Electrical Tape over PCI-E Connector Safe for Both Card and Motherboard?

H

Hurin

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This may be a dumb idea. . . but I've got a SAS Expander card (Intel) that can be powered via PCI-E slot or via molex power connector. I'm out of PCI-E slots and I don't have any backplane slots where it can just hang. So it's got to go in an old PCI slot (doh!).

Is it an incredibly stupid idea to just put electrical tape over the entire PCI-E connector and put it in the PCI slot (power will come from molex)? Will the card or the motherboard care?

(I can also mount it to a low profile bracket and just screw it down real tight. It will hang in mid-air with no support from the bottom of the bracket, but maybe that's safer?)

A new motherboard (with accompanying CPU and RAM) isn't an option currently.
 
should not be a problem but can damage the PCI port a little.
 
Wait

You have a PCI-e card that you want to put into a PCI slot? I do not think it will fit. The placement is slightly off I believe.

I think you should just get a new case. Much cheaper option.
 
It will fit in a PCI slot. They're oriented exactly the same and it's only an 8x connector so it's much shorter than a PCI slot.

Having said that, I've elected to go with the "hung in the air" small form factor bracket. Or possibly mount it directly to the motherboard tray (there are holes for mounting it directly to the case if it will fit).

There is no cheaper option for a server case with twenty hotswap bays (Norco 4020).
 
Ah I wasn't aware that it was a server chassis. I would "float" the card with the low profile bracket.
 
I'm dropping by my local hardware store and I'm going to take a shot at drilling and tapping some motherboard standoff holes in the side of the case. I'll practice first on an old case.

(and I'll remove all components first!)

--H
 
I went with the real solution: Using motherboard standoffs to mount the SAS Expander to the side of the case.

I had a choice of using the motherboard standoffs that came with the case, or some generic ones I had lying around. The tap needed for the larger metric ones that came with the case was M5x0.8 after drilling a hole with an 11/64 drill bit. That's what I eventually went with.

Had I used the standard motherboard stand-offs, it would have been a 6-32 tap after a #36 hole.

I had never cut threads into a hole before via tapping like this. So after a few practice ones on an old case, here's the result. . .

tapped.JPG


It's absolutely rock-solid on there now. Even though one of the holes was just barely out of alignment and I had to settle for using only two standoffs instead of three.

One word of warning, don't get lazy and try to do this without fully clearing the case of components. Even though I was careful, I found metal shavings in just about every nook and cranny of the the case when I was done. Either empty the case, or use some serious masking techniques to isolate the work area from the rest of the system.

--H
 
Hurin said:
One word of warning, don't get lazy and try to do this without fully clearing the case of components. Even though I was careful, I found metal shavings in just about every nook and cranny of the the case when I was done. Either empty the case, or use some serious masking techniques to isolate the work area from the rest of the system.

--H
Click to expand...

I'd suggest running a shop vac and put the end of the hose near the hole you are drilling to suck up the shavings as they are made.
 
Putting black tape over the edge connector and jamming it in the slot will likely cause damage to the PCIE connector. In the lab we have nice thin Kapton tape for just this use, but most people don't have a nicely equipped SMT lab at their disposal....:p The "hang it in the air" approach sounds like the best idea to me.
 
BlindedByScience said:
The "hang it in the air" approach sounds like the best idea to me.
Click to expand...
This worked. But things were really flimsy with no support from either the bottom of the bracket (since it was the low-profile bracket that allowed it to be higher and out of the slot) or from the slot itself. So while connecting and disconnecting SAS cables, it was dancing all over the place. It was also a bit high and the cables were bending quite a bit when they hit the top of the case prematurely.

So, in the end, I dilled and tapped some holes and attached it to the side of the case via standoffs. Worked well.

Good to know that I didn't want to try the electrical tape method!
 
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