EMI Shielding – CompTIA Security+ SY0-401: 2.7

The shielding of electromagnetic interference an important consideration around computer equipment. In this video, you’ll learn about EMI and how to maintain proper shielding.

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One of the challenges when you get a lot of computers together is they put out a lot of electromagnetic interference. If you’ve ever had a radio or a telephone near a computer, you may notice that there is some interference coming from the computer. And it comes from the heat sinks, and the circuit boards, and the cables, and the interfaces that are directly on the computer.

You’ll find that if you open up a computer, there’s a lot of metal shielding. It may be on the case itself, it may be wrapped around different components of the computer. And that’s to prevent a lot of this electromagnetic interference. You don’t want to remove those because those are preventing those signals from getting into other things that you might have in your environment.

If you ever look at video or if you ever listen to audio that comes right out of a computer over an analog set of headphones for instance, you’ll hear the noise. And it may show up in your phone systems, it may show up on your on hold systems. And a lot of that interference is something you have to keep in mind. And keep your computers that are putting a lot of this electromagnetic interference, keep them away from those audio systems.