A Workstation for Sensitive Experiments?

etrgQUARK asks: "I am in charge of infrared spectrometers at our research center. One of the setups is used to measure the orientation of monolayers at the air/water interface, i.e. the signal we have to detect is very weak and noisy. We already have a great setup with quality components and electronics, except for one piece of hardware: the computer hooked up to acquire the data. How important is the computer in noise-sensitive data acquisition? What are your experiences? Do you have any suggestions on a workstation suitable for such tasks or is it a waste of money to use anything but the average computer system? Unfortunately, the software used is Windows-only."

Comments

Computer should be a non-factor

[xtal]

I design and deploy custom data logging solutions, signal conditioners, etc.

Computer at the end of the chain should not be a consideration whatsoever. The system under monitoring should be completely seperate; by the time the computer is involved, it should be recieving a conditioned, pre-amplified, or digital data stream over a galvanically/optoisolated connection.

If the introduction of a computer device causes a problem, there are other issues to consider.