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    DIY ViDock or PCMCIA (not express card)

    Discussion in 'e-GPU (External Graphics) Discussion' started by momosgarage, Jun 25, 2010.

  1. momosgarage

    momosgarage Notebook Guru

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    I know that PCMCIA has about half the bandwidth of express card or mini PCIe. But I was still curious if an external video card with a PE4L could be used in a PCMCIA slot using the PE4L and the express card adapter.

    Now before anyone says it there are PCMCIA adapters out there that allow the smaller express cards to be used with the old PCMCIA slots.

    Anyone tried this?
     
    momosgarage, Jun 25, 2010
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  2. cloudbyday

    cloudbyday Notebook Deity

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    It is possible, but it wouldn't be very practical. The speed of the express card is slow enough, but a PCMCIA would be dreadfully slow.
     
    cloudbyday, Jun 25, 2010
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  3. User Retired 2

    User Retired 2 Notebook Nobel Laureate NBR Reviewer

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    If you have mPCie wifi , then can swap it out and do a PE4L+PM3N DIY ViDock as I'm doing with my 2510P. Otherwise there is no gear to do a PCMCIA DIY ViDock.

    EDIT: Maybe there is interest for PCMCIA DIY ViDOck?
     
    User Retired 2, Jun 25, 2010
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  4. momosgarage

    momosgarage Notebook Guru

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    This is a non-issue, the adapters for express card to PCMCIA exist and work.

    Yes its slower, but I am still curious. Especially if you ran something like a Radeon HD4350. Not ideal, but still people have this stuff laying around or can get it for really cheap.

    PCMCIA: 132 MB/sec

    ExpressCard x1 and mPCIe ×1: 250 MB/sec (varies, can be more or less)

    PCI Express 2.0: 500 MB/s
     
    momosgarage, Jun 26, 2010
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  5. momosgarage

    momosgarage Notebook Guru

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    No ideas, no test runs?
     
    momosgarage, Jun 26, 2010
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  6. momosgarage

    momosgarage Notebook Guru

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    seems like it would be pretty easy to test, if someones got everything already
     
    momosgarage, Jun 27, 2010
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  7. User Retired 2

    User Retired 2 Notebook Nobel Laureate NBR Reviewer

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    You mean like this one?

    An expresscard slot has both pci-e AND USB pins. The above linked adapter only uses the USB pins. Please provide a link if there exists a expresscard-to-cardbus adapter that supports the pci-e lanes. Without such an adapter there could never be a PCMCIA based DIY ViDock.

    For older systems *without* an expresscard slot, consider:

    * PE4L+PM3N if you have a mPCIe slot
    * Amfeltec MiniPCI to PCI-E adapter here if have only a MiniPCI slot.

    Differences between mPCIe and mini PCI below:

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited by a moderator: May 5, 2015
    User Retired 2, Jun 27, 2010
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  8. momosgarage

    momosgarage Notebook Guru

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    I don't want to spend too much time looking up online vendors, but I've got one sitting on my desk. I don't own this particular one, but it sure looks like it does the same thing at full speed:

    ExpressCard Slot Duel Adapter for PCMCIA Cards
     
    momosgarage, Jun 27, 2010
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    User Retired 2 Notebook Nobel Laureate NBR Reviewer

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    That adapter allows newer systems with expresscard slots to use older pcmcia cards. What you want is an adapter that does the the reverse of that. I haven't found any other than ones that allow one to use USB-expresscard devices on a cardbus interface. Eg: ebay products all only allow USB/480mbps connectivity.

    You can test the adapter you have. Can you plug in an e-sata or usb 3.0 expresscard into your adapter and have it work? Other expresscards like tv-tuners/wifi, wwan tend to use the usb pins so are not useful to test.
     
    User Retired 2, Jun 27, 2010
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