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Nergotremelopoligulatrew
06-08-2005, 02:51 AM
Speaker and my computer. The question is can they get along.

Hi there. I'm both new to these boards and new to modding. Right now Im gearing up to start preparations to commence planning my first mod.
I'm actualy going to build the computer right into a desk that I also plan on building myself. How ever I'm worriied that my designs as of know have my computer two close to my Kenwood speakers.
The speakers are about 180 watts and have three speakers (2 small and one large bass) per speaker housing.
For quite some time my current computer has sat pretty close to one of them with no noticable Ill effects. (About 8 inches from the small speakers and about 14 inches from the large one)
My current design for this desk will have my new computer sitting directly above this speaker.
So would that be two close or is there something that could be done to "block" any interferance? I just dont want to build a new desk and then have it fry my new computer.

Alright I know this was a little wordy but I wanted to make sure I gave all the details. Any input would be appriciated.

reddog418
06-08-2005, 03:22 AM
The two things to worry about with the placement of speakers.
1.) magnetic interference, and
2.) vibrations which can cause your HDD heads to grind into the discs, causing physical damage.

I wouldn't worry too much about the smaller speakers. They have negligible magnetic impact on anything. To prove it, play some music and just move your speakers around your monitor (I don't really recommend this, but a little test won't hurt). If you see discoloration, then your speakers are badly shielded, and I wouldn't put them anywhere near your computer. If not, you're fine, and you can put the smaller satellite speakers anywhere. However, your subwoofer contains very powerful magnets, and in order not to damage your harddrive or any other component, you must keep it at LEAST 12 inches away.

temmink
06-08-2005, 04:32 AM
Alternately you can get some magnetic shielding and build it into your subwoofer box or into your table. You should be able to get some sheet sheilding relatively cheap from the right kind of hardware store, and there are some good guides on the net on how to sheild speakers properly. I'll edit them in when I get home from work but you can probably google it just as easy (just search for 'magnetic sheilding'). But as reddog said, so long as you dont try and mount your sub into your case or something and leave it a bit of space you'll probably be ok. Best bet would probably be to have the sub seperate anyway to avoid any vibration within the table.

Xato
06-08-2005, 07:28 AM
Yes, as vibration is not good for your hard-drives.

Cwrench
06-08-2005, 01:40 PM
Here I found this on PC World's web site it helped me. I have tested this by putting my two 180 watt speaker towers along side my computer. My CRT monitor blured very badly though, so hopfully you have an LCD or your monitor is at least a foot away from your woofer. Good luck with the desk.

"Busting the Biggest PC Myths

Magnets zap your data.

For venerable floppies, this statement holds true. We placed a 99-cent magnet on a 3.5-inch floppy for a few seconds. The magnet stuck to the disk and ruined its data.

Fortunately, most modern storage devices, such as SD and CompactFlash memory cards, are immune to magnetic fields. "There's nothing magnetic in flash memory, so [a magnet] won't do anything," says Bill Frank, executive director of the CompactFlash Association. "A magnet powerful enough to disturb the electrons in flash would be powerful enough to suck the iron out of your blood cells," says Frank.

The same goes for hard drives. The only magnets powerful enough to scrub data from a drive platter are laboratory degaussers or those used by government agencies to wipe bits off media. "In the real world, people are not losing data from magnets," says Bill Rudock, a tech-support engineer with hard-drive maker Seagate. "In every disk," notes Rudock, "there's one heck of a magnet that swings the head."

Want to erase data from a hard drive you plan to toss? Don't bother with a magnet. Overwrite the data that is stored on the media instead. For flash, fill up the drive with anything, like pictures of your beloved dachshund. Unlike with magnetic media, from which experts can usually recover at least some overwritten data, once new data is written to flash media, the old data is gone forever. To overwrite the contents of a hard drive, try Eraser from Heidi Computers."

found here: http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,116572,00.asp

Zeus
06-08-2005, 01:42 PM
maybe make some small modifications to your speaker placement

Nergotremelopoligulatrew
06-08-2005, 10:12 PM
Alright. Ive done some preliminary research (google) and have found that appearently Soft Iron can be used to shield objects from magnetic interference. Im still looking into where I could obtain some. Even if it turns out that it isnt realy needed It might be cool to have considering that my computer will be Nuclear Reactor themed.

This is my setup as of now.
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b126/Nergotremelopoligulatrew/Picture.jpg

This is a "slightly altered" version of the last picture showing a generalization of what I plan to do.
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b126/Nergotremelopoligulatrew/PictureDoctored.bmp

MrSlacker
06-08-2005, 10:19 PM
love the "KAPUT" on the case! :)

Nergotremelopoligulatrew
06-08-2005, 10:55 PM
Yeah. My computer got that as its name after it crashed the first time from being overwhelmed by adware. It realy didn't help the fact that I was (and am still) running windows ME. I've just been reluctant to upgrade a computer that I'm just going to replace shortly anyway. I guess Im just a sucker for abuse from my unstable computer. But thats the way it goes. Kaput crashes on me and then I beat it with my sandles. :mad:

ZeD
06-08-2005, 11:07 PM
WTF does that name mean?

reddog418
06-08-2005, 11:11 PM
Mounting the computer directly on the subwoofer assembly, again, poses the vibration problem. A solution might be to get some sound dampeners, or even some rubber grommets, to mount your hard drives and cd-roms on. This way, they act as insulators from the vibrations and allow your computer to function properly.

A way to test whether or not you are sufficiently insulating from vibrations is to take out your CDROM, and firmly place it on top of the subwoofer. Pop in a music CD, and crank the music. If your sound is skipping, you need more insulation.

I have a 400w system, and my computer was almost 4 feet away from my subwoofer, and I was still able to vibrate the whole thing causing skips. This is the magnitude you have to counter in order to safely operate your system.

Of course, you can always risk it, and build it anyways without sufficient protection. Though, if you happen to be reading/writing something on the HD, and playing loud music, you run the risk of physical sector damage, meaning parts of your HD disc are permanently unusable, causing corruption.

Xato
06-09-2005, 02:13 AM
Yeh, when the pin jumps and scratches the HDD, its not cool. It pretty much writes off the whole HDD

Nergotremelopoligulatrew
06-09-2005, 02:23 AM
Well as of know my design has the desk being built over and around the speakers with no direct physical contact. How ever my designs are all still in my head and can change. If it does end up sitting ontop of the speaker I would probably get some of those rubber feet things.

Another idea I was kicking around would be to have the whole case sitting on little springs or maybe just all the inards. How sweet would that be if it worked. Anyway thanks for all the advice.

P.S. The name has no meaning what-so-ever. I made it up one day while I was trying to baffle a friend of mine and I liked the way it sounded. Thus it has become my name on all the boards that support 24 character names.

MisterChief
06-09-2005, 09:57 PM
P.S. The name has no meaning what-so-ever. I made it up one day while I was trying to baffle a friend of mine and I liked the way it sounded. Thus it has become my name on all the boards that support 24 character names.

How the heck do you pronounce that?

ZeD
06-09-2005, 10:35 PM
I dont think you do

Zeus
06-09-2005, 10:46 PM
you pronounce it pbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb :p :p :p