Mag Drive Pump problems.

[VashStampede]

I have an Ehiem 1048 pump and when I turn my watercooling system on, it causes my screen to flux on the 1280*1024 resolution, which worked fine before. Does anyone have a similar problem or know of a way to fix this? Any help would be greatly appreiciated.

 

[Colin]

First try moving your pump in both distance and rotation. If this does not help, you can construct a shield for the pump out of 16 gage cold rolled steel. Be sure to leave 3/8 to ½ inch gap between the pump and the shield. This should take care of the problem, if it does not, you can add some Mu metal foil with a ¼ inch gap around the steel shield.

 

[ken257]

I have the same problem with the 1048. When testing/playing with the hardware I set my comp up on the desk and this causes interferance with the monitor, 21" running at high res. Normally I keep the comp on the floor(full tower) and it does not cause trouble in that location.

To make a quick test to see if the problem can be solved by sheilding take some alluminum foil from the kitchen and fold it up to form about a 10 layer thick sheet and use this to shield the pump.

 

[Colin]

Aluminum foil won’t stop the magnetic fields that cause the interference. You need a metal that is more permeable. The information in my previous post came from an engineer that specializes in magnetic shielding.

 

[VashStampede]

Thx, for the advice. I'll try it out to see if it works.

 

[Colin]

You don't by any chance have a DXR3 DVD decoder card in your system? They are particularly susceptible to magnetic interference.

 

[VashStampede]

Nope, only a Geforce GTS and a SBlive sound card. I tried moving the pump around so now I need to revise my resorvoir, or maybe I'll just inline it. Seems to have the least interference if I put it in the front of my case, but will the magnetic field cause any problems to my harddrive? Maybe I'll just build a magnetic shield.

 

[Colin]

I have been tinkering with this kind of problem for about five months and several threads. I have yet to hear of a magdrive pump causing HD problems. The magnetic field is not strong enough but they certainly can affect some video cards, monitors and graphics tablets.

 

[ken257]

Last night I put my comp up on my desk to do a few tests. Tried adding sheetmetal around the pump, tried the tin foil to and nothing made any differance at all. The whole monitor flickers just like if you have selected a bad refresh rate. Also the problem goes away if I shut the pump off. Normally my comp is on the floor and it works fine there so it is definatly affecting the monitor and not any other part of the system.

If I can find it I want to try an old lead blanket that I used to use for my camera/film in airports many years ago. Maybe that will work. I am more curious then anything else.

The Eheim pump has been in my system for about 6 months and I have had no problems with hard drives or anything else so I don't think that will be an issue.

 

[Colin]

Lead is not a permeable metal, it won’t do anything for magnetic shielding. It’s great for X rays and Kriptonite. If you had a full steel shield, 18 gage minimum with a gap around the pump it should help. You do have to ground the shield. The next step is to add Mu metal foil. Do a search for it. I’ll warn you, it’s very expensive.