Computer case as Faraday Cage?

[CostcoSamples]

Any electrical engineers out there?

 

I was thinking, If you have an all metal computer case with tight fitting side panels, you'd essentially be placing your computer inside a Faraday cage.  I wonder how beneficial this could be for stability and/or overclocking.  Radio waves are constantly bombarding your tiny computer circuitry, even background radiation from space.  I know a lot of this is somehow corrected in the design process, but wouldn't there still be a noticeable benefit from the faraday cage?

 

thanks in advance!

[brownninja97]

wouldnt make a difference.

[cesrai]

So this is what you mean ?

 

 

 

And I don't know if there's a benefit but I think there isn't. 

[Sakkura]

Any electrical engineers out there?

 

I was thinking, If you have an all metal computer case with tight fitting side panels, you'd essentially be placing your computer inside a Faraday cage.

 

Not an electrical engineer, but I can still answer this one - the side panels do not have to fit tightly in order to form a Faraday cage. You can have openings in a Faraday cage as long as they're not too big - they just have to be a lot smaller than the wavelength of radio waves. Any full-metal computer case will be a good Faraday cage.

[Drackeo]

The only way I can imagine this helping a computer is if it communicated between parts wirelessly. Radio and other emf waves usually shouldn't bother physical things.

Source: Electrical engineering student Lol

[QueenDemetria]

Any electrical engineers out there?

Kinda... but OT, not really. When overclocking, a lot of the interference is caused by the inefficiencies of the power delivery system or flaws in the ways clocks are generated. For the power delivery system(PSU, VRM, anything else in between), the power has to be knocked down from the high voltage AC(from the wall) down to a lower voltage DC current, and in this process electrical "noise" can be generated from converting the power and  in some cases, AC current still finds its way through(this is a problem with audio systems, being able to hear the 50/60hz from the wall through your headphones). The best way to eliminate(err, help really) is by using high efficiency and high quality components, so choosing a good PSU and motherboard. As for the errors in the clock generators, its really a crapshoot. Consumer grade PC's can only be so accurate when it comes to being accurate, since the cost has to be down in order for PC's to be affordable(high accuracy signal generatos can costs hundreds/thousands of dollars, and that's just a single part of the PC). You might notice how even though your CPU will have a FSB of 100Mhz and a multiplier of 10, however your CPU will be 1001.23Mhz(or similar) instead of having the perfect 1000Mhz(or 1Ghz). This  is because the clock generators have to round and use other "error correcting" methods to give a "close enough" clock, but in return this causes issues when overclocking since the frequencies aren't quite exact and conflict with other frequencies(ex: northbridges frequency could not get along with the CPU's frequency). 

 

In high accuracy environments(theoretical), creating a Faraday cage might help, but it could also cause problems too(trapping in the frequencies caused by components).

[CostcoSamples]

Not an electrical engineer, but I can still answer this one - the side panels do not have to fit tightly in order to form a Faraday cage. You can have openings in a Faraday cage as long as they're not too big - they just have to be a lot smaller than the wavelength of radio waves. Any full-metal computer case will be a good Faraday cage.

In order for the faraday cage to be complete, the side panels would need to be in direct contact all around, metal on metal, which is why I said tight fitting.  And yes, openings are OK, but to fully block all frequencies, it needs to be solid.

[CostcoSamples]

The only way I can imagine this helping a computer is if it communicated between parts wirelessly. Radio and other emf waves usually shouldn't bother physical things.

Source: Electrical engineering student Lol

 

 

Kinda... but OT, not really. When overclocking, a lot of the interference is caused by the inefficiencies of the power delivery system or flaws in the ways clocks are generated. For the power delivery system(PSU, VRM, anything else in between), the power has to be knocked down from the high voltage AC(from the wall) down to a lower voltage DC current, and in this process electrical "noise" can be generated from converting the power and  in some cases, AC current still finds its way through(this is a problem with audio systems, being able to hear the 50/60hz from the wall through your headphones). The best way to eliminate(err, help really) is by using high efficiency and high quality components, so choosing a good PSU and motherboard. As for the errors in the clock generators, its really a crapshoot. Consumer grade PC's can only be so accurate when it comes to being accurate, since the cost has to be down in order for PC's to be affordable(high accuracy signal generatos can costs hundreds/thousands of dollars, and that's just a single part of the PC). You might notice how even though your CPU will have a FSB of 100Mhz and a multiplier of 10, however your CPU will be 1001.23Mhz(or similar) instead of having the perfect 1000Mhz(or 1Ghz). This  is because the clock generators have to round and use other "error correcting" methods to give a "close enough" clock, but in return this causes issues when overclocking since the frequencies aren't quite exact and conflict with other frequencies(ex: northbridges frequency could not get along with the CPU's frequency). 

 

In high accuracy environments(theoretical), creating a Faraday cage might help, but it could also cause problems too(trapping in the frequencies caused by components).

Thanks for the replies!

 

I appreciate that the PSU is the biggest factor here, but here me out on this before you shoot me down.  certain components (CPU and GPU core especially) are getting insanely small.  The dielectric layer in a Haswell CPU is only a few atoms thick!  (which completely blows my mind btw).  When dealing with things this small, a couple of electrons out of place can make a non-trivial difference.  So if radio waves are inducing tiny currents in the circuits, perhaps it is trivial in some, but in the very tiny scale, it can be non-trivial.  For overclocking, where the inner workings of the CPU are very important, couldn't the interference be significant?  Perhaps this is taken into account in the design, and can be cancelled out somehow (I've read it's a factor in the design, but I'm not familiar with the design process).

 

thoughts?

[Ertman]

Also not an electirical engineer, nor do I play one in TV. Still aren't most computers (metal ones) faraday cages as they are now. Electronics today are designed with your concerns in mind. Sure the EM waves could be inducing current, but in normal usage scenarios the currents would be blocked by shielding from the case or be too small to due any harm.

[Scheer]

Any metal case is basically a Faraday cage already.

 

I cannot for the life of me find where I bookmarked the pages, but for a while I was really interested in RF engineering and read tons of studies about EMP blasts and basically it came down to the fact that if there was ever enough RF energy to fry electronic components, it was enough energy to kill you... so I wouldn't be worrying about your computer at that point.

 

Now, as transistors get smaller, they also become easier to fry since the "wires" are smaller it would be easier to break the path... so there may come a point in the distant future where it will be a concern to have.