Clearance for wifi card and PCI-e 16x

[cyanbenie]

I have an MSI A320M-A Pro Max and a Palit GTX 1660 super and I don't think theres a clearance between the PCI-e 1x. how do i add a wifi card cause it doesn't seem to fit.

[SupaKomputa]

Get a usb wifi.

[MartinTheActor]

Is there a reason you need a pcie wifi card?

Can you not go for a USB one? They might be a touch slower, but not by a huge amount.

[cyanbenie]

6 minutes ago, MartinTheActor said:

Is there a reason you need a pcie wifi card?

Can you not go for a USB one? They might be a touch slower, but not by a huge amount.

 

8 minutes ago, SupaKomputa said:

Get a usb wifi.

does a usb wifi have bluetooth though?

 

[Levent]

Just now, cyanbenie said:

 

does a usb wifi have bluetooth though?

 

There are dongles that have it. Here is one.

[cyanbenie]

7 minutes ago, Levent said:

There are dongles that have it. Here is one.

thank you

 

[SupaKomputa]

2 hours ago, cyanbenie said:

 

does a usb wifi have bluetooth though?

 

Getting a separate bluetooth dongle might be cheaper.

A random 5.0 only cost $5.

[Alex Atkin UK]

3 hours ago, SupaKomputa said:

Getting a separate bluetooth dongle might be cheaper.

A random 5.0 only cost $5.

Range will be worse on a USB dongle but there isn't much of a choice here.

Its a shame the board doesn't have a second M.2 slot rather than the PCIe x1.

[cyanbenie]

On 5/7/2021 at 5:33 AM, Alex Atkin UK said:

Range will be worse on a USB dongle but there isn't much of a choice here.

Its a shame the board doesn't have a second M.2 slot rather than the PCIe x1.

hey its me again, I don't have a M.2 SSD on my system so technically speaking I can just get a M.2 wifi card and it would fit on my motherboard?

 

[Alex Atkin UK]

26 minutes ago, cyanbenie said:

hey its me again, I don't have a M.2 SSD on my system so technically speaking I can just get a M.2 wifi card and it would fit on my motherboard?

 

It should, but Bluetooth wouldn't work as that runs over USB.

You'd also have to buy and find a way to mount the antenna sockets.  May be tricky finding ones with long enough cables to reach the M.2 slot.  Its certainly likely to work out more expensive but likely with better WiFi reception, so its a trade off.

[CerealExperimentsLain]

Finds official mobo photo.

 

Why do they design mATX boards like this these days?  They should allow four slots, I understand giving one up for the NVME, but this one puts the x1 directly under the x16, and omits the bottom slot entirely?  Why even put in an x1 slot at all as you can assume a dual slot GPU will likely go into the x16???

It's like a 'Fuck You' from the designer or something.

 

[Donut417]

On 5/11/2021 at 3:56 AM, cyanbenie said:

hey its me again, I don't have a M.2 SSD on my system so technically speaking I can just get a M.2 wifi card and it would fit on my motherboard?

 

No. WiFi cards are keyed differently than Storage drives from my understanding. So if you dont have the right M.2 slot it wont work. Outside of ITX boards many motherboards dont support WiFi right out of the box/ dont have the proper M.2 Slot. 

[Alex Atkin UK]

12 hours ago, Donut417 said:

No. WiFi cards are keyed differently than Storage drives from my understanding. So if you dont have the right M.2 slot it wont work. Outside of ITX boards many motherboards dont support WiFi right out of the box/ dont have the proper M.2 Slot. 

Yes they are keyed differently, but it doesn't necessarily stop it working unless its outright incompatible (eg M.2 sockets that only have SATA rather than PCIe).

There's a few people on my laptop WiFi upgrading thread who ended up putting their WiFi card in the M.2 NVMe socket on their laptops for example because the WiFi socket was locked to CNVIo v1 only cards.

[Blue4130]

19 hours ago, CerealExperimentsLain said:

Finds official mobo photo.

 

Why do they design mATX boards like this these days?  They should allow four slots, I understand giving one up for the NVME, but this one puts the x1 directly under the x16, and omits the bottom slot entirely?  Why even put in an x1 slot at all as you can assume a dual slot GPU will likely go into the x16???

It's like a 'Fuck You' from the designer or something.

 

I'd say the fuck you came from gpu makers deciding that 2 and 3 slots cards are ok. After all, the atx slot spacing was specified long before big boy gpu's. 

[Donut417]

Just now, Blue4130 said:

I'd say the fuck you came from gpu makers deciding that 2 and 3 slots cards are ok. After all, the atx slot spacing was specified long before big boy gpu's. 

Do you want to cool the GPU? Thats why they are 2 or 3 slots wide. 

[Blue4130]

8 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Do you want to cool the GPU? Thats why they are 2 or 3 slots wide. 

Yes I know why they did it. But they did it full well knowing that they would Bork compatiblity. Such is life. We make sacrifice based on what we deem more important. 

[Falcon1986]

On 5/11/2021 at 11:43 PM, CerealExperimentsLain said:

It's like a 'Fuck You' from the designer or something.

While there is a standard, motherboard manufacturers can choose to leave out or add components to their own lineup.

 

Their low budget version might have less PCIe ports than their more expensive alternatives. They're just targeting different consumers who should purchase with room for future upgradability. Unfortunately, we don't always think like that or the motherboard is already part of an entire system that we bought already.

 

On 5/11/2021 at 2:56 AM, cyanbenie said:

hey its me again, I don't have a M.2 SSD on my system so technically speaking I can just get a M.2 wifi card and it would fit on my motherboard?

 

You can try. Intel has a AX200 kit with antennae and bracket that you can mount at the back of the case. But as mentioned before, you'll lose Bluetooth, but that can be added with a simple USB adapter.

 

Have you considered using a riser cable? Not sure if you'd have enough space between a PCIe x1 card contact points and the motherboard PCB to run the x1 adapter to the slot behind the GPU.