PC with 8 x PCI slots

Munster_Fan · 10-08-2005 2:30pm #1

I'm looking at setting up a PC-based CCTV system for a small business. I have sourced the CCTV video cards: each card is capable of connecting to 4 cameras. I want to be able to support 32 cameras and thus require 8xPCI cards.

The company that sell the PCI cards also sell a complete system (i.e. PC with 8xPCI cards). But they are charging STG£1800 (+VAT) for the PC alone.

Does anyone know where I can get a PC that can support 8xPCI cards? Am I likley to run into difficulties with regard to the specification of the PCI slots (e.g. speed, etc).

Any help much appreciated.

zuma · 10-08-2005 2:54pm

Could you make do with lets say 24 cameras(4x6PCI slots)???

The most I've seen these days is 6PCI slots....on retail sites anyway.

Stephen · 10-08-2005 3:23pm

This sounds like an ideal application for the greater bandwidth of PCI-Express. Any idea if they make PCI-E cards for these cameras? You'd be able to run much more than 4 cameras per board then.

Endurance Man · 10-08-2005 3:31pm

This is exaclty the field that my dad is in

. I have these huge pc's lying all around me with these cards in them. He does very big installations but i have only seen mobo's with 6pci slots.
If u like i could get a price on a full system?
They use the aver media cards in there systems.

astrofool · 10-08-2005 3:33pm

Would it not be cheaper to get two pc's and put 4 cards in each? This has the advantage of redundancy in the system as well.

mp3guy · 10-08-2005 3:37pm

you should look into a UPS too since its for security

Endurance Man · 10-08-2005 3:53pm

Ok did some more investigating. Now the way our setup works is there is a pci card. That has 4 outputs for camera's. Then another small card connects to the pci card via a ribbon cable and screws into another pci slot bay. Now this means that for 8 camera's we only use 1 pci slot but 2pci bays.
What we could maybe do is find a really big case that could accomodate more pci bays and then i think it would work.
We use heavly fortified cases, huge big black boxes, very heavy. Without the key u have no hope of opening 1 of these, maybe with a chainsaw

.

Inspector Gadget · 10-08-2005 3:57pm

I doubt it's physically possible to ram 8 PCI slots onto a standard ATX board; I'd say anything with more than six slots is a custom size/layout, so you'd be looking at buying a server machine from a manufacturer such as HPaq, IBM, etc...

Gadget

Endurance Man · 10-08-2005 4:15pm

doubt it's physically possible to ram 8 PCI slots onto a standard ATX board; I'd say anything with more than six slots is a custom size/layout, so you'd be looking at buying a server machine from a manufacturer such as HPaq, IBM, etc...

Gadget

With the aver cards that we use, 16 camera's only actually take 2 pci slots up. They take 4 pci bays up but not 4 slots. With a big enough case i dont see why we could not just put another 2 cards in with there addons. The case would have to be VERY big though, never seen a case that big tbh.
I think the company offering the 32 cam system is probably using these cards or cards which use the same format ie: 8 cameras for 1 pci slot.

Endurance Man · 10-08-2005 4:23pm

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y128/Ateam/AUT_3325.jpg
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y128/Ateam/AUT_3324.jpg

U can see from these pics what i mean. There are 4 cards, but only 2 of them are actually using pci slots. The other 2 just connect via ribbon cables, but wouls still ocuppy a bay.

PC with 8 x PCI slots

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