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I'm building an analog video/audio capture rig, but..
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printf("%s", name); piefed.blahaj.zone akunohana@piefed.blahaj.zone
Joined: 2026-03-30
(edited) Quote

Have I just never realized that the sockets of video cards are "upside down" when inserted? 😅 Or is this an illusion created by how expansion card are displayed when advertised?

SCD9nFsanJ3DcUQ.jpg

I can't believe I have been building PCs for five years and never reacted to this before.

1onSttbcJRRdtCA.jpg

64   Original
kboos1 lemmy.world kboos1@lemmy.world
Joined: 2025-12-10
#2 · Quote Reply

You mean that in the picture of the card the pci connector is on the right but installed the pci connector would be on the left? So the the picture of the card it would be flipped. So the dvi connect appears to be upside down when looking at it from the outside.

Is this the issue?

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eurodyne piefed.world eurodyne@piefed.world
Joined: 2026-07-25
#3 · (edited) Quote Reply

I remember this being common with PCIE cards, the ports would be upside down

Then again, I haven’t built my own rig in a very long time

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sem piefed.blahaj.zone sem@piefed.blahaj.zone
Joined: 2025-09-04
#4 · Quote Reply

I've honestly never thought about this, I've just flipped the cable and plugged it in.

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printf("%s", name); piefed.blahaj.zone akunohana@piefed.blahaj.zone
Joined: 2026-03-30
#5 · Quote Reply

You mean that in the picture of the card the pci connector is on the right but installed the pci connector would be on the left? So the the picture of the card it would be flipped. So the dvi connect appears to be upside down when looking at it from the outside. Is this the issue?

There is no issue at all. Chassi upright, box upright, DVI connector are in two separate orientations from the viewer's perspective. Nothing is in fact upside down.

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printf("%s", name); piefed.blahaj.zone akunohana@piefed.blahaj.zone
Joined: 2026-03-30
#6 · Quote Reply

I've honestly never thought about this, I've just flipped the cable and plugged it in.

Same. Or should I say, sem.

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kboos1 lemmy.world kboos1@lemmy.world
Joined: 2025-12-10
#7 · Quote Reply

There is no issue at all. Chassi upright, box upright, DVI connector are in two separate orientations from the viewer's perspective. Nothing is in fact upside down.

The pci cards are offset so that in the case there's room for the connector, this means that the chips are only on one side of the card. So the in pictures of the cards they are shown flipped over from their installed orientation, otherwise you would be looking at the back of the board in the picture.

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raman_klogius ani.social raman_klogius@ani.social
Joined: 2024-06-22
#8 · Quote Reply

Computer cases used to be laid horizontally, so that the motherboard is flat at the bottom. The IBM PC had its PCI expansion slots connect to the motherboard perpendicularly, so the slots are vertical.

Then the PC evolved to have the tower stand upright. That turned the orientation of all the boards, including the PCI cards which are now oriented upside down.

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notabot piefed.social notabot@piefed.social
Joined: 2025-06-04
#9 · Quote Reply

Wait 'til you put a PCIe USB card in. You'll have to turn the plugs over a lot more than the traditional three times!

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TrackinDaKraken lemmy.world DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world
Joined: 2025-02-26
#10 · (edited) Quote Reply

I've noticed. It's mildly annoying, not something I think about every day.

It's always been this way, and like others said, it's an artifact from when PC cases were horizontal, and there was no up or down for a connector, just left or right.

Of course, they could make the connectors attach to the board the other way 'round, but they won't. Especially now that we're not the main consumer of their products, and the people who are don't give one fuck about this.

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Hawke lemmy.world Hawke@lemmy.world
Joined: 2023-06-21
#11 · Quote Reply

Computer cases used to be laid horizontally, so that the motherboard is flat at the bottom. The IBM PC had its PCI expansion slots connect to the motherboard perpendicularly, so the slots are vertical. Then the PC evolved to have the tower stand upright. That turned the orientation of all the boards, including the PCI cards which are now oriented upside down.

The IBM PC did not have PCI expansion slots.

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lIlIlIlIlIlIl lemmy.world lIlIlIlIlIlIl@lemmy.world
Joined: 2025-03-31
#12 · Quote Reply

There is no “right side up”

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printf("%s", name); piefed.blahaj.zone akunohana@piefed.blahaj.zone
Joined: 2026-03-30
#13 · Quote Reply

There is no “right side up”

3nK5dpUihEWxrl8.jpg

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lIlIlIlIlIlIl lemmy.world lIlIlIlIlIlIl@lemmy.world
Joined: 2025-03-31
#14 · (edited) Quote Reply

Did you accidentally comment a pedophile?

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Rhaedas fedia.io Rhaedas@fedia.io
Joined: 2024-03-03
#15 · Quote Reply

I always got the impression that at least for GPUs and other things with heatsinks it was better to have those parts on the bottom, so dust won't settle on them. Dust won't do as much on the back side of the card. Maybe that's just a convenient plus of whatever other reason from the horizontal days of motherboards.

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printf("%s", name); piefed.blahaj.zone akunohana@piefed.blahaj.zone
Joined: 2026-03-30
#16 · Quote Reply

I always got the impression that at least for GPUs and other things with heatsinks it was better to have those parts on the bottom, so dust won't settle on them. Dust won't do as much on the back side of the card. Maybe that's just a convenient plus of whatever other reason from the horizontal days of motherboards.

Thanks for the heads up! :D There is actually yet another card incoming - a captured card with FireWire (1394 a and b) inputs that I was thinking about putting at the bottom. No reason or thought behind though. The only card among these three that has a heatsink and a mini fan is the NVIDIA GeForce GT 220. Maybe I'll put that at the bottom, then.

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Whitebrow lemmy.world Whitebrow@lemmy.world
Joined: 2023-07-07
#17 · Quote Reply

If anything is upside down, it’s that noctua fan.

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rotkehle feddit.org rotkehle@feddit.org
Joined: 2024-06-23
#18 · Quote Reply

one more reason to build an upside down atx case.

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printf("%s", name); piefed.blahaj.zone akunohana@piefed.blahaj.zone
Joined: 2026-03-30
#19 · Quote Reply

Did you accidentally comment a pedophile?

I just took whatever "down is up" gave me at https://imgflip.com/memegenerator 🤣 What I really would've wanted to paste is that scene from that pirates movie where they flip their ship.

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printf("%s", name); piefed.blahaj.zone akunohana@piefed.blahaj.zone
Joined: 2026-03-30
#20 · Quote Reply

one more reason to build an upside down atx case.

At the very least, it would be cool to try to build in an old horizontal case. :)

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printf("%s", name); piefed.blahaj.zone akunohana@piefed.blahaj.zone
Joined: 2026-03-30
#21 · Quote Reply

If anything is upside down, it’s that noctua fan.

You just had to burst my bubble. F***. 💦

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fuckwit_mcbumcrumble lemmy.dbzer0.com fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.com
Joined: 2024-03-20
#22 · Quote Reply

They’re upside down so you could fit an ISA and PCI sockets could fit in the same slot back in the 90s.

I can’t find any of them installed in a case, but I could find this card with a combo slot. The pci would be facing down, but the ISA card would be facing up

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Rhaedas fedia.io Rhaedas@fedia.io
Joined: 2024-03-03
#23 · (edited) Quote Reply

Thanks for the heads up! :D There is actually yet another card incoming - a captured card with FireWire (1394 a and b) inputs that I was thinking about putting at the bottom. No reason or thought behind though. The only card among these three that has a heatsink and a mini fan is the NVIDIA GeForce GT 220. Maybe I'll put that at the bottom, then.

Always consider the heat flow in the box. Adding something new and taking up space changes how much air gets to places, and how it flows. Might consider another fan (although whether you want more pushing or pulling is a debated topic), and maybe using the GPU fan to control that is a good idea.. In my mind, cooling is like memory... you can't have enough.

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printf("%s", name); piefed.blahaj.zone akunohana@piefed.blahaj.zone
Joined: 2026-03-30
#24 · (edited) Quote Reply

Always consider the heat flow in the box. Adding something new and taking up space changes how much air gets to places, and how it flows. Might consider another fan (although whether you want more pushing or pulling is a debated topic), and maybe using the GPU fan to control that is a good idea.. In my mind, cooling is like memory... you can't have enough.

I have two spare Noctua fans that I could install at the bottom of the case. The top already has three, CPU cooling tower has two (horizontal) and the one visible in the picture above. The 3080 that I swapped for these archaic video cards had three powerful fans on its own, but then again, it generated massive amounts of heat. I'm looking forward to learn how much heat these cards will generate. 😁

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Rhaedas fedia.io Rhaedas@fedia.io
Joined: 2024-03-03
#25 · (edited) Quote Reply

I have two spare Noctua fans that I could install at the bottom of the case. The top already has three, CPU cooling tower has two (horizontal) and the one visible in the picture above. The 3080 that I swapped for these archaic video cards had three powerful fans on its own, but then again, it generated massive amounts of heat. I'm looking forward to learn how much heat these cards will generate. 😁

Sounds okay, but don't forget, pumping it out of the case isn't enough. If you're in a small room, it could get toasty. Won't really affect the computer much, but there's a reason why server rooms are kept cold.

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slazer2au lemmy.world slazer2au@lemmy.world
Joined: 2023-06-30
#26 · Quote Reply

There is no “right side up”

.ǝʇɐɯ ʇɥƃᴉɹ uɯɐp

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nonentity sh.itjust.works nonentity@sh.itjust.works
Joined: 2024-06-12
#27 · Quote Reply

The original IBM XT and PC used ISA, EISA, and VESA cards and slots which faced the other direction. PCI and AGP cards flipped orientation partly to ensure they couldn’t be accidentally inserted into the wrong slot, and became the norm as the older slots disappeared from systems.

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Blue_Morpho lemmy.world Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
Joined: 2023-11-14
#28 · Quote Reply

The IBM PC did not have PCI expansion slots.

The pci slots were called isa.

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Davel23 fedia.io Davel23@fedia.io
Joined: 2024-03-16
#29 · Quote Reply

Just get a BTX motherboard, that'll fix it.

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AgentSeven lemmy.zip AgentSeven@lemmy.zip
Joined: 2026-07-30
#30 · Quote Reply

Those are the cards manufactured in Australia.

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printf("%s", name); piefed.blahaj.zone akunohana@piefed.blahaj.zone
Joined: 2026-03-30
#31 · Quote Reply

Those are the cards manufactured in Australia.

NAwLB30QeXC8Nec.jpg

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printf("%s", name); piefed.blahaj.zone akunohana@piefed.blahaj.zone
Joined: 2026-03-30
#32 · Quote Reply

.ǝʇɐɯ ʇɥƃᴉɹ uɯɐp

So that's how you express accent in writing!

2
VindictiveJudge lemmy.world VindictiveJudge@lemmy.world
Joined: 2023-06-30
#33 · (edited) Quote Reply

The original IBM XT and PC used ISA, EISA, and VESA cards and slots which faced the other direction. PCI and AGP cards flipped orientation partly to ensure they couldn’t be accidentally inserted into the wrong slot, and became the norm as the older slots disappeared from systems.

It was also so they could have slots that were either/or, so you could put either type of card there. Really wish they flipped them again for PCIe.

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printf("%s", name); piefed.blahaj.zone akunohana@piefed.blahaj.zone
Joined: 2026-03-30
#34 · Quote Reply

Just get a BTX motherboard, that'll fix it.

Too bad they never caught on. According to Wikipedia, the advent of more power efficient hardware made BTX obsolete. I tried looking for some, but all I could find was a dead Amazon link (Sweden).

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Davel23 fedia.io Davel23@fedia.io
Joined: 2024-03-16
#35 · Quote Reply

Too bad they never caught on. According to Wikipedia, the advent of more power efficient hardware made BTX obsolete. I tried looking for some, but all I could find was a dead Amazon link (Sweden).

Yeah, I was just joking. BTX hasn't been a thing for a decade or more.

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rose56 lemmy.zip roserose56@lemmy.zip
Joined: 2025-09-17
#36 · Quote Reply

Where at display port?

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printf("%s", name); piefed.blahaj.zone akunohana@piefed.blahaj.zone
Joined: 2026-03-30
#37 · Quote Reply

Yeah, I was just joking. BTX hasn't been a thing for a decade or more.

Ah, well, my middle name is Gullible. 😅🤣

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printf("%s", name); piefed.blahaj.zone akunohana@piefed.blahaj.zone
Joined: 2026-03-30
#38 · (edited) Quote Reply

Where at display port?

As for the outputs from the computer, I purposefully chose a graphics card (the bottom card in the images) with no DP, because my monitor only has VGA and HDMI in. 😊 And as for inputs to the computer, I'm only going to be recording analog signals from sources such as VHS📼, Mini DV📹 and audio cassette tapes📟 and that one DVI-I input (top card in the images) has adapters for both component video (YPbPr), composit video (RCA, S-video and SCART), VGA and HDMI. 📺

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gastroglizzy piefed.social gastroglizzy@piefed.social
Joined: 2026-08-26
#39 · Quote Reply

You just had to burst my bubble. F***. 💦

You're supposed to say, "it's like that for cable management purposes."

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sem piefed.blahaj.zone sem@piefed.blahaj.zone
Joined: 2025-09-04
#40 · Quote Reply

Same. Or should I say, sem.

;-)

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Hawke lemmy.world Hawke@lemmy.world
Joined: 2023-06-21
#41 · (edited) Quote Reply

The pci slots were called isa.

No; the expansion slots were ISA. PCI is a different kind of bus entirely.

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printf("%s", name); piefed.blahaj.zone akunohana@piefed.blahaj.zone
Joined: 2026-03-30
#42 · Quote Reply

You're supposed to say, "it's like that for cable management purposes."

Are you my only friend?🔌🛠️

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JigglySackles lemmy.world JigglySackles@lemmy.world
Joined: 2023-06-13
#43 · Quote Reply

Lol it was a joke.

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