PCI Soundcard on Notebook?

Hi, I have quite a expensive soundcard on my pc and would like to know if there is anyway possible that i cud have some sort of PCI adapter to firewire/usb 2 so i cud use the soundcard on my notebook!

I doubt this is possible but might aswell try and find out

 

no it's not possible.
edit: well obviously i was wrong about this

 

Actually I would have to disagree, anything is possible.
On much older external scsi drives, their was an external box which connected to the computer via a parallel cable. Inside of the box, was a scsi controller based on a pci card, and a array of 2-4 harddrives. These were common back during the days of MFM harddisks, but finding a working one today may be impossible, let alone expensive.
It is possible, but the ancient PCI, what ever the earliest one was, I am guessing 1.0, may not be able to even support a high definition sound card. Well the paralled bus is pretty slow two, so that would totally defeat the purpose of a high end audio card.
Oh well, I guess its not that practical, but its probably possible.

You can always purchase an external audio card, a USB solution can be had for $20 or so, or you can get a good creative audigy or x-fi card for the pcmcia/expressport for about $70-100

K-TRON

 

Possible to connect, but possible to use as intended is another story.
Biggest issue will be latency of the adapter.

IMO, not going to be worth the hassle, and if it's high end enough to matter, then it's too high end to tolerate a bridge that isn't specifically design for it.
Better to simply get a quality part dedicated to the task, even if it's a bit of a compromise over a desktop model.

 

No creative just wont cut it

 

You need a Mini PCI to PCI adapter: here you go

http://www.interfacemasters.com/pdf/im380.pdf

 

Wow that is one awesome find. Who would have thought that they actually make these kind of things.
I am so going to purchase one if they are cheap.
I want to run my good ole matrox/3dfx cards on my lappy

K-TRON

 

Nah, actually I knew they existed, luckily I have a perfect memory for that kind of stuff!

Mini PCI is electrically compatible (eg the you have the same sort of signal over the same pins) to PCI, the pin layout is just different. Such an adapter board shouldn't cost more than $30 I suppose.

 

Likely still going to be latency issues and require IRQ and bus timing tweaks, but if the buffer acts as seemlessly as claimed it may be manageable with "setpci" latency scripts. In newer laptops, not sure how well it allows adjustment independant of the other components.

Anywhoo could be interesting, but also could cause some glitches, especially crackling or buzzing in the audio card, and I don't know what for those video cards.

 

I know certain Creative crap being sensitive to PCI latency (allegedly due to incorrect PCI standard implementation), but is that true for 'proper' audio cards as well?

 

Yes, actually look at people like RME's implementations, they create their own connectors to ensure that the path is not interupted and have singal management tools built in (because latency is even more important for recording than just playback where it's just mildly problematic).

BTW, despite my dislike of Creative, especially after the Daniel K issue (still won't recommend their product to anyone, PERIOD!), this is a global issue that all of them deal with. My favourite (for playback not recording) XP/2K-only PCMCIA solution is the Echo Indigo, and it too needs tweaked PCI latency settings on a bunch of machines. And really, it's more of an issue of the PCI interface than Creative or Echo's hardware.

But anywhoo, it's one of those things, for some people no issue, for others big problems. But anything with cables, bridges, and buffers means handling that guaranteed latency, how well you do determines how well it 'works'. The dedicated solutions just do it end to end, but like I said, most important for recording rather than playback, which just suffesr the pops and crackling and buzzing.

 

Creative's crap. M-AUDIO is where its at but thats PRO AUDIO stuff.

 

Pro Audio stuff is just like the non-pro in it's limits to what the hardware supports. You'll still need to cover the latency issue.

Truly 'PRO' solutions like RME take care of it for you.