Gigabit ExpressCard (Cardbus) card under pfSense

[rjcrowder]

I'm trying to find a gigabit ExpressCard to use under pfSense 2.1. The only one that I've found posts confirming it works is the Startech EC1000s… but I was hoping for a cheaper alternative.

Does anyone have a less expensive ($10-$20 range) gigabit ExpressCard working on 2.1? Just wanting to know before I shell out the money and try it. The cheaper ones I've looked at (but can't confirm work - conflicting reports) are the SYBA SY-EXP24006 and the Netgear GA511.

BTW... yes, I know I could use a managed switch and vlans through one card... I was really hoping to get two cards working in the laptop (builtin card and ExpressCard).

Thanks for any help.

[rjcrowder]

Bump…

Anyone? Guess people pretty much don't use the ExpressCards under pfSense (or freeBSD)?

[Aluminum]

All the ones I've seen so far tend to use realjunk or another random chipset. Yet to see any with a chipset I'd want, particularly intel.

Been keeping my eye open because its easy to find a relatively cheap business laptop with expresscard and 1 intel NIC built in. (e.g. many thinkpads)

So far the closest thing I've seen are jetway minicards, there is 1 port 82574L and dual port i350, so the expresscard format is obviously big enough if they used a dongle or fat end.
It is actually interchangable with expresscard electrically (as seen here and here) but the physical space inside a laptop is the main issue :)

If you don't mind engineering-style adapter cables and risers, you can even use a desktop nic in a laptop. Lots of interesting examples at hwtools.net that are ugly but functional, I've toyed with GPUs using a separate PSU.

[rjcrowder]

@Aluminum:

All the ones I've seen so far tend to use realjunk or another random chipset. Yet to see any with a chipset I'd want, particularly intel.

Been keeping my eye open because its easy to find a relatively cheap business laptop with expresscard and 1 intel NIC built in. (e.g. many thinkpads)

So far the closest thing I've seen are jetway minicards, there is 1 port 82574L and dual port i350, so the expresscard format is obviously big enough if they used a dongle or fat end.
It is actually interchangable with expresscard electrically (as seen here and here) but the physical space inside a laptop is the main issue :)

If you don't mind engineering-style adapter cables and risers, you can even use a desktop nic in a laptop. Lots of interesting examples at hwtools.net that are ugly but functional, I've toyed with GPUs using a separate PSU.

Thanks for the response.

Interesting idea on the hwtools.net thing… I'll take a look because I've thought about hacking  the guts out of one of my old laptops and throwing it into custom case. Seen examples of people doing that... cheap way to get a nearly quite low power box and it would keep me entertained for a while!