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Re: Ferrite rings do anything or just marketing frill?

Subject: Re: Ferrite rings do anything or just marketing frill?
From: "Joel Kolstad"
Date: Wed, 31 May 2006 09:26:16 -0700
Newsgroups: sci.electronics.basics, sci.electronics.design, comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips
"Jan Panteltje" <pNaonStpealmtje@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message 
news:e5jtc9$jct$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> If you connect an oscilloscope to for exampel the +5V line, you will
> see it is very noisy indeed, with short spike too.

...and even a power rail that looks exceedingly "clean" on an oscilloscope can 
still have plenty of noise riding on it if you start looking closely with, 
e.g., a spectrum analyzer!

The manufacturer claiming that the ferrite beads will "improve (the) quality 
of the video output
as well as system stability" is undoubtedly overly optimisitic (as others have 
stated, the primary for the ferrite beads is for meeting regulatory emission 
requirements), although I did once use a PC that had such a noisy power rail 
that there was *visible* interface on the video card's output and *some* ISA 
cards simply wouldn't operate at all.  It was an utterly generic no-name box.

> Normal cases are closed so for RFI to the outside world it should not help.

Actually, unless you're getting a case from the likes of Dell or HP or someone 
else with a name to protect, many "normal" cases leak like a sieve.  And of 
course the current fad in the modding community of putting a large piece of 
plexiglass in the side of the case to show off the internals doesn't block 
anything below the audio range of EMI. :-)

---Joel



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