Question Motherboard + CPU for old hardware (PCI passthrough)?

[delon99]

Hi,

I would like to know if there exists a reliable mobo/CPU combo that supports some VT (AMD or Intel) that has at least 2 legacy PCI ports. I need to bring some ancient PCI hardware back to life using PCI passthrough in VirtualBox or VMWare that has no drivers for newer OS'es (W2K being the latest supported one). I saw a sheet on wikipedia listing components that probably fit but I learned that out of the thousands of possible combinations only a few works so I would like to hear about real-life success stories if possible. Thanks!

 

[The Paladin]

I don't understand why you're using VB or VM to "revive old PCI hardware." Your question isn't clear, what are trying to do? get old hardware to run VB/VM to see if the hardware (PCI card) works on it.? why run VB/VM at all?

 

[Lutfij]

I still own an X48 Asus Rampage Extreme paired with a Q9550. Is that the sort of hardware you're looking for or something more concurrent but with two PCI slots? Might it be possible to parse on the two PCI devices you'd like to connect to the system?

 

[delon99]

I don't understand why you're using VB or VM to "revive old PCI hardware." Your question isn't clear, what are trying to do? get old hardware to run VB/VM to see if the hardware (PCI card) works on it.? why run VB/VM at all?

I'm trying to use the said PCI card in a Windows 7 or Windows 10 environment but it does not work without drivers - of course - so I need VB / VM but the host operating system locks the card (even if there are no drivers for it) so the guest OS can't see/use it, hence the PCI passthrough thing.

I have it working in an old standalone PC with W2K on it but I would like to get rid of the extra bulk.

I still own an X48 Asus Rampage Extreme paired with a Q9550. Is that the sort of hardware you're looking for or something more concurrent but with two PCI slots? Might it be possible to parse on the two PCI devices you'd like to connect to the system?

The said PCI card is a proprietary custom-made signal tester device, not a massmarket one. It has drivers for W98/ME/W2K. The X48 certainly isn't a recent one but I don't mind if it works under Windows 7. Have you been able to use it in a similar scenario?

 

[cryoburner]

There are actually PCIe x1 to PCI adapter cards, although I have not actually used one, and don't know whether they would work in your scenario. Searching Amazon or Ebay for "pcie to pci adapter card" turns some up though. Some are designed as a single card that a half-height PCI card can plug into, while others use a cable to allow full-height cards to be mounted in an empty slot below the motherboard.

 

[delon99]

Well, I heard that some legacy cards refuse to work in PCIe. They need native PCI slots. I don't know whether this applies to my card. I am open to try a PCIe-only motherboard first but the question still remains: which one (with which CPU) can do the PCI passthrough thing?