Please help me identify this PCI-card

[Karlos]

By the look of it, this card simply boosts the current of the 3.3v rails (pumping it back into the system via the PCI bus) in the system by converting some of the juice on the 5v line.

I expect you might need this on systems where the 3.3v line from the PSU doesn't deliver a lot of current. For systems that might have dual 3.3v CPU I can see it being useful.

-edit-

On an AT PSU there is also no standard 3.3 or other voltage lines. An AT system that makes heavy use of 3.3v might use cards like this to take some strain of motherboard voltage converters (they can dissipate a lot of heat)

[Karlos]

gnarly wrote:

Damn! This system is screwed, nothing, nada!
Ah, I see I was in error not to regularly fix it when it was working. Damn, I still haven't got the hang of "thinking different" enough!

You aren't bitter about that at all are you? ;-)

When discussing system choices in my new job I had to put up with "why macs are superior to everything else, why we use them, why we'll never ever use a non-mac platform" and similar  long-term mac afficionado bull. Still theyre artists and I'm a developer. What would I know about systems?

Today just proved how overhyped it all truly is. Given a non-trivial job like running a server, linux laughs down on it from such a lofty height it's barely audible :-)

/resumes regular topic...