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External PCI Box for Laptops?
cagem0nkey asks: "I am in need of some type of external PCI card box for use with a laptop. I was able to find several different solutions, but these were all WAY to expensive for my wallet (at around $1,000 ea for one PCI slot!). Does anyone know of a cheaper way to add PCI card capability to a laptop? Possibly a USB or Firewire external enclosure?"
it's exotic, it's not simple - it's expensive.
tried to think about how to get around the problem in some other ways, build a mini-itx computer or something similar?
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I am unaware of the existance of such a thing, but it would be MUCH, MUCH simpler to implement as a cardbus device, as cardbus is a pure superset of PCI, whilst USB and 1394 are entirely different protocols (with lower bandwidths, at that).
It could be implemented as a cardbus card which just pulls the wires out to a PCI connector. Not pretty, but perfectly effective.
Phus. Sysiphus.
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Wed Jan 05 15:12:01 2005
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Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
I have a Latitude C640 (thank you work place!)
and I have a dock station this thing, I think. In class right now, but its pretty darned close.
The dock has 2 pci slots, so I plugged in a radeon 7000 card and so I can run 3 displays (2 crt, laptop LCD).
If you have an insp laptop, it is possible to modify it (and flash with a latitude bios) so that it will work with a latitude dock station.
Note: the latitude c640 requires a 70 watt power supply, but with the dock it demands a 90 watt power supply. I don't have a 90 watt, so it works with the 70 watt, running the cpu at 1.2 gig instead of 2.4 gig. Doesn't matter for me because my work requires me to do simple graphical and text. No fancy graphics, etc.
Grump.
Is it true that more people vote for the winner of American Idol, than vote for the president? -Ali G.
Depends what your using them for!
If its a simple SCSI interface, network card / fiber interface, or summat pritty standard you could probably spend the dollars on a USB/Firewire bit of kit. If your using something really specialised (special render cards) then your probably better getting a desktop and spended the extra money on sync software.
Only laptop i know of that supports some PCI is Dell laptops which had 2 PCI slots on a riser card in a docking station.
"What do you mean you have no ice? Do you expect me to drink this coffee hot?" - Random Customer, Clerks
Cardbus is the PCI standard miniaturized for laptops. Sounds like your trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. -- Open Source Operating System for North America (http://www.technocracy.org)
savethedollhouse.com
Why not just find a USB substitute for the device? They exist for 98% of hardware.
That's the problem with a lot of Ask Slashdots: people focus on the technology they want to use, rather than the task they're trying to use it for. Cliff really ought to bounce back stories like this with the request that they fill in such details.
If the project is important enough to warrant an external PCI card surely it is worth $1000 to buy an adapter? You've probably wasted more money by waiting for /. to respond.
On /. everyone wants 100K / year in order to work but doesn't think anyone elses time is worth more then $2.50 / hour.
I know this may confuse some /. readers but time is worth money, at least, my time is worth money.
I have wanted one for a while, but was curious about driver issues..
You might also want to consider a lunchbox PC. These generally have a few PCI slots built-in. They are also likely to be smaller than having a separate laptop and PCI box. And this IS a comodity item (more or less). Even though the market for these is small, it is larger than a separate PCI box. This should keep the price down.
h eportablepc.com/portable.htmo mputer.com/portables.htm
Here are some random sites which were the first hits off of Google using "Lunchbox Computer":
http://www.lunchboxcomputers.com/
http://www.t
http://www.stealthc
"-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
Why not put together a small desktop just for this card. I'll be cheaper than $1000 and probably more useful. It could have lots of connectivity options like ethernet. It can run the supplied hardware drivers (which could be doubtful for an external enclosure).
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
docking station ... sigh
* It has to be portable?
* You are certainly sure that you need to plug it directly in your notebook?
I mean if yes than you are focused on bandwith from/to this device, but you've mentioned about firewire and USB - they do not have awfully big bandwith as PCI so this would be a bottleneck...
IMHO for $1000 you surely can get equivalent of PCI device (what is this device?) on either USB, firewire or PCMCIA. If not you can get small case (mATX?) with two PCI slots as external device and export this PCI device via network (you surely can get it below $1000 including entire small PC system and Gb ethernet conectivity)...
I'm selling a much cheaper solution with 2 PCI slots on Ebay right now. If you're interested, I also have an extra docking station available.
Looking for a computer support specialist for your small business? Check out
I don't claim to be an expert in PCI or MiniPCI, but any notebook I've seen comes with a MiniPCI slot, and since I -think- MiniPCI is a "bus" in the true sense of the word, can this simply become a (carefully designed) cabling & connector problem? ie, extend your MiniPCI bus out into several MiniPCI (or ideally even PCI) slots?
Just thinking out loud.
http://www.mobl.com/expansion/pci/index.html
It looks like you've marked this one as too expensive. I thought they were around $500. Still pricey , I agree. I have used the single PCI version under linux (need 2.6.5 kernel or higher for some PCI cards), for cards that only need prefetch memory and under 4M ( I think) It will work with 2.4 kernels. Support under Windows is also good. Will be using it under mac soon as well.
A problem I have with a lot of Ask Slashdots is that even though a simple straightforward question is asked, readers are not satisfied to simply either answer the question that was asked, or not post a reply, but instead insist on a either answering a different question, or berating the person who asked the question.
I think the question in this Ask Slashdot is fine as it is-- it is clear what is asked, and it is a reasonable thing to inquire about. If readers do not find the question interesting and/or do not know the answer, they can feel free to move on and leave it alone.
Larry
A problem I have with a lot of Ask Slashdots is that even though a simple straightforward question is asked, readers are not satisfied to simply either answer the question that was asked, or not post a reply, but instead insist on a either answering a different question, or berating the person who asked the question.
Simply answering someone's questions is a very poor way to help them do what they want to do. In this case, I suspect that the original questioner MEANT something like "what is the cheapest, most portable, and easiest way to do foo." By telling us what foo is, we can come up with a better solution than they had even thought of.
For example, think of someone asking how to run a long run of CAT6 accross a highway in a safe, secure, and weather-proof manner. Rather than offering them methods of running CAT6 in this manner, suggesting that they instead use wifi and directional antennae would better meet their needs.
In the case where the original questioner DOES have the best solution in mind and just needs implementation advice, explaining the situation helps us know that they HAVE done their homework.
for interfacing a commercial grade digital camera back to the mac for previewing, capturing, and "developing" captured images. it was basically an custom scsi card built specifically for that brand cameraback. it looked very much like the 2 slot solution from magma(posted elsewhere in this thread). the photographer who owned the unit chose this paticular model to hook into a powerbook via the pc-card slot for portability sake, versus going with the stright pci card in a standalone g4. he was going to various locations, so the portability of a laptop and a pci box seemed attractive. the problem is, with most of the work he was doing, and all the crap he was shleping around, he would have been better off with the g4 tower... more horsepower, more RAM, more disk space. he traded a lot for portability's sake(and wasn't too happy with the final results. it turned out to be barely adequate).
you don't really say what this mysterious pci extension box is for, other than the fact that it'll hook up to a laptop. try to be a little more descriptive in your needs assesment and application before asking next time... a more descriptive scenario/needs assesment might have produced some creative esponses from this audience. instead, your vague question only brings more questions to my mind...
consider what your environ will be: will you have access to a power outlet? will you ever need to change or replace pci cards? how much are replacement parts for the pci expansion box? are there software requirments for the host computer in order to use the expansion box? would a stand alone computer be a better choice? is this really a true need, or is it a status object? can the solution be reached another way?
in the final analysis, the fact is you'll need additional power for the expansion box, and the expansion box is bulky enough to require it's own transporting container, you're gonna be lugging this whole thing in something bigger that a laptop bag. it not like you'll be using you laptop with expansion box off of battery power. maybe a SFF computer and a 15" lcd display would be a better option.
three can keep a secret, if two are dead - benjamin franklin
Easy on a thinkpad: Buy the high end dock.. you can get them for about 30-40 dollars on ebay.. and it has a PCI slot built in.
course, now you have to cart that around...
My old omnibook 5500/5700's had docking stations with pci/isa slots as well.
firewire based pci break out boxes?
back in the day we didnt have no old school
The Hertz is the SI unit of frequency, and is equivalent to using the phrase "cycle(s) per second". Since the phrase always ends with "per second" (which is singular), the unit representing the phrase is always singular.
The byte can become plural, so its abbreviation can be as well.
(Of course, if $PREFIX="kilo", the abbreviation is always singular 'K')
that that is is that that is not is not
I agree, but I could certainly use a device like the one he's hoping for. I do a lot of video processing from a laptop. The video capture components market is pretty small to begin with, and the video capture market for laptops is a niche within a niche. It would be nice to be able to throw in the latest greatest PCI tuner card into a box the size of a typical external IDE case, then use it with my laptop.
It its just portability you need, an ITX case should solve the problem. Some cases even have carrying handles.
Most Laptop makers offer at least one model of Docking station that adds these capabilities to the system. The One I am using right now has 2 PCI slots(one of which I have populated with a second old video card to give me a second Monitor), a 50 Mini SCSI(Burner, HP scanner), firewire, USB(Mouse), PS2 connectors for mouse and Keyboard, Drive bay, serial, Printer Port, sound plugs and Network.
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
The cheapest way I can think of to do this is with a host-to-host SCSI link. It should be doable with 1394 as well, but I have no data there, only theory. The second host can be as big or small, expensive or cheap as he desires. All he needs is a SCSI card for his laptop. He could even use some old(AKA free) PC to host the PCI bus.
Does he know how to write code or does he need a plug-n-play solution?
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
A quick Google search turned up this company which seems to make exactly what you're looking for. You have to have a Mini PCI Type III connector and it only supports 3.3v PCI cards, however. It's a development tool so the cost might be high. You'll have to contact them for details.
You might also have trouble getting that to fit in a laptop. I'm sure you could buy raw Mini PCI sockets and boards and wire your own extension.
A software developer explained, "When someone wants a 6mm drill, they don't actually want a 6mm drill. What they want is a 6mm hole in the wall".
The point being that presumably the poster doesn't neccesarily want to plug a PCI card into a laptop. He simply wants some of the capabilities of a specific PCI card, and some of the capabilities of a laptop. If its posted to Ask Slashdot, people will try to think outside the box, and try to solve the actual overall problem rather than the immediate problem.
The fjuitsu-siemens docking station's i've seen have 3 PCI slots in them
USB too "slow"? Use the ADS tech PYRO AV. It captures from almost any video source and converts it to DV/FireWire.
Both of these products are under $200, and you probably already have the interfaces on your laptop for them.
Thanks for the suggestion. I prefer the DAC-100 over any consumer grade capture box though... but my point was that the market for laptop-based video editing is pretty small. There's just a limited number of items from a limited number of companies, and each product really lacks one or two things that video editors regard as necessary. The PCI market faires much better, so it would be nice to use a device like the original article mention in conjunction with a PCI-based tuner... more options at an insane price.
This is the best explanation of something so picky that I've ever heard. I salute you.
You can pick up a used unit, or if that disappears, just wait long enough and the Magma units show up from time to time. Now if you demand a new unit, or like-new, that you can have right away, and cheaply...well, sorry, you're breaking a variation of the fast-cheap-right rule.
A contract I was working on put me in a similar problem to the poster; I needed a portable way to get a machine with a PCI port.
I put a mini-ITX machine together in an ammo box after reading an article somewhere on the web. You can cram everything in there, and it is very durable. The total cost of the project was under $400 CDN.
Rather than carry a screen around, I installed a VFD display on the front of the case to tell me that the system was ready for use. You could do this with a simple LED connected to the parallel port, too, or any variant of the above.
Then I connect via VNC to the box from my powerbook. Problem solved. The update speed is marginal, so I'll probably be installing windows XP to get the remote desktop functionality. I wish the application allowed me to run X11, but unfortunately it doesn't.
..don't panic
http://www.mobl.com/expansion/pci/index.html cardbus to pci enclosures, everything you need. 1 caveat: some (newer) bus-mastering pci cards dont take too kindly to multiple bridging as used in these types of boxes. other than that they should cover you fine
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