TEF

Hoping this wasn't a waste of money. They're usually sold for mining rig purposes, but we'll see if it can be used in a different manner instead.
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[@localbet]

Such a satisfying level of jankiness. Great video!

[@ThatElectronicsFool]

Ha ha, thank you! I'm hoping the end product isn't quite to the same level of jank.

[@PauloRondynele]

I have one of those cards and didnt knew what it was used for. Thanks for the video, now I know. :D

[@ThatElectronicsFool]

And knowing is half the battle! (GI Jooooooooooooe)

[@Kalvinjj]

I would bet it's some mining rig adapter to expand the motherboard's slot capacity.

[@PauloRondynele]

@@Kalvinjj lol... I Kinda work with computers since I was 8 '-'

[@pavelstoikov3780]

Jonny plank 👌👌2:11 if u know u know .

[@Ottetal]

What a lovely video. Completely useless to me, but your enthusiasm is shining through!

[@ThatElectronicsFool]

Thanks!

[@Kalvinjj]

Seems like a fairly unique way of using those seemingly mining rig cards for. Didn't even know the PCIe data protocol even allowed that, like, if it was a 4 PCIe x1 slots into one x4 slot that would be more convincing to me but this is kinda funny in a way.

[@FatheredPuma81]

Not really surprised this worked tbh. Even raw 1080p only uses like 200MB/s and a 1x slot has a bandwidth of 1GB/s and a lot of mobos already share bandwidth between PCIe slots AFAIK.

[@CoolestUserEver]

That's so cool to see a working test of these gadgets. Thanks! Would the bracket card work if it was cut above the pcie connector? From the video, there's no trace going from the port to the bracket. This would help using the pcie ports on some mining motherboards and have tons of expansion in a standard atx box (thinking of making a janky backup server with parts I got).

[@ThatElectronicsFool]

Yeah, there's nothing else going to the bracket side, but I have seen some of those that don't even have a bracket, it's just the PCIe edge with a USB connector on top. I've seen them sold individually on eBay.

[@BocVel]

Yo, thats so cool, i was wondering if that kinda cards really worked with all simultaneously, I'll be looking into getting one of those soon. your video is the last push i needed

[@ThatElectronicsFool]

Glad to hear it helped!

[@matthewday7565]

Four 1x from a 1x, so it's not bifurcation, still, when you remember all PCI slots once had a shared 133MB/s bus and a PCIE 3.0 x1 has just short of 1GB/s each way (not that the each way helps if they are all input devices)

[@ThatElectronicsFool]

It uses an ASM1184e "PCI express packet switch," so I'm guessing is similar to the way an ethernet switch works, where it's transparent to the connected devices.

[@n.stephan9848]

What arcane trickery does that board use? How does it manage 4 PCIe devices at once? Thank you for bringing this thing's existence to my awareness, time to investigate. PS.-I've got a PCIe to dual PCI adapter board that also uses a usb cable in-between. Seems to be a fairly standard solution in the janky adapter board world.

[@notspm9157]

Not much trickery needed. The card is probably like at least PCIe 3 1x slot. That means it has about 1 GBps throughput. Capture cards don't really need that much throughput though. Even at like 200 MBps which would be a really high output size for a capture card you would still be able to almost host 5 devices with it. So there is plenty of overhead. If he's using PCI 4 1x slot though then that device could actually support nearly 2 GBps which would allow up to like 10 of those devices. For reference a raw 1080p 60fps stream without any onboard compression equates to 355 MBps. The old DVD standard 4:3 stuff would only cap out at 72MBps raw feed. Really though with onboard compression you could easily get over 2x compression...so yea at most I think those devices probably would handle like 100 MBps which means you could have have about 9 devices before it starts becoming an issue. 18 devices if using PCI 4 or 39 devices with PCI 5

[@ThatElectronicsFool]

It uses an ASM1184e "PCI express packet switch," which appears to be transparent to the connected devices as you don't need to install any drivers for it.

[@ThatElectronicsFool]

Thanks for the additional data!

[@epickh64]

Hey! You have an Intel Arc graphics card! You're one of two dozens. xD I actually find that very respectable, using the graphics cards from Intel, even if no one wanted them. That shows Intel that they should continue producing graphics cards. To the main point of the video: That's an interesting idea, but it's horribly janky.

[@ThatElectronicsFool]

I wanted that particular card for this workbench system because it was pretty affordable and had AV1 encoding, which I wanted for streaming purposes, which I hope to eventually do. The card I was previously using for video editing on this PC really struggled and caused Resolve to occasionally crash from not having enough RAM. I have an AMD card for my gaming PC though.

[@spokehedz]

I wonder if there is a way to see how much bandwidth of each PCI-e lane is being used?

[@ThatElectronicsFool]

I would love to see how much they're using up as well!

[@lelandclayton5462]

Where did you get the PCI-E adapter from?

[@ThatElectronicsFool]

eBay

[@ScottGrammer]

Have you considered using an HDMI switchbox to expand the inputs on your current Elgato cards? Subscribed, BTW.

[@ThatElectronicsFool]

I do have an HDMI switch on one of the HD60s. It allows me to switch between showing the microscope camera and 4 other inputs, but even so, I'm still limited to only a max of two HDMI sources at a time on video. I don't desperately need more than that, but it would be nice to be able to have the ability to simultaneously show more.

[@makere]

@@ThatElectronicsFool How about USB-capture cards, or pro-cards with multi-input?

[@ThatElectronicsFool]

At one point I had considered some USB devices, but I really don't like having a bunch of extra stuff hanging out, not that having an external card box is all that much better, but at least everything would be contained in one box. And I would have to either add an extra PCIe card with multiple USB ports, or use more USB hubs than I'm already using because I used up all the USB ports on the back of motherboard. As to the cards you're referring to, I haven't really looked into that. Another thing is that I already had all those cards sitting around and was trying to find the lowest cost, but still acceptable solution that would allow me to use them. The PCIe expansion kit is $30 on eBay. Now I'm really curious to know how well those HD60s would work with one...

[@gamagama69]

wow this is really cool. def something i kinda wanted to do to get moar pcie, glad someone else decided to do the proof of concept really annoys me how little pcie modern boards have, when they dont even provide enough m.2 slots to make up for it. thry could easily have more chip pcie slots

[@ThatElectronicsFool]

Limited slots is definitely something I've been struggling with on this PC for a while. I've actually swapped out cards as needed due to not having enough slots. Now I won't have to, when I make a more permanent solution, that is.

[@Terran.Marine.2]

Surprised you get enough speed through that single connection, in a good way.

[@rynax009]

the cable is USB3.0 should be more than PCIE X1

[@ThatElectronicsFool]

It connects all the PCIe 1x lines from the motherboard directly to the expansion board.

[@kurtwinter4422]

I wonder if this could be used on the m2 wifi slot on mini itx motherboards?

[@ThatElectronicsFool]

Something I hadn't considered! May have to experiment!

[@TabletLenovo-rh7dl]

It's just a pcie lane switch. 4 1x devices sharing one 1x slot. I bet if you hook up another board on each slot, making it 16 devices, it will work just. Bandwidth will be another problem.

[@ThatElectronicsFool]

I bought two of these boards, so when I make a final enclosure, assuming everything goes well, I may make a second one.

[@Jagermonsta]

well that's nifty

[@dakotahouse6936]

Like the risers I used to use for crypto mining but 4 in one, and probably way more reliable

[@ThatElectronicsFool]

These were sold for mining purposes, so I wasn't sure how well they would work, as I had never tried them before.

[@dakotahouse6936]

@ThatElectronicsFool It looks like it's way better made than the ones I used to use. Mine were x4 to x16 I think, but they barely had any components on the board. Basically it just had a power circuit for the molex plug, and they melted all the time because the gpus pulled too much current even though they were powered externally.

[@memadmax69]

This is cool and all but, I think a RGB to HDMI converter would work better lol

[@ThatElectronicsFool]

I do have an RGB to HDMI adapter, but then I'll be using up one of my two HDMI inputs if I want to use them to show something else at the same time. But with these cards I can also capture RF when I need to.

[@chrismay2298]

Cool project! You, Sir, need a 3D printer.

[@ThatElectronicsFool]

I do have one, but I want to make a metal enclosure for shielding and grounding purposes. Plus I get to exercise my non-existent sheet metal fabrication skills.

[@SPARKRUS]

You are crazy... 🎉😂

[@ThatElectronicsFool]

Nothing I haven't heard before!

[@rynax009]

buddy, did you buy this expension card off me on ebay hahah

[@ThatElectronicsFool]

LMAO, if you're a seller shipping from china, then probably! That's where it was shipped from.

[@bob-s-bit-s]

hi some pci old cards will not work because of the windows 10 so i had yo use window 7 this is a pain because a new amd 4 will not take window 7 yes i have the same card as you the os can be a right pain

[@ThatElectronicsFool]

Yeah, for some devices you'll be limited by driver compatibility. Thankfully all of these work with Win10.

[@axelvandelft8982]

Omg power youre gpu the right way daaamn

[@axelvandelft8982]

0.50 sec u can see for your self this is so stupid what idiot does this

[@ThatElectronicsFool]

I knew someone would notice that! LMAO. I'm not using this PC for gaming, so I'm not too worried about the power to it. I didn't have the right power cables for my power supply when I installed that card, but I just bought some mini-fit Jr connectors and crimp pins a few days ago and will use those to make some custom cables to wire everything properly.