Help me with Radio Interference.

4T5 · 10 Jun 2010 at 19:12

Hi all.

My PC is interfering with my DAB radio

What gives ?
Anybody else experienced this & have a fix for me ? The radio plays perfect but if I go to do summit like open a browser or summit the signal goes weak & almost breaks up. It's on Radio 2 as well so should be a damn good signal. Only started doing it recently as well. :confused:

Cheers in advance for any help.

Ordokai · 10 Jun 2010 at 19:13

Have any wireless mice or keyboards, anything like that ? It's rare but it does happen.

- Ordokai

4T5 · 10 Jun 2010 at 19:14

I'm a big gamer mate & don't use wireless on my PC, Everything is cabled.

Ordokai · 10 Jun 2010 at 19:29

This may sound strange at first but it could well be the power supply. It dishes out quite a bit of electromagnetic interference whilst chopping the mains power at a higher frequency. Play around with it, try to shield it with something and see if it helps. However, I'm not very knowledgeable in the area so don't take my word for it, just throwing ideas. Though it's pretty strange that it would suddenly start doing it, could there be a confounding variable at play here, are you sure its the PC ?

- Ordokai

4T5 · 10 Jun 2010 at 19:31

That would tie in with when it effects the radio as I am asking for more power.
I was going to try the shielding but I just wondered if anybody else had experienced it & if it meant sudden death or summit.

Sayso · 10 Jun 2010 at 20:13

I was surprised coming from industrial Electronics background that cases didn't have to be EMC compliant, Did you PSU come with a separate earth terminal to earth the case? Sometimes this can make it act like a sort of Faraday cage and stop the interference.

wonko · 11 Jun 2010 at 10:22

It could also be the monitor psu of course - I've had one fail in a way that kicked out mains-borne noise as well as getting worryingly hot. Maybe unplug to test ? You might be able to hear the noise on an FM radio (though DAB works at higher frequencies IIRC) to help track it down.
If it's just started it sounds like a fault somewhere, otherwise I'd be suggesting ferrite rings, enabling spread spectrum options and a tinfoil hat