What is the name of these expansion slots on my laptop motherboard?

This is the motherboard to a Sony Vaio VGC-LT28E All-in-one computer. I currently have an Avermedia M10CS TV Tuner card and some other card connected to these slots. I don't believe my Avermedia has drivers for my Windows 10 64bit. You guys have recommendations for a new TV Tuner card that fits this slot? Also, what is the official name of this slot (the slots are the same width as my RAM slots)? I'd like to browse and see what other components are available to possibly upgrade to using these slots, whether it be tv tuners, HD sound cards, etc.

Thank you.

 

That thing is "ancient". It looks like the ancestor of mPCI-E, whatever its name was. If I am not wrong, then you will not find any recent hardware sporting those, heck the last time I saw that kind of slot was on a Pentium M laptop. given that there is nothing that is newer than what you have at the moment, you'd be hard pressed to find drivers for Windows 10.

 

This machine is Core 2 Duo era. And yes, pre mPCI-E. And likely you'll be stuck with a USB TV tuner at best for this machine.

 

Yes very ancient, 2008. Core 2 Duo era as stated. I do have an mPCI-E slot on my motherboard as that is what my Intel 7260 wifi card is connected to. These slots are 2 to 3 times the width of my mPCI-E slot. Further browsing leads me to believe they are just called Mini PCI slots.

 

That's right - mini PCI.

I found a link that claims to have a functioning X64 Windows 10 driver:

http://www.driverscape.com/download/avermedia-m10cs-minipci-pure-atsc

I've used plenty of X64 Windows 7 drivers on Windows 10 so I'd hazzard a guess that any Win7 drivers for that device would work fine.

To be honest, just install Windows 10 and then install the application 'Driver Identifier'. It will scan the system and give you links to the relevant drivers for anything not automatically installed by Windows or that is out of date. Have used it plenty of times to find drivers for archaic hardware, running on Windows 8.1+ (Although not Canon scanner drivers - Not impressed with your limited support, Canon).

 

Yes, they are mini PCI, but as bennni said, that won't help you much, those are antiques that were going the way of the dodo even back when your laptop was manufactured. The Windows 7 or Windows 8 drivers are your best bet.

 

I trust this as much as malware infections. Driverscape or Drivers.com are malware laden pages. If the Sony company has no Win10 support for it then you can factor there isn't any for it.

Here's what sony says:

 

I'd certainly avoid downloading their 'helpful' "Driver Update Utility" and clicking on the result that says 'ad' underneatch it since it's just that utility repeated. Looking around, the last driver I could find from a manufacturer/reliable download does support Windows 8 but only x86/32 bit. Unless they're offering the 32bit driver and claiming it supports 64bit, it does sound curious that they are able to provide a driver that even the manufacturer can't.

Here's a link, from the manufacturer themselves but bare in mind that it is only the 32 bit version:

http://avertv.avermedia.com//Upload/Download/M733A_AP6.5.2.12122401_Drv3.6.X.30_8_130108.zip

Probably doesn't help unless you have x86 Windows 10 installed - although since your system only accepts a max of 4GB of RAM you won't see the benefit of x64 Win10 anyway.

 

Isn't that slot express card slot?

 

No, that is a Mini PCI slot. Last time I saw one, was on my Thinkpad T30 for Intel WIFI. I'm actually quite surprised it made its way into a Core 2 Duo laptop.

 

I'm betting Sony buying older hardware to save costs. That CPU is a first gen Core 2 so it's not impossible, but it is also the first time I see this, every Core 2 laptop I've was mPCI-E only.

 

Yes, and Sony VAIO hardware from that era often had a surprise or two like this. Which made shopping for some upgrades fun. And limited options.

 

My Vaio all--in-one used these two PCI slots for what looks like TV tuners. The Avermedia card I know is a TV tuner, but there is another card that looks to be made from Sony. I believe it is called a Sony Lucid Mpeg Encorder. No idea what it is, but believe it is for TV tuning as well because there is an antenna cable attached to the card. This is a very nice looking desktop and I can't seem to part ways with it, as I've just last week "upgraded" to an X9000 processor and 8gb ram. My Avermedia card does indeed have working drivers so that's fine to leave in the slot. This Lucid Mpeg Encoder has absolutely no working drivers for Windows 10 which isn't surprising since it's a card manufactured by Sony and their driver support sucks, and is something I could swap out for something else if I can find anything worth putting in its slot.

 

True, Sony VAIO's worst weakness for me was driver support. Until late in the game, their computers were very well built if a pain in the rear to repair. Good thing is you seldom ever saw issues with one.