HIS iClear claims to reduce noise, really just fills an empty PCIe slot

If you've been hankering for a good dose of snake oil, we've found something sure to satisfy. The HIS iClear card is marketed as a device that rides shotgun with your graphics card and "provides up to a 10-percent increase in signal-to-noise ratio performance." From what we can gather, this mostly barren piece of kit is supposed to reduce noise generated by your graphics card (or something to that effect), but considering that NewEgg gives this thing away for free with GPU purchases, we feel our doubts about its effectiveness as justified.

[Via BoingBoing]

[Haikibutsu @ Jun 25th 2008 6:20AM]

Does this come with a free supply of headlight oil?

[raptor87 @ Jun 25th 2008 7:35AM]

Blinker Fluid

[Blackstar @ Jun 25th 2008 8:03AM]

I thought it was headlight fluid?

[Zach @ Jun 25th 2008 9:14AM]

Everybody knows that headlights haven't used oil in a long time, they use grease for the headlight bearings.

[Abuzar @ Jun 25th 2008 9:51AM]

No it only comes with elbow grease. Maybe you should head to the store.

[tyler @ Jun 25th 2008 10:47AM]

I bet it comes with a free set of kanivity pins though. Maybe some caneuter valves as well.

[Tim @ Jun 25th 2008 1:22PM]

@ zach: the angle of headlights is adjustable in cars; many cars do actually have bearings for this purpose. I've never encountered lubricated bearings, but bearings nonetheless. Actually, when these bearings stick (and in an old enough car they will, one would spray it with penetrating oil (wd40). So stick with the headlight fluid. (unless its over a hundred years old, with actual oil lamps)

[ryan.sahb @ Jun 26th 2008 6:10AM]

@ Abuzar:

Hey, I'm looking to buy some elbow grease, and... uh... headlight fluid?

[BuddyBoy @ Jun 25th 2008 6:25AM]

Noise generated by the graphics card?
Are we talking fan noise? How could it effect that? Who would buy this?
WTF???

[w00t @ Jun 25th 2008 6:31AM]

It creates a vacuum in your case that the fan noise can't penetrate!

...electrical noise you numpty!! :)

[k @ Jun 25th 2008 6:40AM]

Those electrical components on the board obviously do something electrically

[w00t @ Jun 25th 2008 6:55AM]

Well it appears to be 6 capacitors, empty spaces for 6 more and 6 surface mount components. Presumably the power is run through it to smooth it out, but I very much doubt it's of any real value.

[DarkUltra @ Jun 25th 2008 8:13AM]

anyone remember the lack of a retail PCIe physx card? Well official explanation has it wouldn't work because many geforce 3d cards "noised up" the pcie lanes breaking the physx pcie connection. Maybe this card would fix that. Anyway, ageia gave up and sold out to nvidia.

Someone with a smartphone that can copy-paste please include a link for citation (I have an iPhone dang it)

[Mike10010100 @ Jun 25th 2008 10:28AM]

DarkUltra, your post made me chuckle.

[Chris Macdonald @ Jun 25th 2008 10:30AM]

everyone who says that should be banned from ever commenting again

[Ghen @ Jun 25th 2008 1:13PM]

Not sure what you're talking about chris. Who said what?

[max kingsbury @ Jun 25th 2008 9:00PM]

I see two real possibilities: This card stabilizes constant voltages on the bus, or it keeps electromagnetic waves from flying out into other cards.

1: The card bus should provide two voltage "rails" to power devices on the bus. These rails are DC, one at a positive value and one at 0(ground.) These rails are used to power the devices. Power flows from the high one, through some load, to the low one. Imagine a store of water at the top of a contraption, a water wheel in the middle, and another store of water in the bottom.
When current is consumed from the rails, the voltages of the rails have a tendency to "dip." Imagine the upper store of water coming down slightly when tons of water is let out. When the rails dip, bad things can happen. Probably nothing you need to worry about, but it is a measurable phenomenon.
Capacitors store energy as unit charges(electrons, pieces of current) on two parallel plates at different voltages. Capacitors resist changes in voltage by dumping charge. Thus, a capacitor between ground and your positive voltage rail can reduce fluctuations in the rail voltage.

2: Current flowing through a wire creates electromagnetic radiation. Electromagnetic radiation can then float around in space, and cause current flow in another wire. This can be bad. If you have very fast transitions between no current and some current, you can expect more electromagnetic radiation, and more induced current elsewhere.
Ground planes(big pieces of conducting material attached to ground) can absorb electromagnetic radiation so that it does not penetrate to the wires on the other side. This is what Faraday cages do.

tl;dr version: It may not actually do anything useful, but it probably does do "something."

[w00t @ Jun 25th 2008 6:27AM]

Even if this did actually reduce noise a little I really can't see why you'd need to in the first place.

And before anyone suggests analogue audio, if noise was a big issue you'd be using an external firewire or USB device anyway!

[KarlW @ Jun 25th 2008 9:51AM]

Just use DVI. Digital signals don't care about noise. Besides, cable lengths have maximums so the signal/noise ratio is kept under control.

[Phour ZwanZig @ Jun 25th 2008 10:14PM]

karlw, Digital signals DO care about noise.. Its just that it takes more noise to effect the Digital signals than it does an Analog signal.. Ask anyone who deals with measuring and working with digital signals on a daily basis, and they will agree.. Digital is more robust being that it is sent it 1s and 0s, it can correct lil flaws, but Analog doesnt have this capability..

[dhytspam @ Jun 25th 2008 6:29AM]

Seriously, the innards of a tamagotchi looks more complex.

[Passarinhuu @ Jun 25th 2008 6:29AM]

I think they are refering to electrical noise....

[Rick wilson @ Jun 25th 2008 2:05PM]

agreed. that many caps must be for electrical noise

[jaalin @ Jun 25th 2008 6:32AM]

does it come in a pink HERS version for the lady pc enthusiasts?

[Shinigami @ Jun 25th 2008 11:34AM]

Only with pink GeForce PCI-E cards! xD

[Liam @ Jun 25th 2008 6:42AM]

If you want your computer's audio to have a better signal/noise ratio, then use an external sound card. Move it as far from the other electrical devices as possible. Duh.

[Simon @ Jun 25th 2008 6:45AM]

There might actually be something to this.

I just bought a new PC, a barebone, with a GT 8800 graphics card, and I'm currently using the on-board sound input for my headset. Now, while I'm on the desktop everything is fine, but when I switch to WoW people have told me they get a lot of noise on teamspeak. So, my guess has already been that it's the graphics card and the on-board audio not playing well together. Of course the easiest solution will be just to buy a dedicated soundcard, but that iClear card might actually be onto something, though I can't tell if it actually works. But it's not that far fetched, and it being just some capacitors actually makes sense. It's not "doing" anything, just filtering interferences in the power circuit, or something like that ... and my limited hardware knowledge tells me that's exactly what capacitors can do.

Anyway, don't mock it until somebody at least tried it. If NewEgg wants someone to test it, I'ld be happy to do so ... I live in germany though ...

[Just-uh-Thought @ Jun 25th 2008 8:04AM]

Problem#1: You play Wow!

[DarkUltra @ Jun 25th 2008 8:23AM]

no, he probably has a geforce card. Read up on pcie and physx. Thank you.

[EdZ @ Jun 25th 2008 10:39AM]

A few caps across the PCIe lanes won't reduce the amount of EM bouncing around the motherboard (the source of noise from onboard audio chips).

And if you've got to stick a bunch of extra capacitors across your PCIe rails in order to operate your devices properly, it's time for a new motherboard.

[blueshimmer007 @ Jun 25th 2008 11:09AM]

That kind of interference (noisy microphone) has very little to do with the quality of the motherboard, or sound card, or PSU for that matter. As soon as the signal hits the digital converter on your motherboard it is "immune" to interference. The solution to EM interference on your mic is to get a case that is worth more than 70 dollars or get a microphone that is shielded (probably pretty hard to find). The long cord on a microphone is sort of like an antenna that picks up all the interference. Mic boost just amplifies all the signals, not just your voice as well, and makes the problem much worse. Windows on your case allow EM to go through, however some windows are mini faraday cages that connect with the rest of the case to provide EM protection. I can imagine the clear plexiglass cases are the worst for this problem.

[Fappy @ Jun 25th 2008 6:46AM]

that thing would cause MORE NOISE! blocking the videocards fan's airflow would just make it work harder.

[DarkLight @ Jun 25th 2008 6:51AM]

Uh, those look like a bunch of capacitors...

I'd say it actually does something more than just filling the empty PCIe slot. That would be filtering out the power. There are a bunch of motorized components inside a computer (hard drive, fans) that cause some awful noise in the power lines..

External sound cards sound better, in part because they don't share the power with any motorized device. So this would indeed help to the cause... Not alot, but, something is something (other than a slot filler)

[Jonathan Buford @ Jun 25th 2008 6:53AM]

Well, from the looks of it, it is probably just providing some filtering (the big silver things are capacitors) to keep noise from the card getting to the system, and perhaps leveling out the power supply to the card a bit. Actually, with that number of caps, it should be effective, if there is an issue to start with.

[Mindfield @ Jun 25th 2008 6:53AM]

Wow. It's the cell phone booster of the computer set.

[Dagwood @ Jun 25th 2008 6:54AM]

This is just product placement. Its an advertisement for HIS products. Why else would they give it away. If people are willing to buy a $100 network card for gaming, they are probably willing to try something like this out. People who buy odd add on cards for minimal gains are also more likely to show off their components. And there it is, a giant HIS logo.

[Get in the van, I have candy @ Jun 25th 2008 12:38PM]

Face up, if you have a case that inverts the motherboard (such as a Lian-Li)

[S100 Rulz @ Jun 25th 2008 7:22AM]

Also known as active termination?

Some part of the bus noise eliminator?

[RD400 @ Jun 25th 2008 7:28AM]

It's a power rail noise filter. When you're 110VAC power from your house is converted to DC in the power supply, it gets rectified and filtered. What this means is that it goes through a series of diodes (one-way check valves) that make the alternating current, which, hence the name, alternates between + and - polarity. It goes in the rectifier as a sine wave, but comes out basically as a sine wave that has had the part of the sine wave below the x-axis mirrored onto the positive x-axis. It makes it look like how a child would draw bumpy hills or something.

At any rate it's not quite DC power yet, as it still resembles alternating current in a way, albeit an all-positive way. So what they do is they put a capacitor, usually about 5000uF (micro Farads), or 5 smaller 1000uF capacitors wired in parallel, or a larger number of even smaller ones so that their values add up to around 5000uF or whatever the designer calls for, between the output of the rectifier and ground.

what this does is when the wavy DC signal comes in, it charges up the capacitor until the wavy DC signal starts having a lesser voltage (remember, at this point the DC signal is wavy and varies from 5 to 0 volts, or 12, or whatever the power supply is making it into). As the voltage from the rectifier drops, the capacitor is charged up to the max that it had been, say in this case 5 volts. So as the rectifier drops in voltage, the 5 volt capacitor wants to start discharging so that it can maintain that 5 volts. It does this by releasing an arbitrary, and theoretically infinite, amount of current, into the circuit. This voltage will slowly decrease, as capacitors don't have enough energy to maintain 5 volts, so basically what you get is a smoother DC current signal, which instead of lookign like wavy hills, starts at zero as the power supply is turned on and then goes quickly up to 5 volts and gradually declines to about 4 or 4.2, depending on the capacitors, and then goes quickly back up to 5 volts as the recitifier's voltage goes back up to 5 volts.

That's how a power supply works. Any decent power supply does a good enough job of this. This card looks like it basically is a filter. Which is highly unnessesary for almost all applications. I tinker around with musical electronics, amps and so forth, and i can tell you that you can't hear any difference between types of filters that are within certain standard design tolerances. If you think you can, it is probably a placebo effect. Or you have a poor power supply.

This card is a lot of BS as long as you don't have the crappiest of power supplies.

[acquadiparma @ Jun 25th 2008 7:35AM]

you lost me @ power rail noise filter

[ShadowKain @ Jun 25th 2008 8:12AM]

I am betting on the Placebo effect. Those big scary capacitors don't swar me. Although it would fill my empty PCI-E slot I have. If they are giving it away for free on newegg, what value could it have? Everything I get for free from newegg usually is not of high qualit including the many many USB sticks that break within months....

[ShadowKain @ Jun 25th 2008 8:12AM]

I am betting on the Placebo effect. Those big scary capacitors don't swar me. Although it would fill my empty PCI-E slot I have. If they are giving it away for free on newegg, what value could it have? Everything I get for free from newegg usually is not of high quality including the many many USB sticks that break within months....

[Crayola @ Jun 25th 2008 8:16AM]

That is oversimplifying, the rectification is right, but that after is the relm of switch mode power supply, you try pushing 500W with a transformer!

From a board point of view the purpose of the card, I believe, is to bring those decoupling capacitors closer to the PCI supply rails, these are 3.3V, the benefit will be those onboard audio chip, reducing those odd blimping hissing you hear on the headphones, cause by digital signal ramming about.

This is not unlike electronic test equipment that fits into the PC driven by software, on those, to remove any interference, additional isolated power supply is build onto the board.

It is plausible that such a simple application could work and be effective.

[DarkUltra @ Jun 25th 2008 8:18AM]

what about pcie graphics cards noisying up the pcie infrastructure? Check out why physx never went pcie. This could be bad for other cards too, especially audio cards as one pointed out. Time to get this out in the wild

[spandox @ Jun 25th 2008 10:23AM]

The power isn't perfect and neither is the transmission. There is load on the lines and the lines themselves have impedance. Wires are not the idealized objects we want them to be. In fact it is wire of around that same size that we make inductor coils out of.

The reason you put caps on the board and the bus it is to provide energy that is closer to where it is being used canceling out the wire impedance.
(The capacitance on the power line is good [in this case] and on the ground line is bad - it is the inductance that REALLY kills you - think current change limiters) This is why you not only put small caps on the bus you put even more right at most chips.

Digital switching is really noisy. Every time you open a transistor you dump its power on the ground line - too many things switch at once and ground temporarily even raises just as the signal lines drop.

The theory is sound - augment the motherboard to add even more power storage/filtering to the pci-e bus (it should already have some). The other components can make the filtering even more active than just a cap. A big metalized plate in the rest of the board could also blog transmissive noise (no better than aluminum foil would - but hey).

We WANT this to be complete BS - and it may be - but the theory has SOME merit.

[Graham @ Jun 25th 2008 7:43AM]

Simon's right. Capacitors act as filters for specific frequency ranges, and so can be used to cut electrical noise levels. There are several (presumably different) capacitors on the board in order to filter various different frequencies of noise that correspond to different sources. So yes, it will cut electrical noise. The question is, does it actually help?

The bit I really don't understand is why they need that massive piece of plastic just to hold 6 caps...

[TTL Rulz @ Jun 25th 2008 7:51AM]

Perhaps under "the black" is a large (or numerous) printed coils.

[gt2378b @ Jun 25th 2008 1:36PM]

The rest of the space is for marketing, which I think you'll agree is key for a product of this sort.

[Steffen Jobbs @ Jun 25th 2008 8:27AM]

If one is good, two will be better. Where do I get it and how much?

[Leo Qin @ Jun 25th 2008 8:43AM]

well at least its shiny looking