Shielding my cables

[zinton]

So in my xbox-pc mod i have found out that my pcie ribbon cables are crashing my graphics card to crash because of interference. I have read that wrapping them in aluminium foil may shield them from the EMI. But I also heard that copper works well too. Should I go out and buy copper foil to and double shield the cables or is this unnecessary?

[juretrn]

If you think you really need to shield cables, aluminium foil will do.

[DavidTheWin]

So in my xbox-pc mod i have found out that my pcie ribbon cables are crashing my graphics card to crash because of interference. I have read that wrapping them in aluminium foil may shield them from the EMI. But I also heard that copper works well too. Should I go out and buy copper foil to and double shield the cables or is this unnecessary?

 

Never heard of that issue but to me, exposing lots of electrically conductive metal next to your graphics card is a bad idea

[juretrn]

Never heard of that issue but to me, exposing lots of electrically conductive metal next to your graphics card is a bad idea

Not many people actually use PCIe ribbon cables.

[ManWithBeard1990]

PCIe ribbon cables are usually shielded already, aren't they? Maybe you just got a particularly low-quality one? Anyway, just try it. I suggest using adhesive aluminium tape because it'll look cleaner. Don't let it touch anything that shouldn't be short-circuited though.

[LukaP]

Never heard of that issue but to me, exposing lots of electrically conductive metal next to your graphics card is a bad idea

ever heard of a faraday cage? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage

 

 

OP just use aluminium. the electromagnetic fields of your PC arent strong enough to really warrant copper or silver

[zinton]

DavidTheWin

It seems to be an issue with people mining crypto currency since they use these cheap extenders to get more space out of one machine. But the idea is that I would use a shielding layer of aluminum and then a insulating layer of electrical tape.

 

juretrn

Yeah I need to use the pcie cables because my graphics card needs to lie dowe flat and draw air from the top of the case with the cpu. And yeah I was going to see how much the tape costs at the store today.

 

ManWithBeard1990

Yup they are uber low quality. cost me about 10 bucks. The shielded super fancy ones cost upwards of 100 dollars.

 

LukaP

Alright I just heard that aluminium was good for protecting against EMI where copper was good for RFI. Although idk if RFI would be an issue at all.

 

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FOR EVERYONE: Should I try to cover as much of the cable and their connections as possible or just focus on the cable?

[LukaP]

 

 

LukaP

Alright I just heard that aluminium was good for protecting against EMI where copper was good for RFI. Although idk if RFI would be an issue at all.

 

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FOR EVERYONE: Should I try to cover as much of the cable and their connections as possible or just focus on the cable?

RFI is still EMI just a small part of the spectrum

 

just cover as much as you can, and if it doesnt work, your ribobn is just crap and you need a new one

[carolkarine]

you can buy shielded cables. I remember an OCN user having to buy 100 dollar cables to make a wall PC work. I know that Maki Role in his build log are using the same cables. send him a PM, I know that those'll be fine for what you're doing.

[zinton]

you can buy shielded cables. I remember an OCN user having to buy 100 dollar cables to make a wall PC work. I know that Maki Role in his build log are using the same cables. send him a PM, I know that those'll be fine for what you're doing.

Thanks, those build logs were a good resource. I just hope my ghetto rig of shield tape works because I really don't want to spend the 95 bucks for a cable

[CaffiBach]

did the silver foil work? trying to build a wall mounted pc and having trouble with the gpu as soon as i fold the cables over it wont post but will flat, as i dont have silver foil in house its hard to test my self.

[zinton]

did the silver foil work? trying to build a wall mounted pc and having trouble with the gpu as soon as i fold the cables over it wont post but will flat, as i dont have silver foil in house its hard to test my self.

Uhhhh yeah, nothing seemed to work. I even went balls to the walls and got a fancy 80 dollar servergrade pcie extender, helped a little but still got crashing. What baffles me is I've seen linus just use a regular old pcie cable in his builds that seemed to work fine.

[ThomasD]

Do not forget that your shield needs to be in contact with ground (the chassis is a good ground source)  Otherwise your "shield" is actually a reflector.

 

You can get adhesive copper shielding foil from various sources, but it's not exactly cheap.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Tapes-Master-10ft-Copper-Foil/dp/B00Z8MCK58/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1452713375&sr=8-3&keywords=copper+shielding+tape