modem Posted April 22, 2017 Share Posted April 22, 2017 Question for everyone. Does anyone know if there are any USB 3.0 PCI cards (non-express) with a 20pin internal header? I've been searching both NewEgg and Ebay and see lots of PCI-e cards, but no traditional PCI cards. I have a project I'm working on where the tower only has 1 white PCI slot left, and the additional front panel has 2 USB 3.0 ports that need to connect to a 20pin USB 3.0 header. The motherboard doesn't have that so I was wondering if a traditional PCI card is made that would? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThaCrip Posted April 22, 2017 Share Posted April 22, 2017 (edited) As you already know... the old style PCI slot is pretty ancient nowadays as if you can't find anything on either of those sites they probably don't make them. if they do, they are probably hard to find simply because no one really invests much into super old PC's simply because it's easily worth the somewhat low price for the upgrade. so once your PC is beyond a certain age, it's pretty much going to stay in it's current state until your get rid of it or it dies. p.s. this won't help you but this is the add-on card i got in my main computer which is inline with what you said (i.e. USB 3.0 with a 20pin internal header) outside of the old style PCI slot as it's just the more typical PCI-E... https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815287019 ; that works great with https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA1DS0FR8421 ; that's why i got that USB 3.0 add-on card so i can use that for USB 3 speeds on desktop hard drives and it maxes them out instead of, as you already know, USB 2 tops out in the 30MB/s range where as with USB 3 it's faster than any hard drive you can throw at it. so now i removed my smaller hard drives (250GB/400GB etc) out of my main computer and just use those for external backup and just have a 1TB/2TB/5TB internal (outside of the main SSD). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
modem Posted April 22, 2017 Author Share Posted April 22, 2017 Actually the PC itself isn't that old, either a gen 2 or 3 i7 in it. However, all of the other PCIe slots are used up right now leaving only one lone PCI slot available. I saw that above PCIe USB 3 card and would love to use that if I had a spare PCIe slot. It'd rather not pull out the cards in the PCIe slots and get a PCI version of one of those as that would be much more expensive than (hopefully) finding a PCI USB 3 card. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DevTech Posted April 22, 2017 Share Posted April 22, 2017 5 hours ago, modem said: Actually the PC itself isn't that old, either a gen 2 or 3 i7 in it. However, all of the other PCIe slots are used up right now leaving only one lone PCI slot available. I saw that above PCIe USB 3 card and would love to use that if I had a spare PCIe slot. It'd rather not pull out the cards in the PCIe slots and get a PCI version of one of those as that would be much more expensive than (hopefully) finding a PCI USB 3 card. Just in case, sometimes people forget that a spare video slot can be used for PCIe x 1... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DevTech Posted April 22, 2017 Share Posted April 22, 2017 Also, sometimes you can simply plug a USB 3.0 cable into one of the mobo rear ports and sneak it back into the case for front access via a USB 3.0 HUB or other type of cable adapter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hjf288 Posted April 22, 2017 Share Posted April 22, 2017 PCI slots don't have the speed to support USB 3, I guess that's why they don't make them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goretsky Supervisor Posted April 23, 2017 Supervisor Share Posted April 23, 2017 Hello, What motherboard are you using, and what are its slots currently populated with? USB 3.0 and later all use PCIe-based PHYs, so unless someone has manufactured a custom PCI expansion card using PCIe to PCI bridge to do this--which is possible for things like industrial control and test equipment--you're not likely to find anything. Also, as @hjf288 noted, the PCI interface will top out at about 1Gbit/s, well below the 5Gbit/s that USB 3.0 offers. If you still want to do this, you can try using a conventional PCI to 1×PCIe adapter, like this or this model, but there's no guarantee it will work. The most effective thing to do would probably be to replace one of the PCIe cards with a PCI card, then install a USB 3.0 card into the new-available PCIe slot. Regards, Aryeh Goretsky Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T3X4S Posted April 23, 2017 Share Posted April 23, 2017 As mentioned above, I have seen a couple people who's mobo is not as modern as their case. So they use the USB ports on the I/O panel of the mobo, and run a cable from on the of USB3 ports, through the inside of the case, to an adapter, then plug in to the front of the case's USB3 ports. I believe Silverstone makes some of the adapters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mando Posted April 23, 2017 Share Posted April 23, 2017 (edited) bit of a curveball but a solution.....Does the motherboard have USB 2 headers spare, if so buy a usb 3.0 to usb 2 adapter, if not you coudl find a nec chipset pci usb 2 card and do it that way if it has an internal header pins, granted it will just be usb 2 speed. https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/hvm/Akasa-AK-CBUB19-10BK-USB-3-0-2-0-Adapter-Cable/B00BQ8A6N6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1492939176&sr=8-1&keywords=usb+3+to+usb+2+adapter job done. goretsky 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
modem Posted April 23, 2017 Author Share Posted April 23, 2017 Thanks for all of the info. However because the front panel already has 4 working USB 2.0 that connect to the motherboard header, plugging the 2 usb 3.0 plugs into the motherboard really isn't nessecary. The whole goal is at the office to have USB 3 in this PC to gain the speed for large data transfers we do (sometimes 1-2TB). Currently the motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-P55M-UD2 and has 2 x 16x PCIe and two PCI slots. Both PCI-e are in use, one with a SATA 3 RAID/PORT card, and the other one has a nVidia GeForce 8800 GT card in it. Neither of these are available to be removed and used in the PCI slots. One PCI slot has a gigabit NIC in it with the other one (last one) free. That's why I was wondering if there was by chance a PCI version of a USB 3 card since it would be too expensive and prohibitive to modify the system by removing any of the PCIe cards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mindovermaster Moderator Posted April 23, 2017 Moderator Share Posted April 23, 2017 7 hours ago, Mando said: bit of a curveball but a solution.....Does the motherboard have USB 2 headers spare, if so buy a usb 3.0 to usb 2 adapter, if not you coudl find a nec chipset pci usb 2 card and do it that way if it has an internal header pins, granted it will just be usb 2 speed. https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/hvm/Akasa-AK-CBUB19-10BK-USB-3-0-2-0-Adapter-Cable/B00BQ8A6N6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1492939176&sr=8-1&keywords=usb+3+to+usb+2+adapter job done. I had to use one of those. USB3 was on my case, but I didn't have that header on my board. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim K Global Moderator Posted April 23, 2017 Global Moderator Share Posted April 23, 2017 Your options are really limited. You could get this ... https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815158359 and then something like this ... http://www.dhgate.com/product/2-ports-usb-3-0-a-male-to-20-pin-motherboard/380402532.html and loop it back into the case (or wherever you want the header to be). As mentioned by others though ... you will be very disappointed with the speeds. That PCI slot will be a bad bottleneck.... goretsky 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goretsky Supervisor Posted April 24, 2017 Supervisor Share Posted April 24, 2017 Hello, Wow! Nice find @Jim K! From looking at the card's specs at https://www.startech.com/Cards-Adapters/USB-3.0/Cards/2-Port-PCI-SuperSpeed-USB-3-Adapter-Card-with-SATA-Power~PCIUSB3S22 it does 1.3Gbit/s (~160MByte/sec), but that's still 3-4× faster than USB 2.0, and would be great for HDD data transfers. Combined with something like this it would allow you to route the cables back through an used PCI slot connector into the chassis, and then to the front panel header. Regards, Aryeh Goretsky Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
modem Posted April 25, 2017 Author Share Posted April 25, 2017 Thanks for the links on that. Too bad the USB ports weren't internal on the card to use an adapter to make the connection. The case is prohibitive on allowing such modifications. Plus that is starting to extend outside the scope of what was needed. The goal was to use the internal card reader which has 4 USB 2.0 and 2xUSB 3.0 ports and get full USB 3.0 speeds. Doing case modifications without extra dongles hanging on, around the case wouldn't be the best here in the office. While the speeds would be quite a bit better as goretsky pointed out, having the external mess on the case is something we want to avoid here. On 4/23/2017 at 1:33 PM, Jim K said: Your options are really limited. You could get this ... https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815158359 and then something like this ... http://www.dhgate.com/product/2-ports-usb-3-0-a-male-to-20-pin-motherboard/380402532.html and loop it back into the case (or wherever you want the header to be). As mentioned by others though ... you will be very disappointed with the speeds. That PCI slot will be a bad bottleneck.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DevTech Posted April 25, 2017 Share Posted April 25, 2017 12 hours ago, modem said: Thanks for the links on that. Too bad the USB ports weren't internal on the card to use an adapter to make the connection. The case is prohibitive on allowing such modifications. Plus that is starting to extend outside the scope of what was needed. The goal was to use the internal card reader which has 4 USB 2.0 and 2xUSB 3.0 ports and get full USB 3.0 speeds. Doing case modifications without extra dongles hanging on, around the case wouldn't be the best here in the office. While the speeds would be quite a bit better as goretsky pointed out, having the external mess on the case is something we want to avoid here. You have ended up self-restricting yourself to the point of competing with Houdini. You don't even need to think outside the box here - just suffer the pain of killing off one of your self-imposed arbitrary restrictions, which is like breaking off one little corner of the metaphorical box although who knows maybe that would work on the real box too... Assemble some arbitrary team to gather around a whiteboard to examine your arbitrary restrictions and see if you can knock over a bowling pin or two. Some ideas to start with: - put a bucket in the lunch room to gather donations for real hardware. - get the boss to cancel his "business conference" in Hawaii - buy a motherboard on ebay - grab a decent case from the dumpster behind the local computer store - etc Mindovermaster 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
modem Posted April 25, 2017 Author Share Posted April 25, 2017 4 hours ago, DevTech said: You have ended up self-restricting yourself to the point of competing with Houdini. You don't even need to think outside the box here - just suffer the pain of killing off one of your self-imposed arbitrary restrictions, which is like breaking off one little corner of the metaphorical box although who knows maybe that would work on the real box too... Assemble some arbitrary team to gather around a whiteboard to examine your arbitrary restrictions and see if you can knock over a bowling pin or two. Some ideas to start with: - put a bucket in the lunch room to gather donations for real hardware. - get the boss to cancel his "business conference" in Hawaii - buy a motherboard on ebay - grab a decent case from the dumpster behind the local computer store - etc While I totally get the humor (and had a good chuckle at that) and as an IT geek in my off time, I totally get it. However at the office, the time spent waiting on occasional data transfers using USB 2 out weighs the cost and time involved to get past the hardware limitations I have with this PC. At this point the business will have to wait until there is another PC acquired with USB 3.0 capabilities for this particular job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim K Global Moderator Posted April 26, 2017 Global Moderator Share Posted April 26, 2017 18 minutes ago, modem said: While I totally get the humor (and had a good chuckle at that) and as an IT geek in my off time, I totally get it. However at the office, the time spent waiting on occasional data transfers using USB 2 out weighs the cost and time involved to get past the hardware limitations I have with this PC. At this point the business will have to wait until there is another PC acquired with USB 3.0 capabilities for this particular job. Back to your original question ... " USB 3.0 PCI cards (non-express) with a 20pin internal header" I would respond, with almost certainty ... no. Believe I saw the suggestion somewhere ... you could get one of these and then a regular PCIe USB 3.0 card with the internal header ... I guess. Have no idea if it would work ... probably ... but who knows. Or ... just buy that PCI USB 3.0 card I posted earlier and dremel away. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
modem Posted April 26, 2017 Author Share Posted April 26, 2017 2 minutes ago, Jim K said: Back to your original question ... " USB 3.0 PCI cards (non-express) with a 20pin internal header" I would respond, with almost certainty ... no. Believe I saw the suggestion somewhere ... you could get one of these and then a regular PCIe USB 3.0 card with the internal header ... I guess. Have no idea if it would work ... probably ... but who knows. Or ... just buy that PCI USB 3.0 card I posted earlier and dremel away. Now that is quite interesting! I know the PCI bus would bottleneck the transfer speeds, BUT if the transfer is still 2-3x faster than USB 2.0, that might actually be worth it! Thanks for sharing!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goretsky Supervisor Posted April 26, 2017 Supervisor Share Posted April 26, 2017 Hello, Keep in mind that you can get the PCI card, get some 3' (1.0m) USB 3.0 cables, and run them along the back and top of the case to the point where the external drives would be plugged in. Or, you could run them under the case, although you may have to add some self-adhesive rubber feet to raise it up a bit. Then use some Velcro® or magnetic cable ties to keep them neat. If you are transferring to/from hard disk drives, It is very unlikely the PCI bus will be a limiting factor; even at the degraded speed it will likely speed up transfers by a factor of 3-4× times over USB 2.0. Regards, Aryeh Goretsky Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
modem Posted April 26, 2017 Author Share Posted April 26, 2017 Just now, goretsky said: Hello, Keep in mind that you can get the PCI card, get some 3' (1m) USB 3.0 cables, and run them along the back and top of the case to the point where the external drives would be plugged in. Or, you could run them under the case, although you may have to add some self-adhesive rubber feet to raise it up a bit. Then use some Velcro® or magnetic cable ties to keep them neat. If you are transferring to/from hard disk drives, It is very unlikely the PCI bus will be a limiting factor; even at the degraded speed it will likely speed up transfers by a factor of 3-4× times over USB 2.0. Regards, Aryeh Goretsky Being that I have a card reader that has USB 3.0 ports available, just no internal header to plug the 20pin cable into. This PCI to PCIe adapter with a USB 3.0 PCIe card with header negates needing to run cables along the case. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jupe Posted April 26, 2017 Share Posted April 26, 2017 This looks like a good companion card to go with with the PCI -> PCIe adapter listed previously, with another internal header too. https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA1GK35F4869&cm_re=low_usb_3_pcie-_-9SIA1GK35F4869-_-Product goretsky 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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