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Relocate a PCI slot?

JeepinEd

JeepinEd

Senior member
I have an older Intel 915G board which has 1 PCI-e slot and 2 PCI slots.
In the PCI-e slot, I have an ATI X1800XT graphics card. The cooling case on this card covers one of my PCI slots.
My other PCI slot has a firewire card in it, which I use to download video from my digital camcorder.

I recently picked up a Seagate external drive, which comes with an eSata controller. Of course, I forgot that my video card covers my only open PCI slot. (Both of my on board sata connectors are being used)

I'm thinking of squeezing a flexible pci riser under the video card. This way I can plug the eSata controller to it and I would just have to secure it so that nothing shorts out. I have a pretty big case & the CPU is water cooled, so I have plenty of room. I think it will still be a tight fit between the GFX card and the Firewire card, though.

Does anyone see any problems with this idea or have a better suggestion?

Thanks,

Ed

 
I'd probably go with a combo card as mentioned above. It would depend on the diff between the cost of the flexible riser and the combo card. This may decide it for you: How do you plan to get access to the external drive port if you use the riser? When one has only two PCI slots, one shouldn't be buying video cards that block them off...

Also be aware that there are two types of external SATA connectors floating around out there. One looks like the normal mobo SATA connector and the real eSATA port has a straight tongue with more contacts rather than the hooked tongue w/ 4 contacts of the normal connector. So make sure whatever combo card you get supports the connector your external drive needs or you will need to be getting an adapter or new cable as well (as most eSATA controllers don't come with eSATA cables or adapters). I just bought a Rosewill RC-210 eSATA controller card and it is very nice - IDK if they have a combo eSATA card but if they did and it appeared to be from the same supplier as the RC-210, I wouldn't hesitate to use it.

Moral: Do your homework - save money and hassle!

.bh.
 
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