Clear Case Roundup

The Cheat writes "Interested in making your computer the envy of all the other computers on the block? What visitors to oooh and ahhh when they enter your room? The latest trend in computer case solutions can do just that. AnandTech took a look at three clear cases in a recent roundup, each certain to make you more popular, right? Maybe not, but at least they look cool."

Comments

EM problems

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a reason cases are made of metal. EM SHIELDING!

Actually...

[unterderbrucke]

Geek chic is coming into popularity. The other kids at my high school are very impressed with the various case detailing methods, and especially enjoy such companies as Alienware, who has now replaced Dell as the system "to have".

No EMI

[Tweakmeister]

There is no way I'd buy one of these cases...or one with a window.

There's a reason for all the EMI shielding in a case! And the reason? Search google :)

I have to wonder what the FCC says about these cases...although for Home use I don't believe there is much in terms of requirements.

Lack of EMR Shielding?

[PhotonSphere]

Does anyone know if there are any adverse effects of having no metal shielding on your box? I haven't seen anything other than a few warnings associated with clear cases. Here's an example of a warning from the pcmods.com site:

WARNING: This product is meant for education purposes only. It is unknown how much protection it provides EMR (electromagnetic radiation), if it provides any protection at all.

This warning trails all of their clear case descriptions... Anyone have any definitive info on this?

Re:Lack of EMR Shielding?

[Bio]

Given that most geeks have their PC cases open all the time anyway:

A clear case cannot give worse shielding than no case at all ...

Re:What's the point?

[npatrick]

I don't see any problems with cases as they are. It's just a box to hold some stuff. The only thing I want in a case is plenty of openings for new pieces, whatever they might be. Multiple optical drives, or video cards, or whatever.

They already do

[absurdhero]

Computer cases haven't changed a whole lot in the last 5 years ever since they discovered the stylish case market. Trends have changed a little, windowed cases and flat black designs are popular. I would like to see more truly innovative designs like the Shuttle PCs and other stylish cases with a purpose.

why put your money there

[jhagler]

To me this is a classic case of flash over substance. Why pay the extra for a window/lights/rounded cables when that money can be put into a faster CPU, a better video card, or a bigger hard drive? It reminds me of the people who buy a cheap ass Honda then trick it out with everything they can bolt on only to have their doors blown off by a stock Camaro SS which costs less.

Whoop-tee-dee you have LCD's on your fan, I can push twice the fps you can and will procede to hand you your ass in tournament play. Just a thought.

Re:why put your money there

[MoneyT]

Because not everybody cares whether or not they can get more than 80 fps out of quake.

Because not everybody cares for larger HDD space (ok so those people are rare, but the point remains)

Because for some people 2 ghz is indeed fast enough (a lesson that that many tech companies have to learn still)

Because they can.

Re:why put your money there

[Elbereth]

Uh... 2 GHz is fast enough?

For most people, 600 MHz is fast enough.

Re:why put your money there

[TheKey]

Most of the people with extremely modded cases also have the best PCs on the block (they're rich).

Re:I'm not going to hop on the marketing bandwagon

[baywulf]

That's because we have already saved the whales. No reason for Scotty to give away the secret.

With a clear case.....

[scottp]

you could see how much dust the fans actually suck in? Firgure out the amount of time it takes a dust bunny to form? Observe housing structures and construction techniques for the local spider population? Throw perfectly good beer money away buying lights, blinking fans, etc? See what color of smoke actually comes out of the cpu from overclocking? Gain a little EMR? Buying a PERL book would be way more useful and beneficial.....just my 2 cents..

Better Throw In Some Bounce

[ewhac]

What about static electricity? Acrylic just loves to build up static. Even small amounts of static electricity, too small to be felt by human touch, will still turn expensive, delicate chips into expensive sand.

Yeah, they're pretty, but it looks like they'll probably also shorten the life of your 1337 g4m1n6 r1g.

Schwab

Dust bunnies

[tinrobot]

I don't know about the rest of you, but everytime I open my case, it's full of dust. I'm really not into vacumming my case just to be hip.

Another thing to clean, no thanks

[Openadvocate]

Well, let's say I got everything installed and it looked great. Then I would have to open it up every month(at least) to clean it. With all the air going though there, the housing won't look pretty for long.

Stupid EM misconceptions

[Man In Black]

For God's sake people, you're NOT going to go sterile from the electromagnetic fields your computer emits... you're also not going to mutate or develop cancer either, it's simply not powerful enough (Fields from enormous power transmission lines are another matter).

The main reason there are regulations is not for health concerns, but to make sure that stuff will work in proximity to other stuff (Except of course hospitals or airplanes, where health concerns and electrical systems are closely related). If your computer were to interfere with your monitor, that wouldn't be too good, would it?

Some other myths I've seen around here is that if you block the electric field, then you block the magnetic field too... this is NOT always the case, since often the coupling mechanism will be much more sensitive to one form (electric or magnetic) than the other. I'm taking a class on electromagnetic compatibility this term, and we actually did an experiment to show the effect of grounded shielding on a coaxial cable. Basically, there were two cables kept very close together, and one was shielded. You'd apply a voltage to the unshielded one, and measure what was induced on the other one. There were clips to ground each side of the shield. The main point was so that we could see that if you grounded the shield at BOTH ends, it provided significantly more protection against noise. In fact, depending on the frequency, grounding it on one end had almost no effect whatsoever (maybe a 5% difference, and it depended on what end you grounded it on). This was because if the cable was only grounded at one end, it couldn't dissipate magnetic fields, since there was no loop for current to flow through.

Effects also depend highly on the frequency. If I remember correctly, at lower frequencies, the electric field was more significant, and grounding the shield at one end had a fairly noticeable effect... whereas at high frequencies, the magnetic coupling was much more important.

It's also worth pointing out that digital circuits are much worse for EM emissions, since the square waves used for clock signals generate enormous amounts of harmonics far exceeding the clock frequency. Even a 1 MHz clock can have frequency components past 15 MHz (This is very dependang on the "rise time" of the signal.. a "more perfect" square wave has more harmonics), so one can only imagine what's coming out of your 2 GHz machine!

You will also NEVER eliminate ALL the noise from a circuit. I don't care if you encase the thing in a meter of iron, there is still some amount of emissions. The point is to get them to such a small level that they're negligible. Even if you have your case all together, there's still the possibility of it causing interference. Thicker shielding usually will lead to more effective protection, but it's still impossible to reduce the fields to absolutely zero.