<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><BR><DIV><DIV>On Jun 8, 2006, at 10:18 AM, Will Constable wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"> <DIV class="Section1"><P class="MsoNormal"><SPAN style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy">Some very helpful suggestions! I am interested in this idea of tuning the crystals—might not come to that if the card im taking home today does the trick, but I guess this way could save me from having to buy anything short of a few inches kynar wire. A few questions:<O:P></O:P></SPAN></P><P class="MsoNormal"><SPAN style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy"><O:P> </O:P></SPAN></P><P class="MsoNormalIndentCxSpFirst" style="text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><SPAN style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy"><SPAN style="mso-list: Ignore">1)<SPAN style="font:7.0pt " times="" new="" roman""=""> </SPAN></SPAN></SPAN><SPAN style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy">Last night I tried putting ceramic magnets near and on the s-video plug to see if this would somehow shield it from weaker oscillating fields generated by the vga cord nearby or the card’s internal electronics.. don’t think it made a difference but I was running up and down the stairs trying to notice the difference as I made changes… not all that reliable. <BR></SPAN></P></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV>Ceramic magnets (or any other kind) are unlikely to do anything, except perhaps prevent arthritis in your cabling. What you may be thinking of is the ferrite beads or "donuts" that are sometimes put on cables to choke high-frequency garbage.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Since your interference is from signals in the same frequency range as your "desired" signal ferrite is unlikely to work, but you never know. Since you are operating in the realm of "wrong engineering" anyway, just about any change to your setup *might* help.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><BR><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV class="Section1"><P class="MsoNormalIndentCxSpFirst" style="text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><SPAN style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy"> <O:P></O:P></SPAN></P><P class="MsoNormalIndentCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><SPAN style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy"><SPAN style="mso-list: Ignore">2)<SPAN style="font:7.0pt " times="" new="" roman""=""> </SPAN></SPAN></SPAN><SPAN style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy">If I try the crystal trick—first of all, is the crystal (only one of these on the geforce FX board I have on my desk here) a little silver, oval shaped canister with two connections soldered to the board? If so, I would simply solder a wire to each of the two pins on the back and then experiment with number of twists? Leaving the insulation on, of course…<O:P></O:P></SPAN></P><P class="MsoNormalIndentCxSpMiddle"><SPAN style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family: Arial;color:navy"><O:P> </O:P></SPAN></P></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV>Yes, that describes what some crystals do look like. They are normally labeled "Y" as in "Y1", "Y2", etc., and if there is only one it would likely be called Y1, if it is labeled at all.<DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>You have to be careful with modern circuit boards. If the crystal has leads that go entirely through the board, or of you have a two-sided board, then the pins on the solder side will be connected to the crystal, which is a two-terminal device.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>If, however, you have a multi-layer board and/or the crystal is surface-mounted, then you will have to try and determine where the top-layer connections actually go and find connection points that are connected to the same points electrically.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>You have to be VERY careful with multi-layer boards, and it takes a good temp-controlled soldering iron with a precision tip that's well kept, and also needs a steady hand. You have to go into such a project understanding that there is a fair chance you will destroy the board, especially if you are not experienced with such things :-)</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>In principle trimming a crystal is very simple, but in practice is is very easy to damage a board, please exercise extreme care if you attempt this.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>You might also consider installing a PCI video board for your S-Video out, it should be fast enough for SD video and would provide a lot more isolation from the VGA.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV></BODY></HTML>