Forum members are fighting each other. Tinfoil hats & university Ph.D people here. Not a good combo.
So let's try to tame a few things, eh?
Respect me, respect the science, don't be a tinfoil hat, and then I'll respect you.
I am a friend here, so let me help you of a left-field option some of you aren't thinking about...
It's year 2023, not year 1993. New technology is here.
If you watch YouTube and look at all the camping/RV/offgrid videos ("Lithium battery howto for camping" etc) -- they're all gigantically excited these days now being able to run full size microwaves, TVs, computers, etc, for really cheaply nowdays. Millions of campers / RV. But we can use this same tech to offgrid our PC too inside the comfort of our apartment dwelling, especially much more common if you're in certain Eastern Europe countries / South America countries in an old apartment building and creaky electric grid that your gaming PC is having difficulty with...
...And say goodbye to dirty electricity causing problems in your gaming rig if you're unlucky to live in a city/country that has that problem, and isn't successfully cleaned up by a $500 UPS, etc. Try a good UPS first, but eventually in some countries, electricity is so bad, that it's cheaper to become your power company now than a top-of-the-line power conditioner...
Big Batteries:
Become Your Own Temporary Power Company For 3 Hours For Under $400
Just use brute-force if you're an unlucky person in a country with extremely bad electricity.
The good news is the brute force hail mary is now less than $400 USD.
Okay, I should remind everyone about the biggest pie slice in the infinite pie chart of EMI problems:
Fully proper isolating UPS power supplies and power conditioners are often pretty expensive. Good ones for data center racks can be well into four figures. Ouch. And a high end online commercial UPS with power conditioner is sometimes as expensive as your gaming rig.
So here's a cheaper option -- become your power company.
At a certain cost point, it's cheaper to just buy a giant LiFePo4 battery (e.g. cheap 12.8V 200AH with built-in BMS + get a cheap inverter) to battery-power your 500 watt gaming rig. And it usually fixes more external bad-electricity problems than even a good UPS will.
Basically build your dream UPS of clean electricity from scratch, and then unplug from your dirty power grid.
You can buy a large Jackery Power Station (or clone), many exist for between $1K-$3K all built. Or cobble together a 1000-3000 watt power station from scratch via YouTube videos. Google "how to build a lithium power station" if you can't afford a Jackery but can afford buiding your DIY power station $300-$600 kilowatt-hour-plus kilowatt-output-league lithium battery with built in battery management system (BMS) + charger + external high-quality inverter.
USD $279.99 battery + USD $59.99 inverter = Power Gaming Rig for 3 hours
You're your own power company for 2-3 hours, forget the dirty electricity stuff, forget wasting time troubleshooting...
(Many brands available, not just this one)
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(12.8V 100aH = 12.8 x 100 = 1.28 kilowatt-hour capacity = can sustain 400 watts for 3 hours)
SEARCH TERM: "12 volt 100 ah lithium iron battery" on your amazon/ebay/favorite site
(Many brands available, not just this one)
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Make sure your brand is a true sinewave inverter that preserves the sinewave even at high power loads; check the reviews.
Use M8 DC power cables to connect battery to inverter.
Then plug in your PC/monitor/router to the inverter.
Then you can power an average RTX-powered desktop tower gaming PC rig for about 2.5 to 3 hours, offgrid.
Don't Forget A Cheap Battery Charger Too!
Okay, you need a battery charger too (I left that out), so you'll have to use a small charger overnight to refill your battery, but then you get 7000+ recharge cycles in these new durable lithium-iron batteries -- they're very long lasting batteries that last 10x+ longer than smartphone batteries. So 15 years of gaming offgrid 2-3 hours every night. These modern lithium iron batteries generally now have a built-in BMS system which makes it reasonably safe to attach an external voltage to these batteries -- much safer to charge these new lithium-iron batteries than an old car battery.
Use compatible 14.6 volt charger to recharge these batteries
SEARCH TERM: "14.6V smart lithium charger" on your amazon/ebay/favorite site
You can even find chargers for as little as $20-$60, though they will take a long time to charge (overnight charge). 3 amp chargers (35 hour charging) can be found for ~$20 and 20 amp chargers (5 hour charging) can be found for ~$60
*** ALWAYS MAKE SURE YOUR LITHIUM IRON BATTERY HAS A BUILT-IN BMS! ***
BMS = Battery Management System = important for charging safety!
These batteries never explode like a lithium maganese battery, lithium iron batteries are rock stable. They're just damn HEAVY, which is why they're not used in all electric vehicles. Lithium-iron batteries are much safer for use inside your rental apartment building, unlike the exploding lithium batteries you sometimes hear about in the news (practically all lithium battery explosions are lithium-maganese-cobalt batteries, not lithium-iron batteries). The cobalt-free batteries are pretty safe.
Just make sure they have a built-in BMS (Battery Management System) which protects it from short circuits, and make sure you properly cover the terminals (big sparks will occur otherwise).
If you already have a car battery charger lying around, you generally can use most modern car battery chargers on these BMS-protected batteries now too, although they may not be able to charge them fully (due to BMS cutting them off to protect the battery).
So you see, for less than $400, you can power your gaming PC off a battery for about 2.5 to 3 hours, including your monitor and your Internet router (yes, you need to offgrid everything that touches the PC). Don't forget to isolate your Internet line too if you can, or preferably use fiber so no copper from outside world is touching your PC.
This Only Became Cheap Recently
It may be more costly in some countries, but these chinese kilowatt batteries are really cheap now -- absurdly so -- because of the EV adoption and grid scale batteries. The savings is now already passed to the consumer, so you can offgrid your PC for under $500!
No Guarantees - It's Just Better Odds Than Most Fixes
- This won't work if your interference is internal (coming from inside PC)
- This won't work if your server and ISP has problems on their side that you cannot fix locally (backbone, etc) (Forget about electricity blame, try LTE vs FTTH vs cable vs DSL + VPNs etc)
- This won't fix CS:GO desync caused by CS:GO server issues that you cannot fix locally (etc) (Forget about electricity blame, try VPNs etc)
- This may help you if you're already having lots of problems even in offline play, sometimes worse in evenings when electricity is dirtier (bigger interference redflag)
- No guarantees; but there are several success reports already.
Offgriding via a battery certainly won't solve adjacent interference (e.g. over-the-air interference from nearby large motors, like emitting from an old apartment mechanical floor or an apartment room adjacent to a laundry room of very old drying machines -- old motors can emit a lot of inteference, for example).
But it will solve dirty electric grid by becoming your own power company for your PC for under $1000.
The offgriding solution is one of the easiest and biggest brute fix-all slices in the infinite power chart of possible EMI problem+solution combos. It is now a money cost typically less than the cost of the gaming PC+GPU rig that you bought, thanks to the giant kilowatt lithium-battery price drops. If it doesn't fix your problem, at least you know your EMI problem is probably one of those tiny-sliver slices that is hard to find / hard to solve.
It may not work. But it fixes a bigger percentage of dirty-electricity problems than the infinite-number of other possible interference fixes. If you are getting major potentially-electricity-related glitches in OFFLINE play, then this has a higher odds of working.
Still, at least this brute-force hammer option saves you a lot of troubleshooting time, if it works. Now, that being said, if a battery (for your PC + router + monitor) doesn't fix your problems, then you've got bigger interference troubleshooting ahead of you. Consider that you may be one of those "unique interference situations where you need a unique fix for yourself that doesn't work for others" -- there's million of interference/EMI/EMF problems that are just that. But, this solution fixes a bigger % of success IF your problem is dirty-electricity related.
*** DISCLAIMER! ***
This is a lot of electricity. Don't do this if you're uncomfortable with a kilowatt of electricity. Even with a BMS with short circuit protection, big sparks will fly if you accidentally drop metal across the battery terminals, with major injury risks. Also, cheap inverters can still electrocute you. So this goes without saying.
Easier And Safer Option That Is More Expensive
If you have more money, just buy a prebuilt battery with inverter built in. Like a Jackery Power Station 1000 or 2000. Or Anker Model 757. Many clones available. Or one of the new brands that just became available. Beer-cooler sized battery generators.
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Look for something with quadruple-digit watt-hours. Only those quadruple-digit watt hours will work to power a gaming PC offgrid usably long enough. Stick to good major brands only, since these may use the higher-explosion-risk but lighter lithium batteries.
Remember, there's two major types of lithium batteries...
The major brands will generally use trusted lithium-cobalt-maganese batteries (e.g. US/Japan manufactured lithium batteries). If you buy lithium batteries directly from China, only stick to BMS-protected lithium-iron batteries. (The safety of lithium-iron compensates for going generic)
