Cases w/ Knockouts Up-To 10 I/O Ports?

SpdyVkng asks: "Once, I worried if I ever would have the money to buy a significant number of expansion cards for my PC; then I worried about the number of slots available; now most cards I have in my computer use not only one back end, but two (or more in some cases), for their I/O needs. That has me worrying about the cases I can use: 7 knock outs for expansion cards are too few, since I really would need someting like 9 or 10. To make it perfectly clear, I don't need more than 6 PCI slots on the mother board, and an AGP, but I need more physical knock outs in the case to have access to the extra I/O ports I need and which every card seems to have these days." Of course, necessity being the mother of all invention, how difficult would it be to "adapt" some off-the-shelf cases with added ports? I would figure that an adept person with the right tools might be able to add in side and front ports, depending on the case. Are there any places out there that will custom make chassis with these and other modifications?

"My computer is used for audio edting and I need all those extra audio channels and SCSI connectors for my external equipment. Unfortunately these audio cards and scsi cards take two or three PCI places, while only utilizing one or less slots on the motherboard.

Anyone who knows of cases which can accomodate more backends than seven?"

Comments

More room

[adolf]

ATX cases don't seem to exist which fit the bill. intel designed the ATX spec to have 7 available slots.

You're an audio guy. Computer cases are designed for computer people.

That said, check around at various case distributors (jinco.com comes to mind), and find something with knockouts that fit whatever SCSI connectors you need. These all seem to have fairly standard mounting, so it should be easy (trivial, even) to relocate the connector from the bracket to the back panel given some basic hand tools. It shouldn't be much (if any) different in cost from something without SCSI knockouts.

If that doesn't free up enough slots, try using different audio hardware. I'm not aware of anything with an external ADAT breakout box, but it might exist. ;) If you're doing lots of analog I/O to the PC, plenty of things are available which connect via DB-25 (or similar) to a breakout box covered in jacks, thus consuming only one slot.

I've got a Lexicon core2 which does this, but it's somewhat limited (4 in/8 out in a box, ADAT in/out on the card).

If that's not an option, you'll need to be more creative, unfortunately - nothing off-the-shelf (short of a PCI bridge as another poster mentioned) exists.

Convert an old AT case to ATX. They're available with dozens of slots, for next-to-nothing.

Or, start punching/drilling holes in the back of an ATX box. Looking at the expansion bracket on an RME DIGI9652 (www.rme-audio.com/english/hammer/d9652.htm), it seems possible to mount to the back of any box given a drill bit and nuts for the BNC jacks, and some creative metalwork for the TOSLINK connectors.

If you're afraid of metalwork, any decent machine shop can knock this out, near-flawlessly, for much less than $100. Even a tinsmith would have no difficulty with the project (and would likely charge less). They'll have an easier time if you use a case made from light-guage steel (ie, cheap), or aluminum (bloody expensive).

If you've got money to burn, look into using a single-board computer. These guys fit a (typically) high-end intel chip, integrated video (ATI seems popular), and standard I/O onto a full-length (sometimes shorter) card, which then plugs into a backplane covered with huge numbers of PCI slots.

They're intended for industrial use, and are thus expensive. And the backplanes are typically constructed to fit into a specific rackmount (!) case. Search for SBC on google.

Those are the easy ways.

The difficult way involves impedance-matched cabling bundled into a snake, plugged in with some high-density monolithic connectors to a breakout box of your own construction. It would be nice, and not expensive at all, but I surmise that if you were willing to go that route, you'd have already done so. :)

Good luck.

PCI Expansion Chassis

[mfarver]

Try searching the web for "PCI expansion chassis" one example is Magma but there are plenty of others. Basically you get a PC or rackmount case with a PCI backplane (containing about 6-10 slots) installed. A PCI to PCI bridge card connects your PC with the expansion chassis. These are especially nice because you can orient the expansion chassis facing forward where you can easily reach the connectors. Or the chassis can be placed a dozen feet away from the PC in a rackmount enclosule with your other equipment. Not cheap, but a popular solution for people in your situation.