Notebook WiFi card in desktop with PCI?

Networking Networking Hardware
1

I have a Motherboard (Gigabyte GA-C1037UN). I think it only has a PCI slot (not PCIe).

I also have a couple of Notebook WiFi cards. Some are PCIe x1 and some are Mini PCIe, I think.

Is there a (cheap) way to get these cards working on that motherboard?

The only thing I found was this: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/PCI-To-PCI-E-Adapter-Card-PCI-32-bits-Convert-PCI-E-express-16X-2-years/32662281289.html

But that's pretty expensive and I'm not even sure if it would work.

2

You can get cheap adapters that work just as well or better for the same exact price and none of the headache.

But if you're stuck in trying I think your biggest issue is finding the drivers for it because a lot of laptop hardware is made to only go with certain laptop motherboards.

3

What are these adapters called, how do I find them?
The expensive adapter that I linked is literally the only one that I could find for PCI to PCIe.

I intentionally bought a whole bunch of different cards in the hopes that at least on of them will work. Drivers are the least of my worries at the moment. I really didn't expect that my motherboard was PCI instead of PCIe.

4

I think @_hill meant PCI WIFI Adapter ;)
Here are examples:

or

5

Well yeah obviously I could buy one of those, but they are way more expensive. (I literally just payed 3-5 bucks for each of the WiFi cards that I bought.) And obviously I already have a bunch of cards. Also I'm very reliant on the WiFi card having an Atheros chip. I'd really rather get a cheap adapter.

6

I'm afraid that what you found is already cheap adapter. Such adapters are simply not popular, so not as much of them are produced at all (compared to WIFI adapers for example) and prices must always return the initial production cost (which in this case is much higher than the resources used - simple chip on PCB).

7

Last time I looked at a laptop Wi-Fi adapter it had the PCI slot but they also had to have hookups for 2 antennas. I'm not sure such an adapter with the antenna plugs exists honestly. Could be wrong though.

8

Could you rephrase that? It doesn't appear to make much sense to me, unless you've actually seen a laptop Wi-Fi adapter that had a PCI slot onboard. Which would seem very odd to me. All laptop WiFi-cards I've seen have 2 antenna connectors (female u.fl I think).

9

I use an Intel WiFi chip and PCI slot adapter to use on Linux. Works nice.