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Thread ID: 117596 2011-04-26 01:23:00 Laptop PCI Card Slot??? sahilcc7 (15483) Press F1
Post ID Timestamp Content User
1197173 2011-04-26 01:23:00 I just decided to open up my laptop and under one of the sections I find this slot. (View attached pics).

Anyone know what it's for?
sahilcc7 (15483)
1197174 2011-04-26 01:47:00 Expansion cards, tv tuner/wifi/bt/3g etc etc Alex B (15479)
1197175 2011-04-26 02:14:00 That's actually a Mini-PCI-E slot

(Beware though, that same connector is not always used for PCI-E. For example, on the early Asus Eee they used the same physical connector but it's for an IDE SSD)
Agent_24 (57)
1197176 2011-04-26 03:30:00 So does this mean I can add a better graphics card?

:pf1mobmini:
sahilcc7 (15483)
1197177 2011-04-26 03:40:00 Pointless exercise given the CPU in the laptop! SolMiester (139)
1197178 2011-04-26 04:34:00 So does this mean I can add a better graphics card?

Highly doubt it.... though if anyone did make video cards in that form-factor, there would be several issues

1) The internal LCD is wired to the motherboard with a direct plug, and no doubt there is no standard pinout for those. Also you need to supply power for the inverter.

2) Bus throughput and physical board size would severely limit the actual performance of the card - very unlikely it would be better than the onboard, might even be worse.

3) BIOS may not have any support for video cards other than the inbuilt one


If you want another card you could get a USB display adapter, wouldn't be fast but would work (but even then only though an external monitor)
Agent_24 (57)
1197179 2011-04-26 04:39:00 So does this mean I can add a better graphics card?

:pf1mobmini:

Yes, you just need a mini-pci-e to pci-e adaptor + a PSU.

However as this isn't using integrated intel graphics, you will need to use an external screen plugged into the graphics card.
If you were using intel graphics, you can use the external graphics card to output to the internal screen with a performance hit.

It will be significantly faster than onboard. However as the link is equivalent to pci x1/x2, you'll get about 70% of the performance of the card were it installed in a desktop pc.
However with nvidia cards, you can tweak the optimus drivers to work with desktop cards. They use some form of compression across the link to get more performance than with ATi cards.
utopian201 (6245)
1197180 2011-04-26 05:15:00 That's actually a Mini-PCI-E slot

(Beware though, that same connector is not always used for PCI-E. For example, on the early Asus Eee they used the same physical connector but it's for an IDE SSD)

nothing to stop an ssd being on the pci bus.
Alex B (15479)
1197181 2011-04-26 05:16:00 So does this mean I can add a better graphics card?

:pf1mobmini:

Nope
Alex B (15479)
1197182 2011-04-26 06:32:00 Thanks for the info guys , might add in a Bluetooth card ... sahilcc7 (15483)
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