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Of course, I have a cool card from a desktop I'm retiring, that I'd like to be able to use from the laptop I've replaced it with.

Laptop has no docking station. Best I can replace the card for is a LOT of money, it works hand in hand with an app I'd love to retain.

I want a device to give me access to PCI via PCMCIA or usb2.0 (laptop is a few years old and doesn't have the newer slot). Separate power is OK.

I would think it would be easy to find if such a device existed. All my searches turn up a million USB port cards that plug into a PCI slot - the opposite of what I want!

Does such a converter exist? I'm aware of difficulties to this, but am not interested in the why, only if you can drop a name, or say for sure it doesn't exist. thanks!

FastAl
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    USB 2.0 is less than half as fast as PCI - on paper. Transfer rates will be less than that. What is this "cool card?" Isnt there a USB device that does the same thing? – Keltari Sep 02 '11 at 02:40
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    @Keltari - It's something that doesn't require a very high bandwidth ;-) – FastAl Sep 02 '11 at 03:21
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    I'm still not sure what this cool card you speak of is. – Sam Sep 02 '11 at 07:00
  • @Keltari What about USB3? – Milind R Nov 20 '14 at 15:33
  • Can't believe it took the SE Police NINE YEARS to close this blatant request for a product recommendation. I feel like this is a huge spit in the face of one of the most absolutely, corporate crappy stupid rules on the entire internet! Well, too late sukkas - IT ALREADY HELPED ME! you are about 8 years late to do your damage :-) I know you are well meaning, of course, but when leaders persist in their wrong after having had their argument absolutely crushed ... it is sad. I was worried that attitude would have killed SE by now, and it hasn't, which is good, because it's still pretty useful!!! – FastAl Apr 12 '21 at 21:48
  • How can I vote to "unclose" this question? I think it is useful and never should have been closed in the first place... – Shawn Eary Oct 06 '22 at 18:07

2 Answers2

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There's Magma 1-Slot Cardbus to Half-Length PCI Expansion Unit and Magma 1-Slot Cardbus to Full-Length PCI Expansion Unit that will connect cardbus to a PCI housing, but at about $1000 it is NOT cheap. You could get a new PC with a PCI slot for less. Magma also offers a fiber to PCI expansion chassis, but I doubt that would be much cheaper and you'd have the added cost of a PCMCIA Fiber nic

OldWolf
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    Yikes! I figured as much. I _could_ replace my current solution for that kind of jack. I had just hoped I could pick up a usb2pci like a usb2ide ;0 wishfully perhaps. – FastAl Sep 02 '11 at 03:33
  • Also ARS technology ssi2-pci-x3 - SSI2 PCI 3 connector card ... http://www.arstech.com/item-SSI2-PCI-3-connector-card-ssi2_pci_x3.html – FastAl Feb 01 '13 at 19:30
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    What OP wants is not a common configuration, so I would not expect mass market prices. – Sun Sep 16 '14 at 02:42
  • Please update your answer to fix the link rot. – Shawn Eary Oct 06 '22 at 18:08
  • @Sun - The MS Windows 11 TPM "requirement" has changed the stakes. Now USB to PCI adapters and similar products are in higher demand. Also, what about people with Mac-MINIs that want to use professional PCI audio interfaces? – Shawn Eary Oct 06 '22 at 18:11
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Haven't tried it myself, but perhaps you could use a pci to express card adapter, and then an express card to usb adapter. The below total approx $127 + shipping and support 2 full size card, compared to buying Magma's adapter which is $1159 + shipping, and only supports 1 card. Unfortunately the PCI adapter is not from a brand, it's just a generic adapter found on Ebay.

PCI To ExpressCard Adapter: http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Laptop-PC-Expansion-Cards-34-54-To-2-32bit-PCI-slots-adapter-with-Case-long-350m-/311078502596?pt=US_Internal_Port_Expansion_Cards&hash=item486db940c4

ExpressCard To USB Adapter: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16839158028CVF&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleAdwordsCA&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwordsCA--pla--Laptop+Add-on+Cards-_-N82E16839158028CVF&gclid=CNzj9ZLI5MACFQiDfgod8QwACA

Robin Hood
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  • Sorry, but no. He needs to go in the other direction. – Jamie Hanrahan Sep 16 '14 at 01:43
  • @JamieHanrahan: Take a closer look at the products suggested. They are in the atypical direction. – Ben Voigt May 29 '16 at 16:43
  • @BenVoigt That EC-to-USB thing doesn't give you a real ExpressCard slot. The "ExpressCard slot" made by this "ExpressCard to USB" thing has only the USB pins at the bottom. So it won't support a real ExpressCard. You see, a lot of "ExpressCard" cards are really USB devices with a funny-looking connector. The EC slot includes pins that provide a USB port to such cards. – Jamie Hanrahan May 29 '16 at 19:27
  • btw, _every_ "ExpressCard" flash card reader I've tried has worked this way (evidence: "show devices by connection" in device manager clearly shows the reader connected via USB). It's far cheaper and easier to build such things than to build real ExpressCards. For the user, it saves using up a regular USB port and it isn't an extra thing hanging off your laptop. But it has no speed advantage vs a USB card reader, which is what I was hoping for. Feh. – Jamie Hanrahan May 29 '16 at 19:30
  • @Jamie: Yes, you're right about that... the ExpressCard slot has both PCI(e) and USB interfaces, and this adapter would only support the latter. These days we're playing that same game again with M.2 SSD slots, some of which have SATA only, some have both SATA and PCIe (and I suppose it would be possible to have PCIe only but I don't think that's as common). And of course the generation in-between, miniPCI slots, also had both PCI and USB busses. – Ben Voigt May 29 '16 at 20:08
  • @BenVoigt More generally: It just isn't possible to make a USB to "real" ExpressCard adapter. An ExpressCard can expose memory resources that appear within the host processor's physical address space and can be accessed directly via memory read/write operations. A USB device flatly can't do that. – Jamie Hanrahan May 29 '16 at 22:52
  • @Jamie: Ah, right. Some external extension busses such as Firewire can act as a memory controller, but USB isn't among those. It would still be possible but not efficient, as any bus mastering commands would have to be forwarded to the processor and emulated in software. – Ben Voigt May 29 '16 at 23:05