pci help for laptop

[monoman314]

Hi,

Does anyone know of a P4 laptop out there that is capable of being fitted to a docking station with at least 1 PCI slot? I need this because i have an SW1000XG sound card

I've spent a soul destroying 3 days searching the net to no avail. Plenty of older laptops have this facility but the modern ones seem to have dispensed with the idea (probabely because of the amount of usb generic docking stations out there).

The only product i can find out there is made by magma - a one slot cardbus to PCI box that costs about $1000 - i nearly pissed myself laughing.

My other 3 options are :-

(1) Say if i bought a new sony laptop, could i fit an older sony docking station to it with a cable so that i could use the pci slot?

(2) Get an Easidock 5000 (now discontinued) from american ebay and hack out the pci bits i need and put into a smaller box

(3) Make one a cardbus to pci adapter - does anyone know how to make one ?


cheers


ps: Does anyone know of any other laptop/notebook forums i could post to

 

[DaveSimmons]

Does it have to be a laptop? If not you might be better off getting a little Shuttle cube or low-profile "booksize" PC (MSI has a nice new one)

If it has to be a laptop, do you really need P4 speed? If not, buy an older / used laptop that supports a dock with PCI.

 

[amnesiac]

Is there a particular reason you need to keep that sound card?

Also I think you mean to ask if you could convert PCI to Cardbus, not the other way around, right?

 

[monoman314]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
Does it have to be a laptop? If not you might be better off getting a little Shuttle cube or low-profile "booksize" PC (MSI has a nice new one)

Hi, thanks for your reply. Funnily enough, i found the shuttle cube last night which sounds very good. I also found an option of a super slim rack mount (not sure about the weight though). My only problem then is finding an lcd that can be laid flat and protected in transit.

If it has to be a laptop, do you really need P4 speed? If not, buy an older / used laptop that supports a dock with PCI.

I use my pc to make music so it does need to be as fast as possible. I have a desktop p4 1.7 at the moment so any replacement would need to be at least as fast as that.

cheers

 

[monoman314]

Originally posted by: amnesiac 2.0
Is there a particular reason you need to keep that sound card?

Hi, the sw1000xg is an expensive sound card for making music. It only comes pci based and i've already wriiten loads of tracks using it on my desktop

Also I think you mean to ask if you could convert PCI to Cardbus, not the other way around, right?

This depends on which perspective you're looking from, i.e. the peripheral or the pc! I've no idea, all i meant was a pci slot that connects to the laptop cardbus

cheers