Wireless adapter PCI connector

[Mig]

The connector on my PCI adapter is like this:

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But obviously the slot is only like this:

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I put it in with one of the end parts of the card not in anything. I'm not sure if that's right or what the purpose of the other connecting bit on the end of the card is?

 

[Orcvader]

What motherboard and what slot are you inserting it into? And which wireless adapter are you installing?

 

[Emphacy]

Are you trying to use a PCI-E adaptor into a PCI slot?
OR a PCI-E adapter into an AGP Graphics Port.

OR a PCI adapter into a PCI-E slot?

 

[Surveyor]

What is the model of your motherboard and what card are you trying to install into it?

 

[Mig]

The motherboard is a MSi P67A-GD65 and I'm trying to install a PCI wireless card into one of the PCI slots but the wireless card has 3 sections to its connector.

 

[Tealc]

So you are fitting it to one of the long black slots yes?

A lot of PCI cards have two slots on the electrical interface area but most PCI slots have just the one. The two slots are there so that the card will fit in either the 3.3v or the 5v PCI slots of differing boards.

From the drawing above it almost looks like the slot you have is shorter than the actual interface on your PCI-card.

 

[ms2010]

The connector on my PCI adapter is like this:

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But obviously the slot is only like this:

|||||||___||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

I put it in with one of the end parts of the card not in anything. I'm not sure if that's right or what the purpose of the other connecting bit on the end of the card is?

From your discription I'd say your card has a 3.3V 64bit PCI interface (looking at the PCI Wiki)

You should be able to use a 64bit PCI card in a normal 32bit PCI slot without a problem (card will just run at 32bit and part of the card hangs over the slot)

Thats assuming that your card is actually a 64bit PCI card, kinda hard to tell from here

http://www.bigbruin.com/reviews05/expansion/index.php?file=1

A 64-bit PCI card features 184 pins for mating with the appropriate slot on a system’s motherboard, but can generally fit into a 32-bit slot as well, as long as features on the motherboard do not interfere. When installed in a 32-bit slot, data transfer on a 64-bit card will be limited to 32-bit.

 

[Mig]

OK, looking at the pic, my card is definitely 32-bit. The PCI slot only has a long part and one small part though so where does the other small end go into? At the moment it just hangs out but the long and other short part fit in OK.

 

[Orcvader]

Any chance of a photo of how you've slotted it in?

 

[ms2010]

Well using your picture as a reference

32bit PCI cards (as someone has already stated) can be 3.3V , 5V or 3.3V & 5V

From the PCI Wiki

Cards requiring 3.3 volts have a notch 56.21 mm from the front of the card (where the external connectors are) while those requiring 5 volts have a notch 104.47 mm from the front of the card. So called "Universal cards" have both key notches and can accept both types of signal.

64-bit PCI extends this by an additional 32 contacts on each side

The 32bit PCI card in your picture would install into a standard 32bit connector without anything being left over, even though it has 2 notches.


I'm not exactly sure what interface your card is, although I would expect your card has the 1st and 3rd notches (going left to right) that the 64bit connector has in your picture.

However anything extra (that doesn't fit a 32bit PCI slot) appears to be 64bit, according to the wiki.

At the end of the day , if it installs the driver and works , I really wouldn't worry about the extra connectors , it should still be able to work as a 32bit PCI card, doubt you'd find many board's with anything other than 32bit PCI connectors.