VOGONS

Ext. PCI Socket via Cardbus

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First post, by Alahndro

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The last a year I installed Linux debian on all my old Laptops, besides Windows, and for backups and preparations this meant to transfer huge amount of partition backups out and in from external storage via the USB port.

But still this is rather slow -why are there no USB 3.0 cards for older laptops using the cardbus socket?
Though there are adapters for cardexpress I could not find a verified one to really translate from the pci-e lanes.

Why not? Let's tinker something:

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I removed the chip from an older wifi card and soldered the ribbon cable directly onto the pins of the socket:

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It needed 3 reworks and a lot of patience until all 68 pins were connected.
This sunday evening I had my first success:

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The card gets detected but cannot be started (code 10). I tried several cards and it got obvious I miss something here..

I post this for the hope that the vogon community can help me getting this fully working.
Further details in upcoming posts.
Now your thoughts/questions/critics:

Reply 1 of 4, by Alahndro

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Sorry, but somehow the pics are in the wrong order and I can't find the edit function.

Reply 3 of 4, by Alahndro

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There's a working solution available on indiamart:
https://www.indiamart.com/proddetail/communic … 8831215473.html

I tried to contact them but got no answer. They say that it is possible to use any card with their adapter.
But instead of an attached box I gonna make mine like this:
https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Pcmcia … .5ab85f93gDiMSc

Just that mine will have a shorter cable and will connect to a pci-adapter-pcb.
Beside the next idea is to make another variant for the external adapter: for AGP.

My goal is to have a convinient way to test or use pci/agp/pcie cards sitting besides any old notebook. Especially as it is pnp: no need to power down a clumsy desktop-pc to install another card. Just attach or remove any card for tests, tinkering or pure fun. Using my old gericom webgine from 2001 with a Geforce TI4200 or let's say a vodoo as external gpu 😉

Reply 4 of 4, by Alahndro

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I got some minor improvments by:
- pulling up the IDSELECT line of the PCI socket. This signal has no counterpart on the cardbus side. photos of disassembled carbdus cards show this signal also being pulled up by a resistor.
- blocking the backfeed of power into the 3.3v volt rail with a shotky diode. My OZ6912 cardbus controller refuses to start the interface if it senses power being already applied on the card.

This improved the detection rate of the cards I tested. And even my USB3.0 Card could be seen behind a pci-e bridge on linux.
But still both windows and linux refuse or cannot start the cards. I fear I have some bad data corruption. gonna scope the signal the next days. Ideas:
- improve the ground connections between the socket and the card. Currently only 5 lines of the ribbon cable carry ground - could be to few.
- insert some resistors into the data lines to dampen reflections. That are at least 32 data lines, gonna be another soldering nightmare.

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