! Just search Google for them.
