[LAU] PCI1 and new motherboards - a tip

[Len Ovens]

On Sun, 24 May 2015, Jostein Chr. Andersen wrote:

> I'm in the process of upgrading my computer HW, but still want to use my old 
> trusted M-Audio delta 1010 cards. Two times, I have had to buy a motherboard 
> with old PCI ports, or that is what I have believed for some years. Today I 
> found this on the 'Net:
>
>  http://www.startech.com/Cards-Adapters/Slot-Extension/PCI-Express-to-PCI-Adapter-Card~PEX1PCI1

I have one sitting here that I have not used. I do want to try it out (on 
a sound card I don't care about) but have not got to it. I would have to 
do some metalwork to get it to fit, but that is ok, I have lots of old pc 
case parts laying around. However, I found it not that hard to find new 
motherboards with up to 3 PCI slots. (mine also has 4 PCIe slots) I have 
read reports of these adapters damaging the card it is hosting.

> ..and will probably find more if I dig further. After overlooking this kind 
> of solutions for years, and also seeing this topic coming up at this list for 
> years, I feel a little stupid. :-)

It is not foolproof, native PCI slots are worth looking for. Mounting 
solutions have to be found as the little PCIe slot is not up to the weight 
of a sound card in a tower case. Holes have to be made for s/pdif (I do 
use mine).

In looking for HW, I first chose my cpu. (i5 with 4 cores and no 
hyperthreads) Then I looked at the whole line of mother boards that 
supported the cpu socket. While there were lots of MB with 1 or two PCI 
slots, I looked for maximum and got three because I wanted to avoid 
whichever slot uses irq 16 and I have two audio cards. I looked for 
something that still has ps2 kb/mouse ports because I have USB audio I try 
out sometimes and the mouse can cause trouble (I think there are ways 
around this though and I might not be so picky next time). I also wanted 
at least two monitor outputs, but this is easy as many MB have three at 
least. Monitors are cheap ($90 at walmart) and double monitors for audio 
just seems the way to go. I would add, lots of USB ports, but all the MB 
have more than I need.

The one adaptor I did have to buy was a PATA card for my old HD and DVD 
burner. (the older HD just seem to keep on going, the newer ones have 
failed more often on me)

I have only 8GRAM and still never use the swap. I don't ever put the 
computer in sleep mode anyway, so I could probably run swapless. But will 
probably keep some around so long as I have rotary drives. SSD is the next 
thing for me I think. I would like to jump my RAM up to 32G and use part 
of it as compressed swap.

--
Len Ovens
www.ovenwerks.net