PCI to PCI-E Adapter for older computers
wanting USB 3.0 and faster memory card reading.

This page is about my couple of year old PC that I needed a newer card reader for SDHC cards.  The old card reader could only read up to a 2Gb memory card.

PIC to PCI-e adapter.  This is sold as an adapter to put a PCI-E video card in just a PCI computer.  Really, unless you are a real computer gamer you can get more use out of this adapter to get 3 new USB 3.0 connectors and a really fast memory card reader.

FYI, my office PC (I’m on the third motherboard) now has a AMD X6 running Win 7 x64 with 8Gb.  My virtual memory is set to 2Gb max.  Reason it was sold cheap on E-Bay, it didn’t have a PCI-E slot.  At the time, no big deal.   I now need a new memory card reader that could read SDHC cards.  My older one could only read 2 gb.  So I decided I might as well go with USB 3.0 too.  Uspeed sells two card readers/USB 3.0 floppy drive slot kits.  One had a plug going to a MB USB 3.0 plug.  Their other uses a PCI-E connector.  This is the one that should interest you.  Since I had no PCI-E slot on my MB I found a PCI to PCI-E riser card from StarTech.com.  I found one on NewEgg for under $40.  Very small that will allow a half height PCI-E card to be added above it in the same slot.  Usually for a PCI-E video card.

I just needed a PCI-E to plug in the small wire to run from the USB 3.0 Upgrade Kit I just bought and get near USB 3.0 speed but killer fast memory card reader.  The USpeed kit was some $43. (Amazon

Darn if the riser kit works fine and the USB 3.0 plugs right into the riser. 

 The PCI to PCI-E has two slot brackets, I put in the full height slot holder, but it still had a cutout for a video car on top of it..  At least it locks the card in the slot.

The PCI adapter, PCI-E plug from the USpeed card next to my video card.    Note another empty PCI slot.

In order to use this adapter card and the USpeed PCI-E you need to remove the cover that also had the slot bracket.  I guess you can open the PCI-E holder and unscrew the bracket and put the plastic cover back on.

Shot of the cover I removed to it would fit in the PCI adapter.  Since there is no half-height slot bracket from USpeed, I just unscrewed the the cover. 

Now, a PCI slot can only work so fast so pluging in a PCI-E to that slot will not give you the 650Mb speeds but after installing the card reader I noticed a big difference in reading memory cards.   

I copied 1.4Gb files from a hard drive to a USB 2.0 external drive in the new USB 3.0.   It took 90 seconds.  I can open a 55Mb PDF file instantly, no delay.  I can see my USB sticks and HD open faster, so it was worth it.

I have one of the USpeed 3.0 readers in my home PC, but it has a PCI-E slot on the MB.  That unit works just as nice and fast.