I am putting subwoofers with a mdf enclosure in my trunk of my jeep and am going to integrate a computer system in my car as well. The only concern is that its my understanding that the subwoofers emite an electromagnetic field and it could endanger any sensitive storage devices on the computer like the hard drive or ram. I was wondering what would be the best way of preventing the damage that might occur. The easiest solution I was considering could be a rubber lining inside the mdf box to surpress it, it might differ the sound slightly but it could safe guard my system. Or would be better to keep the pc at a considerable distance?
There is a metal called Mu Metal that is used for shielding in the aircraft industry. We used to use it back in the day when noise was a problem in cars. The older Mustangs with cassette decks had a common problem with the tape head picking up radiated noise from a wiring harness behind the radio. The only way to solve the noise was either to totally re-route the harness or use MU Metal shielding over the radio. This stuff was very expensive. In the 80's, it was about $40 for a 12 x 12 sheet.
You need not worry about magnetic fields. The idea of a carputer is to have a stand alone PC run whatever OS you want with whatever media player you want. This is all usually ran without* a hard drive as some computers can now boot from a USB drive. No hard drive means no crash or worry from magnets. One USB drive contains the OS, the other houses the MP3s of your library. I found a way to get the full GUI of Windows XP under 600 Mb
install the pcaway from your woofers, or use shielding to 'insulate' the pc from the rest of the car
