[DIY] PCI Maximizer ver.0.2 ES

[TiN]

That's again mad TiN



WTF is that, ur ask me?
No, that's not PCI slots expander
No, that's not old ATI Rage VGA extreme mod
No, that's not useless joke
YES, it's Maximizer for PCI POWA!
I love making frankenstains from hardware.

Face. 5 usual PCI slots, 5v compatible keyed.



Back of ready unit.



I was lazy to trace own PCB with PCI slots, and connectors and to solder all that pins, so I just took my beloved cutter...



And start killin.... Socket 478 Foxconn i865 board gone by that action



Looked in some scrap in my room, and found dead WD Raptor 74GB. It's controller board have some nice SATA power connectors. Exactly what I need

After 10 mins drilled holes on near edge of cutted PCB with 5 PCI slots, and fixed SATA power conn on them.



Soldered power lines +3.3, +5 and +12V to exact power pins of PCI curcuitry.
There is -12V pin also, but not used by I-RAMs, so left unconnected.



Why SATA power? Because it's the only connector on usual PC PSU which have +3.3V on, except bulky 24pin main cable. And 99.9% of people , even extreme maniacs like Shammy, k|ngp|n and hipro5 still use 24pin cable for powering teh benching system, so only sata left usable to get easy +3.3 with +5 and +12 by one cable.



So power unit for 5 PCI slots done, specially for Gigabyte I-ram's. It's dumb simple, power from SATA + magic resistor to pullup RESET signal for I-rams.
Will test this later with actual I-rams, but I'm sure, it will work nicely.

Time consumed: 30mins to dig scrap, 5min to cut PCI's, 20min for reading SATA and PCI standards, 5 min for googlin I-RAM pics to see what and where connected from slot, and 30min for soldering and taking photos.
Total : 1.5 human-hours.
Price : As everything on PURE - priceless

Stay tuned.

[Oj0]

I remember you being a crazy modder a few years back but this is just wrong

[DrNip]

Haha nice man, very nice!

[der8auer]

What the hell? Crazy shice!

[Trouffman]

hey guys
I did the same stuff like 1 and half year ago ^^

I tried with smashing an old mobo but that ends up with 'lot' of short circuit etc...

I ended up buy using a PCI Riser + soldering the +12 / + 5 + 3.3V to the sepcified pins for 'testing'



Enjoy

[Karmakazi]

Excellent idea, Tin and Trouff, I never even thought of that

I always used a 478 board and cpu and psu sitting next to the benching rig for iram! This is cool

[Chiller]

got also soldering points for the pci board you made ?

[k|ngp|n]

Sick little project TiN. Can you make a PCI-express extender for 4 card setups on 3 slot boards?

[Andre]

Has group buy?

[chispy]

, i love your projects TiN , always amazing .



regards: Angelo.