On 21 Dec 2006 14:54:36 -0800, "Dan Lenski"
<dlenski@gmail.com> wrote:

>Hi all,
>My family has an HP Pavilion slimline PC which has a single PCI card
>slot. It came with a crappy softmodem PCI card installed, which I
>decided to replace with a Wireless-G PCI card. The case is very slim,
>about 100 mm wide, so that the DVD drive has to be mounted vertically.
>The motherboard is a microATX motherboard with dimensions of 6.7"x6.7"
>(it looks like this:
>http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/d...ng=en&y=0#N813)
>
>When I removed the modem card, I found to my surprise that the
>backplate of the modem was actually significantly shorter than a
>standard PCI card. Perhaps a little ASCII art will illustrate what I
>mean...
>
>STANDARD PCI CARD BACKPLATE
>
>
>
> / =/
> / _=/
> / /_
> / =/
> / _=/
> / /
> / /_
> /|______/__________________/__
>|O| _ \_ ^
>| | |_| O O O _| | ~ 20 mm
>| |____________________________/ v
>|/ <----->
> ~ 16 mm
> <--------- ~ 120 mm ----------->
>
>
>
>"SMALL" PCI CARD BACKPLATE
>
> / =/
> / _=/
> / /_
> / =/
> / _=/
> / /
> / /_
> /|/________________/__
> |O| _ \_ ^
> | | |_| O O O _| | ~20 mm
> | |____________________/ v
> |/ <----->
> ~ 16 mm
> <------- ~80 mm ------->
>
>
>
>
>Basically, this PCI card is totally identical to a "normal" PCI card
>that would go in any mini-ATX desktop case, EXCEPT that the backplate
>is only 80 mm long from the tab to the point where it screws into the
>chassis, rather than the 120 mm or so for a "normal" PCI card. This is
>presumably to allow a slim case (the whole case is only about 100 mm
>wide)

Nice ASCII art. That's probably a "low profile" card
bracket. Not as common, but still a standard.



>
>Since the card itself was only about 60 mm in depth, I was able to make
>the "normal" PCI card card fit in this case, after some rather heroic
>modifications. I had to remove the backplate from the card, cut it
>short with a hacksaw, bend it, and drill a hole for the mounting screw.
>I'm wondering if anyone knows what this shallow-depth PCI card is
>called for future reference.

Low profile. You can (with a little hunting) find some low
profile network adapters, though many of the wireless ones
that short (PCB itself) are inferior quality... it seems
most of the good ones are a little more than 80mm from
bracket tip to card PCB top edge. I probably would've used
a USB adapter or the built in ethernet port to a bridge
capable access point or capable router (the lines on what
each is and can do are blurring, based on installed
firmware).


>
>I've had trouble finding publicly available documentation on the
>official size of PCI cards. Wikipedia has only the barest information:
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periphe..._physical_size.
> I gather that a "standard" PCI card that fits a modern motherboard is
>actually a "half-length" PCI card.


Well it could be a full length, it'll still fit, but with
today's integrated chipsets (for whatever the PCI card does)
you don't often find cards that need to be that big, not for
the past half a decade or more at least. Today video cards
may be the largest on average, though most people aren't
using such PCI video cards anymore unless they bought an OEM
system lacking anything better to interface a video card
upgrade.