Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with pci

Costs for PA-DSS Certification

Invoke — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 14:08:38 -0800

PA-DSS Credit Card Certification, how much does it cost? I'm one of the core developers for Satchmo, an open source e-commerce toolkit. It looks like we need to be PA-DSS certified by next summer, but the costs are quite vague. From what I can tell, it costs $1250 to list your application as certified, plus $250 per update release. Never mind that this is an incredible, thoughtless, not-going-to-make-things-any-more-secure burden for an open source project, the real question is "how much will it really cost to certify Satchmo?"

It appears from looking at the horrible documentation that the best path to certification is to hire an outside firm to do it. Has anyone done that? Is it not merely suggested, but well-nigh required? Has anyone done it without an outside firm?

What should I do about my old computer??

snowjoe — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 09:40:58 -0800

Windows xp and Ubuntu? PCI video card? Mac Mini? Opinions? I have an old old computer (Pentium 4 CPU 2.4 GHz with 512 MB Ram). My video card went belly up a few weeks ago and I put in an old barebones type of card out of an old computer. I am unhappy with the performance so I bought a card from newegg but I couldn't use it because my expansion slots are only PCI NOT PCI-e. Also my power supply is 300w and newer cards seem to require more power. So my questions are:

1 - Should I try Ubuntu via WUBI? (I need windows for Quicken and a few other things.) Would Ubuntu make me and my old computer happy?

2 - Should I just grin and bear it for a couple of months and buy a new system with Windows 7?

3 - Should I get a Mac Mini?

4 - Should I forget computers entirely?

5 - Is there a good video card that is PCI?

Oh by the way, I can't add more memory because the super old memory is way to expensive. I forget what kind it is but as someone once told me, I lost the memory lottery.

White-label hosted credit-card processing?

pengale — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 11:03:21 -0800

What online credit-card processor best meets these criteria? 1. 100% hosted. No PCI-DSS worries.
2. 100% branded/white-label. Use own domain (i.e. CNAME), and customize design and navigation.
3. Concentrates on just the payment step; design your own cart/sales page
4. No minimum annual revenue amount; cost structure suitable for small business.
5. Customer-service-focused (where the customer is the merchant...)

Sorry if this has been posted before; most of the other questions I could find pertain to either shopping carts or payment gateways that require you to comply with PCI-DSS. Does something like this even exist?

PCI DSS Documentation

sharp2403 — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 07:59:22 -0800

I have recently been working on PCI DSS Compliance at work for my company. I have been writing a lot of documentation and could use some help, but don't want to pay for it. Does anyone know where I can find examples for all documentation for PCI Compliance. Especially looking on Breach Policy documentation, interal infrastructure docuemtation examples, and all documentation for requirement 12. Any help would be appreciated

What specs are important in a PCI video card for a livingroom media computer?

brenton — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 16:02:10 -0800

My livingroom media computer onboard video can only reach 1024x768, and the mobo has ONLY has PCI slots. So I need a PCI video card. It will be used mainly for playing / streaming video to a 1920x1200 HDTV, and perhaps occasionally for stuff like Nintendo64 emulation. What specs will be the most important to ensure no choppiness or other problems when playing videos full screen? Is DirectX 10 or above important? Keeping in mind this must be PCI, am I doomed to choppy videos no matter how fast the card processor or how much memory it has?

Can't find the right kind of graphics card...

katrielalex — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 13:44:07 -0800

Can anyone find a PCI-E x1 or PCI graphics card in the UK? I've run out of monitor ports and I only have one PCI-E x16 slot which is currently full... clearly the correct solution is to buy another graphics card so I can have a third monitor :D Only problem is, I actually can't find a graphics card that's not x16 or AGP. I'm in the UK but open to anywhere that ships here (i.e. not newegg). Mefites, please help!

VGA is fine, DVI is nice though!

You can do that, right? Run two graphics cards for extra monitors? I'm being plagued by sudden doubt...

(I have an EP35-DS3R at the moment, with an 8800GT. Running Vista.)

Who is 14F1? What is device 2720?

carsonb — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 01:26:51 -0800

My PCI Simple Communications Controller has bitten the dust. When I start up my crusty eMachines T2682 classic desktop computer these days I get the good ol' WinXP Found New Hardware Wizard prompting me to install drivers for my "PCI Simple Communications Controller". Sadly it cannot locate said drivers, and it turns out that "PCI Simple Communications Controller" is Device Manager-speak for "WTF is this?"

As this computer has failed bit by bit I've become more adept at reading tech forums, and as usual they've dealt me a cryptic clue to this puzzle. I learned that Device Manager deals out very little info about "PCI Simple Communications Controller", but what little it gives can be used to find drivers to reactivate the ? device. The Device Instance Id is
PCI\VEN_14F1&DEV_2720&SUBSYS_200014F1&REV_00\4&29817089&0&10F0
which, I believe, details the device vendor as "14F1" and the device itself as "2720".

Vendor 14F1 is listed as Conexant Systems Inc., a modem chipset manufacturer. However, for the life of me I cannot find their device 2720. None of the pci id lists that I've read match that device with vendor 14F1.

What am I missing? What is this mysterious device?

Maybe relevant: During video playback the audio snaps in and out, at random. I have not reinstalled Windows lately. I upgraded to SP3 a few weeks ago, then immediately reverted to a restore point. One of my RAM sockets has gone bad, the computer freezes occasionally, and I think the whole mobo might be dying. Is this some extension of that growing problem, or is there a local solution?

I ask this last because, while I know I need a new computer and will be purchasing one when the wallet is ripe, I'd like to use this opportunity to learn some about how computer guts work and what to do get them to work when they don't. Percussive maintenance only goes so far.

Sound card recommendations?

trokair — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 21:32:57 -0800

[SoundCardFilter] What are your recommendations for a PCI-based gaming sound card on Windows Vista? I'm using Vista Ultimate 32-bit right now, and the popping, crackling sound and low-volume mic inputs on my Shuttle SD39P2 (Realtek ALC888 built-in sound) are starting to get to me. What are your recommendations for a high-end PCI sound card? I do a lot of gaming and listening to music!

I'd especially like to hear if anyone's had some good experiences with non-Creative products (I've heard not-so-good things about their Vista drivers). Thanks folks!

Graphics card for Dell T105/Ubuntu machine?

Zarkonnen — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 03:52:10 -0800

LinuxNewbie/Hardware Filter: I just bought a Dell T105 server and installed Ubuntu on it. The machine is great, but graphics performance is very very bad. It only has PCI and PCIe 8x slots, no PCIe 16x ones. Is it possible to get a compatible graphics card? I know it's a server, not a desktop machine. I'm not trying to run the latest video games on it, but even 2D graphics performance is completely lacking using the onboard graphics chip. A 64 MB PCI graphics card would be good enough, it just has to be supported by Ubuntu.

I know this is a very specific and somewhat daft question, since I'm trying to use server hardware as a desktop machine, but my attempts at looking up the answer have been completely fruitless.

scsi pci raid server died, urgent data recovery?

tslugmo — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 11:46:12 -0800

Got a 2000 server with PCI SCSI RAID card (Mirror) and the mobo seems to have died. I just want to recover the data and host it on another machine. How do I do that? I've installed the PCI card in another computer running XP, and in Disk Mgmt I saw "Import Foreign Disk" which I did, and now I see both volumes. Then I click on Reactivate Disk, but it does not change anything. The volume reads Failed (Active).

Any ideas? Super time-sensitive!

A good 'ol-fashioned driver hunt

tumult — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 05:02:12 -0800

Here's a long shot: I'm looking for drivers for a super obscure piece of hardware from early in the decade. Specifically, a PCI souncard made by SeaSound called the SeaSound Solo EX. More specifically, the Mac OS 9 version of the drivers. The company went bust some years ago. You can see their old webpage here but the link to download the drivers is very much dead. I know there's a project that created new drivers for Windows to use the Solo; I have the card in an old PowerMac G4 and intend to run legacy software on it.

Googling the filename (solodrivers131.hqx) didn't turn up anything. I realize there's probably no way in hell I'm ever going to find this file, but I can't give up without a fight.

Help me find the best TV tuner card for my setup!

pontouf — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 12:19:08 -0800

I'm trying to find a good PC TV tuner card. I'm currently running a 3GHz P4 processor with 1GB of RAM on WinXP sp2. I have digital cable (comcast - about 75 channels or so). So what is the best pci card I should get for my setup? Obviously a clear picture is the most important thing. I don't care about hdtv as I don't watch many of those channels. It needs to have hardware encoding and should support *either* GBPVR or MediaPortal. I currently have a Leadtek WinFast TV2000 XP card. The picture quality is not good and it is only analog.

As far as remotes, I will probably just get a Windows MCE remote, as it seems to work with either listed software setups, but if you have any other ideas, please tell me!

Find PCI slot PS/2 adapter

4midori — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 21:20:38 -0800

How to select and buy PCI card with PS/2 port for older keyboard (repost)

I need to connect a PC keyboard (MS Natural, not Elite) with PS/2 termination to my PC, but the PC lacks a PS/2 port. I've tried a PS/2 to USB adapter, including one from clickykeyboards.com as recommended, but some keys then stick or don't work correctly.

I know I can buy a PCI slot card that has a PS/2 port, but I've been unable to find a) which is the right one for my PC (Dell Dimension 9100) and b) where to buy it.

Oddly, no one seems to make a USB keyboard with the exact layout as the original MS Natural keyboard. I'm using their Ergonomic 4000 model, and it sucks.

I have Googled this, used Yahoo answers, and asked the tech support gurus at my work, but no good answers. Ideas?

USB for PCI-X for my PowerMac G5

Plug Dub In — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 21:26:40 -0800

How can I add more USB 2.0 ports to my G5 PowerMac if it only takes PCI-X cards? The PCI-Express card I got doesn't fit. Bah. I guess that was dumb.

Is there any way to add more internal USB ports? I'd rather not get a hub, as it's an extra power cord, an extra blinking-lights thing on my desk, and frankly, I feel like I should be able to make use of these empty card slots.

The only things I can find to put in them are ATA ports, network ports, and SCSI ports, none of which I have any use for.

Thanks, all.

wide screen + graphics card.

nihlton — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 00:32:20 -0800

so i bought a new monitor, however, its wide aspect ratio and the crappy video card that came with my dell doesn't support the wide aspect.... i bought a 24 inch samsung syncmaster 245bw (if that helps) and ive got a dell dimension 3000. It can only accept PCI graphics cards (YAY!) and im having trouble finding one that reports supporting the monitor's native resolution (1920 x 1200)

the question - can any one recommend a graphics card? i don't play games so brawn isn't a big deal, I just want the monitor to display crispy and nice.

alternatively, is the resolution even decided by the card? i mean, could I just buy any old PCI and have it display properly?

I'm not a hardware person so any help/pointers/peripheral information and explanations would be appreciated!

How to select and buy PCI card with PS/2 port for older keyboard.

4midori — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 22:09:39 -0800

How to select and buy PCI card with PS/2 port for older keyboard. I need to connect a PC keyboard with PS/2 termination to my PC, but the PC lacks a PS/2 port. I've tried a PS/2 to USB adapter, but some keys then stick or don't work correctly.

I know I can buy a PCI slot card that has a PS/2 port, but I've been unable to find a) which is the right one for my PC (Dell Dimension 9100) and b) where to buy it.

I have Googled this, used Yahoo answers, and asked the tech support gurus at my work, but no good answers. Ideas?

reliable RAID on SATA PCI card?

notsnot — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 11:40:45 -0800

AcronymFilter: SATA RAID on PCI. I had one, now it's broken. I've been needing more space for all my layered photoshop files, so I picked up a couple of Seagate SATA 300G drives. I already have a couple of 300s on the motherboard SATA ports, so I purchased a Belkin PCI card to give me two more ports. (while I was at it, I bought a case with a lot more power, so that's not the problem.) This setup worked flawlessly for a little over two weeks - heck, the RAID worked before I even ran the driver install.

Two nights ago, I left the computer running some Photoshop scripts (layered, masked sharpening) on giant stitched files, and woke up to the computer off, and refusing to reboot. After the safe mode prompt, the list of system files being loaded stopped at mup.sys, and if I tried to restart windows normally, it would start to fade into the Windows XP splash screen with progress bar, then hang.

Not having time for bullshit yesterday morning, I poked around during work and found something online that suggested I remove my wireless mouse dongle. When I got home, I went into BIOS, and all my IDE drives except the boot drive had been un-recognized, so I got those back, and booted the machine. The belkin RAID text-screen then told me that one of the drives was offline, so my RAID was incomplete. I continued, and pulled the mouse dongle after the safe mode selector screen, and after a minute or two, the logon screen showed up. I quickly put in a PS2 mouse, and was able to run windows normally.

The raid log says one of the two drives took a nap at 1:30 in the am (about what time I expected the scripts to end). I turned off the machine, removed the PCI RAID control from the slot, and the damn thing works as it did two weeks ago, before I added the drives. Can anyone suggest either 1) a way to make the SATA card I've got work, or 2) a PCI RAID SATA card that won't send me into conniptions?

Can I expand upon my motherboard's limited internal pin connections?

kowalski — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 07:15:42 -0800

Does anyone make a PCI expansion card to add internal pin connectors for such things as USB1+/- and 1394? I have an old ASUS P4T-E motherboard. I picked up one of these nifty Silverstone front card reader / combo devices while doing some other upgrades (new power supply, new video card). Unfortunately, my motherboard doesn't have pin connectors for most of the device's ponytail of cables. Yes, I know, know thy mainboard. Anyway.

Having seen and used IDE expansion cards in the past, my immediate reaction was to look for a card that offered bare pin connectors of the sort I'm looking for. But I can't seem to find anything that really resembles this, except for USB 2.0 cards that apparently have an internal connector (which is the one thing I don't necessarily need, though it would be nice to have the extra speed).

The cables I'd most want to hook up have 4+1 pin plugs (with the pin plugs marked VCC, USB 1-, USB 1+, GND and then a separate plug marked Ground). There are also 9 pin 1394 plugs, but these aren't as important to me. Does anyone make an expansion card with these odd 4+1 pin connectors? Or will this device be largely reduced to serving the role of drive bay cover until I give up and purchase a new chipset and motherboard?

ISA to PCI or Serial Converter?

voidcontext — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 07:16:31 -0800

Converting an ISA card to something usable in a modern system? I've got a few ISA cards that I'd like to put into newer servers. Right now they are in older Pentium-class boxes running Windows 98. The original manufacturer is willing to take the cards and put them into an external enclosure with a serial interface for a total in the thousands of dollars.

There is no alternative source for these cards, it's a very niche sort of product. It's possible to order new ones, but they are actually the exact same cards as the ones I've already got, and just come in external enclosures from the get go.

I am hoping that it's something I can do myself. I have looked around for a converter or enclosure, but with little luck. I know there are still remnants of the ISA subsystem in modern computers to run things like the floppy drive and serial ports, which what I'm hoping to tap in to. Is this possible? Or is the external enclosure a custom made thing this company came up with?

I did find a similiar question, but the solution in that thread was to replace the ISA SCSI card with a PCI SCSI card, and that's not an option in this case.

Help me upgrade the video on my Dell Dimension 2400.

huskerdont — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 09:19:03 -0800

Help me upgrade the video on my (PCI-only) Dell Dimension 2400. I'm trying to get a new video card for my Dell Dimension 2400, which has video (64mb Intel) pre-integrated into the motherboard.

Now, the kicker is that the Dimension 2400 only has PCI ports. Being not too computer-innards knowledgable, I bought a 256mb PCI-E card that didn't fit into my motherboard at all.

Are there any decent PCI video cards out there that can offer good performance in conjunction with plenty of RAM or is it time to get a new computer for doing graphics-intensive work?

Need help with PCI to IDE controller card

flyby22 — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 08:19:20 -0800

Having problem with S.M.A.R.T data collection apps with IDE drives on a PCI to IDE card. I have one of these PCI to IDE controller cards either from Sabrent or Syba. Both of these companies seem to sell almost identical cards based on Silicon Image chip.

http://www.sabrent.com/products/specs/SBT-RDIT.htm

This supports RAID. But I have not set it up to use RAID. I have an Abit AN7 mobo with an AMD Sempron CPU. This card is supposed to allow attaching up to 4 IDE drives.

On the primary channel I have two drives hooked up in Cable Select mode and using removable drive cages. On the secondary channel I have only one drive in Cable Select mode and using a similar removable cage.

Whenever I try to use one of those Hard disk monitoring apps that collect S.M.A.R.T data I get a hang when the apps gets to these drives and in the event viewer I see a timeout event. I dont have the exact message here with me. Then after a while I need to basically reboot the machine because everything starts to hang soon after this.

I have narrowed the problem down to connecting two drives to the primary channel. I did not try adding two drives to the secondary channel since I need to open the case and juggle things to do that. But as soon as I remove any one of the drives on the primary channel the SMART apps work fine. Do not know if the removable drive cages have anything do with it, or whether the card is bad, or I need to enable some settings somewhere.

I dont think the drives are the problem because I have tried a few different disk drives that I have lying around.

I was wonderinf if somebody has any idea about what may be the problem.

Apple G4 + wireless card = ???

docgonzo — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 12:31:53 -0800

Help me get my aged G4 onto my home wireless network. It's a G4/500 AGP -- still a perfectly serviceable machine, running OSX 10.3.

It has an open PCI expansion slot and I'd like to stick a wireless card in. Might this D-Link or this Linksys card work?

The techs at the local compumart were uniformly unhelpful -- "Apple?" -- and it appears the only Apple solution would be an AirPort card, which are hard to find and costly.

Old Radeon 32mb graphics card from G4 --> New G5. PCI issues?

icetaco — Sun, 16 Apr 2006 09:58:25 -0800

Old Radeon 32mb graphics card from G4 --> New G5. PCI issues? I'd love to get S-Video out of my G5, and have this old Radeon card sitting in my unused G4. Is it safe/advisable/possible to put her in the G5? Apple told me the PCI architecture is incompatible with older PCI cards, but I'm seeing "backwards-compatible" online. What gives, I say?

(I'm already using two monitors all the time, so Apple's DVI-S-Video adaptor would be a pain. I'm looking for more than two video outputs.)

Thank you wonderful mefites.

Graphics transplant for grey-haired Powermac?

killdevil — Tue, 14 Feb 2006 15:13:28 -0800

I need a cheap graphics card for my old Powermac G4 that will drive a high-res LCD. What is the cheapest older AGP graphics card I can use that will pump out a DVI signal at 1920x1200 (widescreen), millions of colors? The circa-2000 ATI Rage Pro that's installed won't come close (it only supports up to 1280 pixels, which looks unbearably bad since it's not a native res on my new screen).

I'm looking for an older card I can pick up on eBay or similar.

One final note: I THINK my G4 has AGP graphics, but I'm aware that Apple swapped PCI for AGP at some point during the G4 tower production run. What identifying physical characteristic on the card or slot will allow me to be certain that mine is AGP?

I hate hardware.

muddylemon — Mon, 26 Dec 2005 20:33:37 -0800

Why does my new video card cause a memory dump during boot? Long Story: I have a Dell Precision 350. A few months ago the fan on my video card got clogged up, overheated the chip and kaputznik. I threw in a spare card i had laying around - I bought it in... say 1996 or so. So it's working, but sub-optimal at least. Today I went to the store and bought a 256mb GE-Force something or other. Here is where I made my first mistake, I left the old card in, because I thought I could run both - dual monitor-style. Upon further inspection, I found I could do this without doing that. Anyway, while both were in the computer I installed the drivers for New Card, then i pulled the old card, and it booted with a generic VGA adapter running, however the card was listed in the hardware manager. I played around trying to get it to use the new card, and went so far as to disable the generic VGA adapter that was listed in the display settings. Since then, booting with the new card in causes the machine to crash in a memory dump during boot, around the time it's loading the AGP drivers. I went back to the store, figuring I'd just get a PCI card and skip this whole mess, but accidently bought another AGP card (long day.) It's doing the same thing with this new Radeon something card. So, can this card be saved? Will buying a PCI instead skip all this hassle?