HIS iClear claims to reduce noise, really just fills an empty PCIe slot
By Darren Murph 
posted June 25th 2008 6:16AM
posted June 25th 2008 6:16AM
[Via BoingBoing]
posted June 25th 2008 6:16AM
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If one is good, two will be better. Where do I get it and how much?
well at least its shiny looking
That's what she said.
Sorry, couldn't resist.
Wow... that would have to be one awkward conversation...
If you look at the board:
The overwhelming feature is 6 sets of "thing+capacitor." Probably there is a big ground plane in the board too.
Most likely this is essentially a diode termination with some capacitance. The concept of the board MAY be to provide a little extra energy storage/dampening on the POWER lines on PCI-e to stop electronic noise (digital switching noise) from hitting the power and ground bus. Also - the card is bigger than it needs to be - why? Maybe to physically block transmitted noise.
Is that useful? Well, if the motherboard doesn't do a good job of it - and the cards don't do a good job of it....maybe.
Where we would see a difference? Analog things. Digital video wouldn't change. But the sound card generates a fairly weak signal that it then amplifies it - and a microphone gets gets similarly processes. These signals are both susceptible to noise - both on the power bus and transmitted......have you ever left your cell-phone near your computer and got a phone call?
Maybe it:
A) makes up for poor motherboard design
B) is a physical barrier
10% though seems weak
In fact, analog signals wouldn't get much better anyway. Cable lengths have a standardised maximum to prevent things like this being required.
If you wanted to minimise electronic noise in your computer, there are a couple of easy ways to do it:
1. Shielding. A thin sheet of tin will reflect most of the incoming waves
2. Twist the wires. If you have two wires that connect to the same port (like in a molex connector, or wires to a speaker), twisting the cables around each other helps localise the electric field. Energy (and hence information) isn't carried through the conducting wire - it's carried by the field around it. The wires only act as a wave guide.
3. Impedance matching. Most speakers have a 50ohm input resistance. Make sure your cables have a 50ohm output resistance for maximum power transfer.
The squares look like resistors to me, leading me to believe it’s some combination of low/high pass filters.
The noise you are referring to has little to do with your computer innards and has much more to do with the fact that the analog connector between your computer and speakers is acting like antenna to the dirty GSM signals, and the speakers are amplifying it. I thought there was a part of the FCC where devices are not allowed to make interference....
Surely you can see that it is a receiver for hostile government radio control signals. When the time is right it will be activated turning your desktop PC into a mechanoid attack robot which will overcome you and join with your human frame. At this point THEY will have an army of half men (and some half women) half machine beserkoids ready to take over the world for their evil means.
maybe
i just looked this up on new egg, to get it by itself it costs 79.99, 0.0
and free shipping
no reviews...
The only thing that these cards are guaranteed to reduce is free space in your case.
I've seen some stuff similar here in japan; called "NO-PCI" and "NO-PCI-EXPRESS"
from kurouto shikou. i am curious what makes them do this...
Where is the green marker?
The filters are not to filter power, but for the signal lines. Despite what everyone thinks, digital signals are susceptible to noise too especially when we start getting into the higher frequencies (granted not near as much as analog). For digital signals you can use an RC circuit as a low-pass filter to ground any noise signal above a specified frequency, determined by the values of the resistor and the capacitor.
This noise reduction is very effective in many high frequency digital devices and could help reduce noise on the PCIe bus, but to what effect is to be seen. Why it costs $80 and why is the PCB so large are some other good questions.
Look up low-pass filter on Wikipedia for an explanation.
This is not a filter. Caps alone don't filter, you need resistors and any decent filter will have Inductors. Look up a Butterworth filter. This is just additional decoupling that shouldn't be necessary if the motherboard is designed halfway decent.
All this proves is that some people will buy anything.
I'm in agreement with some of the others. Some sort of signal filter to clean up noise on the bus and secondly it acts like a partial faraday cage to absorb some stray EMI. (Almost) all cards have similar filters on them, but probably not as well tuned. Digital signals ring when transitioning between high and low levels. Something like this could work to reduce that ringing, but I would expect the added capacitance to slow down the transition. You'd get a cleaner signal but lower bandwidth. Not sure what to think right now.