Hello everyone,
my brother recently bought a Dell pc, and now he has a problem (i told him to let me build it but, no)
the thing is he has only 1 pci slot on his motherboard and needs to install two pci cards, one is for his wireless router and the other im not sure i think maybe usb or firewire. anyways he needs both of them and only has one slot, is any hardware that can split the pci into two?

i assume not due to addressing but i thought id ask in case iv missed something.

Thanks,

Ask him what he needs the second PCI port for. Ask if he has USB or not. Most new PCs have USB. Also, find out if he has a built in Ethernet port.

1 slot? Now thats cheezy! I would go with a usb card if there is no usb ports. Then plug the wireless into the usb.

What model is this?
New or used?

It brand new from dell directly, ok for the second card im assuming its usb, in fact i said that bcoz i couldnt think of anything else, he says its important. ill ask him. never the less currently he has plugged his wireless into a usb port but be is unable to do whatever he wanted to do with the other card. he needs wireless as he has a laptop too.

i think i need to ask him what the other card is, although they both need to be plugged into a pci slot.

The router is kept in a seperate room and the wireless pci card allows his pc to pick up the signal, it has a sort of antana at the back of it.

can you extend a pci slot using some hardware? ie make two slots out of one?

Thanks,

A PC that's "brand new from dell directly" should not need a USB PCI adapter card. Also, no card should be necessary for a "wireless router"...possibly a wireless adapter card, but not a router. And if it is for wireless, he can always buy a USB wireless adapter.

You're gonna have to find out what PCI cards he wants to install & why.

I would go with Jams suggestion above.

But it seems possible.
Link below shows what you may be looking for....It's for mac though. Haven't done any real research on this.

The cost of such a unit will most likely be high.

http://www.team-solutions.com/Produ...

He doesn't need to install a wireless PCI network card to connect to the router. He can easily get USB connected wireless network adatpers, in fact it sounds like he may already have one.
"he has plugged his wireless into a usb port but be is unable to do whatever he wanted to do "
He's probably doing something wrong that has nothing to do with the adapter itself - the adapter is probably working fine - it's the connection that isn't working.
Setting up a wireless network is not as straight forward as setting up a wired network - there are more things that have to be right before a wireless connection will work. The directions that come with wireless network adapters are sometimes poor.

If he needs more USB ports, a PCI USB 2.0 controller card will work with more USB devices than a USB hub or hub card will (as in, the hub connects two or more ports to only one USB port directly connected to the mboard). Ones with 5 ports (4 external, one internal) are cheap and easily available.

In addition to all the above helpful information I would just add that there should be at least one other expansion slot available. It would be a PCIe x1 slot. This is a newer type slot that may be usable for future expansion.