This guy is on another level - electrical test

[wadge]

I found a video on youtube of a guy that is also trying to fix input lag but for onces it looks like that he has the right tools to make his tests...
I post the link here :

phpBB [video]

Unfortunatly he is saying in the comments that for now he didnt find a fix but at least he is trying the right way

[assombrosso]

There is no fix my friend

[wadge]

There should be a scientific way to explain why some people are not affect and other do.

But for sure 99% people of this forum (me include) dont have the knowledge and the tools to diagnotize the issue properly.

At this stage we would need an electrical engineer or someone with a high level in tech to help us finding the culprit...

[yerp]

There should be a scientific way to explain why some people are not affect and other do.

But for sure 99% people of this forum (me include) dont have the knowledge and the tools to diagnotize the issue properly.

At this stage we would need an electrical engineer or someone with a high level in tech to help us finding the culprit...

Bro...Just put more effort even into googling something... https://www.se.com/ae/en/faqs/FA212226/

[Zodasaur]

There should be a scientific way to explain why some people are not affect and other do.

Perhaps if you studied biology then you could explain the science to us. From person to person, people tend to be very different. I have a brother who doesn't play as many videogames as I do and is incapable of feeling small differences in input lag, where as I can. I also have a sister with poor vision who can't tell the difference if her monitor is set to 1080p or 4k. From person to person we all have varying abilities. Some of us have more focused brains than others and some have eyes that work better than others. I'm not a biologist so I can't explain the science behind it for you, but if you really care to understand, there are classes you could take to help you understand the science behind it. To me that sounds extremely boring to learn about, but to each their own. The knowledge is out there if you're interested in obtaining it.

[wadge]

There should be a scientific way to explain why some people are not affect and other do.

Perhaps if you studied biology then you could explain the science to us. From person to person, people tend to be very different. I have a brother who doesn't play as many videogames as I do and is incapable of feeling small differences in input lag, where as I can. I also have a sister with poor vision who can't tell the difference if her monitor is set to 1080p or 4k. From person to person we all have varying abilities. Some of us have more focused brains than others and some have eyes that work better than others. I'm not a biologist so I can't explain the science behind it for you, but if you really care to understand, there are classes you could take to help you understand the science behind it. To me that sounds extremely boring to learn about, but to each their own. The knowledge is out there if you're interested in obtaining it.

Thank you for your participation but this section is referring to electrical issues so please stick with the guideline.

[Zodasaur]

There should be a scientific way to explain why some people are not affect and other do.

Perhaps if you studied biology then you could explain the science to us. From person to person, people tend to be very different. I have a brother who doesn't play as many videogames as I do and is incapable of feeling small differences in input lag, where as I can. I also have a sister with poor vision who can't tell the difference if her monitor is set to 1080p or 4k. From person to person we all have varying abilities. Some of us have more focused brains than others and some have eyes that work better than others. I'm not a biologist so I can't explain the science behind it for you, but if you really care to understand, there are classes you could take to help you understand the science behind it. To me that sounds extremely boring to learn about, but to each their own. The knowledge is out there if you're interested in obtaining it.

Thank you for your participation but this section is referring to electrical issues so please stick with the guideline.

There wasn't a way to answer your question while not straying away from the subject of electrical issues.

[f1ndus]

people are wasting time trying fix it by electricity
we need know how is it possible share this problem on another locations

[Chief Blur Buster]

There should be a scientific way to explain why some people are not affect and other do.

It's very simple scientifically if you've ever attended university, or know the stuff that circuit board engineers do.

A simplified explanation (not quite ELI5, but close):

(A) The electromagnetic spectrum is very wide
(e.g. radio waves, microwaves, infrared, visible light, ultraviolet, X-rays, gamma rays), containing an infinite number of frequencies

(B) There's an infinite number of possible "spikes" or "noise" (or other abberations) in the electromagnetic spectrum, this can be strong enough to create interference.
Imagine a bright visible-light spotlight (except it's in a non-visible-light frequency). Too much infrared = computer overheats. Too much gamma-rays = computer can glitch. Too much microwaves = circuit paths can act as antennas and pick up electrical currents that interfere with signals. These are only three of infinite examples! Etc etc etc etc etc etc

(C) There's an infinite number of possible "strengths" in the electromagnetic spectrum
(whether as bright as a flashlight as bright as sun, or as bright as supernova), except it's in a frequency not visible to light.

(D) The electromagnetic spectrum may travel over wires or may travel over air
The difference between a television transmission tower versus a cable TV; the same electromagnetic signal (e.g. RF) may propagate over different mediums, such as metal (wire) or air (wireless), and some signals only conduct well over metal, while other signals conduct well over air, and other times, both signal can be either. The problem is exacerbated when you're troubleshooting wired vs. wireless interference.

(E) The sources of interference can be invisible
Power transmission lines, large motors, poor grounding, analog television tubes, inductors, etc. Could be as mudane as dryer/laundry room (with old motors emitting broadband sparkgap EMI) next to your apartment room. Could be a house underneath high-voltage transmission lines. Some countries (USA) have very strong laws against selling products that emit interference, while other countries (Soviet Union, Eastern Europe) have more lax laws, so you may see over 1000x more interference sources (1000x the number of spikes in 1000x locations) so you might be SOL in certain countries, for example.

(F) The ability of equipment to reject interference varies a huge amount
Google "FCC part 15". USA has a very strong law banning the sale of product that generates too much interference. One equipment may reject interference as strong as a searchlight (but in a non-visible light frequency) while another equipment may crash with interference only as strong as a candle (but in a non-visible light frequency). Both will not survive the super strong pulse from a nuclear bomb (EMP) because that is EMI over 1,000,000x stronger than most interference sources. Every single piece of equipment has a limit to their interference-rejection capabilities. And the limit may be toppled in many locations.

Let's consider that some countries use a floating ground and a 3-phase electrical system, and the houses have no ground wire. Those locations will often have very dirty electricity with very distorted electrical sinewaves. Even when you use an oscilloscope and gawk at a weird squiggly/chopped/distorted sinewave, you are only seeing one frequency (the AC frequency) and not the other hidden frequencies of EMI that requires much more additional equipment.

Your power company's power grid may also be extremely dirty, transmitting a lot of interference into your house' wiring too (this can be partially tested-for by going offgrid, including a power station battery for your router and gaming PC, and using either WiFi or fiber optic, non-metal-based Internet connection, and potentially using wireless input peripherals if interference is unusually strong enough to create packet losses on USB cables).

A LOT of switching power supplies can tolerate very dirty electricity, but there's a point where ... things just topple when things are sufficiently "dirty" enough.

Dirty_Power_Osciliscope-703x400.png (347.68 KiB) Viewed 4330 times

That's only a few frequencies visible to the oscilloscope. There's an approximately 1KHz interference frequency (and that's far below radio frequency) overlapping that AC curve. The oscilloscope will not record microwave frequencies (e.g. ~2,400,000,000 Hertz superimposed on top of the AC 60 Hz). Remember the infinite number of possible interference frequencies, a lot of outside the measurement range of an oscilloscope!

But you can have perfectly working computer with ZERO local (offline) input lag problems, even with dirty electricity if you've got a good power supply in your computer, and there's no OTHER EMI sources injecting over into the computer -- and that the grid had been sufficiently filtered/power conditioned (e.g. power conditioner) to keep at least some hidden EMI spikes/noise away. But after a certain point you've only grown your castle moat 1 foot deeper and 1 foot thicker -- you can only grow your moat so much. There can be over 100 EMI sources and you've solved only 80 or 90 of them. Or you've got over 1,000,000 EMI sources and you've solved only over 950,000 of them. Some locations/some countries are just so unlucky, if you've got a cheap generic motherboard and only an okay power supply (80plus BRONZE or even non-certified), or that interference is so strong, that it succumbs even the best equipment.

So you have infinite number of EMI strengths to a single photon (weaker than a candle) all the way to Big Bang (stronger than a supernova, which is in turn much stronger than all of humankind's nuclear bombs put together).

If you're building a server data centre, all this is important engineering if you're building a $1 billion data center for Apple or Google. They can buy and test the equipment, with the best equipment, and build their building to be well shielded, and buy only certified equipment, and use extremely clean electricity (filtering, redundant backups, etc).

But if you're a tight-budget person renting a small room in an old tower full of EMI-noise-generating equipment (celltower antenna a few feet from your apartment window) (or mechanical floor) (or next door neighbours still using old fridges and tube TVs, and tons of old air conditioners, generating lots of interference in both the air and the wiring) -- and inability to move away to offgrid farm building -- then you might be SOL. Who knows? You can only do your best.

It's all a tough problem that becomes tougher as higher-clocked equipment with tinier wires (2nm, 3nm) becomes more sensitive to interference, and topples to some ambient regimes that the companies may not have adequately beta-tested for, or have accepted a threshold (e.g. 999 customers out of 1000 will not have EMI-related glitches).

You can solve a lot of common EMI spikes (e.g. 2.4 gigahertz microwave frequency, coming from routers and microwave ovens) but you can't protect against all possible frequencies of all EMI spikes -- you just have to hope your location isn't creating problems of EMI in frequencies and propagation medium (over air or over metal wire) you're not troubleshooting.

So one persons' EMI solution will not fix another person's issue, especially in the same country.

The best solution is blunt-force: Offgridding (e.g. like a Jackery Power Station or clone) + distance away from wireless interference sources (and/or using wireless peripherals, in case your accessory cables is acting like antennas).

Instead of troubleshooting a mostly unsolvable problem (at least in some countries if you live in an urban life in a high-density city centre that has iffy ambient electromagnetics spectrum)... If you are one that has major interference problems (e.g. old urban areas in Eastern Europe country are pretty iffy) -- the best solution is to simply brute force and shotgun as much as you can.

Offgridding solutions + extra distance away from potential interference sources that may be hidden in the next room or adjacent to building or in grid etc). Offgrid in a rural setting would probably give you the best results, but Internet quality can be an issue too (and is usually a bigger problem).

With the giant price drop on portable batteries (e.g. Jackery Power Station and the cheap clones thereof), even an apartment dweller can buy a $1000-to-$2000 lithium iron phosphate (LiFePo4) battery bank of about 1.5 KW to 2 KW+ capacity that can now power a 500 watt gaming PC for a few hours nowadays! No solar needed; just recharge it like a gigantic cellphone power bank powerful enough to power an RTX 4090 gaming PC. If you're living in an apartment and want a luggable beer-cooler-sized battery on wheels. They're usually used for camping but are powerful enough to power a whole gaming PC rig offgrid, without needing to buy solar panels. You recharge the battery bank from your electricity, and then power the gaming PC that way. Ideally a separate battery for the router + a non-metal connection (WiFi or fiber optic media converters) between router and PC. Nothing from a dirty power grid touching either router nor gaming rig (at least until your beercooler-sized battery bank depletes). Skip the troubleshooting, skip the wasted time, go straight to offgrid if you have the money, if you're unlucky to live in a country with a super-dirty electricity grid with interference strong enough create lag-inducing error-correction events inside your PC.

Cheap offgriding at low 4 figures:
Portable Power Stations capable of powering a 500-watt GeForce RTX-powered gaming PC for about 3-4 hours:
www.google.com/search?q=2000+watt-hour+portable+power+stations
Essentially a UPS on steroids.

This easy "shotgun away a zillon wired EMI issues" solution for wired EMI (electrical grid) is now available for $1K that fixes most external-EMI-over-wire -- except for wireless/inducted EMI and internal EMI (e.g. defective or poorly shielded computer component creating EMI into other computer components). Worse comes to worse if it ends up useless in solving EMI, it's still a useful UPS-on-stereoids that allows you to keep gaming for a few hours into a blackout, so there's other "perks" that can help justify the purchase of a giant cooler-size 2000-watt-hour battery power bank. Great for camping and parks too (e.g. outdoor movie projector party). If your time is worth $25/hour, you've wasted money if you've spent 40+ hours troubleshooting wired EMI issues, and just want to bypass your power company for a while with a giant UPS battery for your PC.

A multipurpose equivalent of a giant UPS that is useful in blackouts and camping is a side door exit to solving double-digit percentage of EMI issues (the wired part of EMI).

Now that being said, your lag problem is PROBABLY not EMI related. It can be, but over 99% of the time is a wild goose chase to red herrings. A lot of time is wasted troubleshooting all of this, obviously.

[wadge]

There should be a scientific way to explain why some people are not affect and other do.

It's very simple scientifically if you've ever attended university, or know the stuff that circuit board engineers do.

A simplified explanation (not quite ELI5, but close):

(A) The electromagnetic spectrum is very wide
(e.g. radio waves, microwaves, infrared, visible light, ultraviolet, X-rays, gamma rays), containing an infinite number of frequencies

(B) There's an infinite number of possible "spikes" or "noise" (or other abberations) in the electromagnetic spectrum, this can be strong enough to create interference.
Imagine a bright visible-light spotlight (except it's in a non-visible-light frequency). Too much infrared = computer overheats. Too much gamma-rays = computer can glitch. Too much microwaves = circuit paths can act as antennas and pick up electrical currents that interfere with signals. These are only three of infinite examples! Etc etc etc etc etc etc

(C) There's an infinite number of possible "strengths" in the electromagnetic spectrum
(whether as bright as a flashlight as bright as sun, or as bright as supernova), except it's in a frequency not visible to light.

(D) The electromagnetic spectrum may travel over wires or may travel over air
The difference between a television transmission tower versus a cable TV; the same electromagnetic signal (e.g. RF) may propagate over different mediums, such as metal (wire) or air (wireless), and some signals only conduct well over metal, while other signals conduct well over air, and other times, both signal can be either. The problem is exacerbated when you're troubleshooting wired vs. wireless interference.

(E) The sources of interference can be invisible
Power transmission lines, large motors, poor grounding, analog television tubes, inductors, etc. Could be as mudane as dryer/laundry room (with old motors emitting broadband sparkgap EMI) next to your apartment room. Could be a house underneath high-voltage transmission lines. Some countries (USA) have very strong laws against selling products that emit interference, while other countries (Soviet Union, Eastern Europe) have more lax laws, so you may see over 1000x more interference sources (1000x the number of spikes in 1000x locations) so you might be SOL in certain countries, for example.

(F) The ability of equipment to reject interference varies a huge amount
Google "FCC part 15". USA has a very strong law banning the sale of product that generates too much interference. One equipment may reject interference as strong as a searchlight (but in a non-visible light frequency) while another equipment may crash with interference only as strong as a candle (but in a non-visible light frequency). Both will not survive the super strong pulse from a nuclear bomb (EMP) because that is EMI over 1,000,000x stronger than most interference sources. Every single piece of equipment has a limit to their interference-rejection capabilities. And the limit may be toppled in many locations.

Let's consider that some countries use a floating ground and a 3-phase electrical system, and the houses have no ground wire. Those locations will often have very dirty electricity with very distorted electrical sinewaves. Even when you use an oscilloscope and gawk at a weird squiggly/chopped/distorted sinewave, you are only seeing one frequency (the AC frequency) and not the other hidden frequencies of EMI that requires much more additional equipment.

Your power company's power grid may also be extremely dirty, transmitting a lot of interference into your house' wiring too (this can be partially tested-for by going offgrid, including a power station battery for your router and gaming PC, and using either WiFi or fiber optic, non-metal-based Internet connection, and potentially using wireless input peripherals if interference is unusually strong enough to create packet losses on USB cables).

A LOT of switching power supplies can tolerate very dirty electricity, but there's a point where ... things just topple when things are sufficiently "dirty" enough.

Dirty_Power_Osciliscope-703x400.png

That's only a few frequencies visible to the oscilloscope. There's an approximately 1KHz interference frequency (and that's far below radio frequency) overlapping that AC curve. The oscilloscope will not record microwave frequencies (e.g. ~2,400,000,000 Hertz superimposed on top of the AC 60 Hz). Remember the infinite number of possible interference frequencies, a lot of outside the measurement range of an oscilloscope!

But you can have perfectly working computer with ZERO local (offline) input lag problems, even with dirty electricity if you've got a good power supply in your computer, and there's no OTHER EMI sources injecting over into the computer -- and that the grid had been sufficiently filtered/power conditioned (e.g. power conditioner) to keep at least some hidden EMI spikes/noise away. But after a certain point you've only grown your castle moat 1 foot deeper and 1 foot thicker -- you can only grow your moat so much. There can be over 100 EMI sources and you've solved only 80 or 90 of them. Or you've got over 1,000,000 EMI sources and you've solved only over 950,000 of them. Some locations/some countries are just so unlucky, if you've got a cheap generic motherboard and only an okay power supply (80plus BRONZE or even non-certified), or that interference is so strong, that it succumbs even the best equipment.

So you have infinite number of EMI strengths to a single photon (weaker than a candle) all the way to Big Bang (stronger than a supernova, which is in turn much stronger than all of humankind's nuclear bombs put together).

If you're building a server data centre, all this is important engineering if you're building a $1 billion data center for Apple or Google. They can buy and test the equipment, with the best equipment, and build their building to be well shielded, and buy only certified equipment, and use extremely clean electricity (filtering, redundant backups, etc).

But if you're a tight-budget person renting a small room in an old tower full of EMI-noise-generating equipment (celltower antenna a few feet from your apartment window) (or mechanical floor) (or next door neighbours still using old fridges and tube TVs, and tons of old air conditioners, generating lots of interference in both the air and the wiring) -- and inability to move away to offgrid farm building -- then you might be SOL. Who knows? You can only do your best.

It's all a tough problem that becomes tougher as higher-clocked equipment with tinier wires (2nm, 3nm) becomes more sensitive to interference, and topples to some ambient regimes that the companies may not have adequately beta-tested for, or have accepted a threshold (e.g. 999 customers out of 1000 will not have EMI-related glitches).

You can solve a lot of common EMI spikes (e.g. 2.4 gigahertz microwave frequency, coming from routers and microwave ovens) but you can't protect against all possible frequencies of all EMI spikes -- you just have to hope your location isn't creating problems of EMI in frequencies and propagation medium (over air or over metal wire) you're not troubleshooting.

So one persons' EMI solution will not fix another person's issue, especially in the same country.

The best solution is blunt-force: Offgridding (e.g. like a Jackery Power Station or clone) + distance away from wireless interference sources (and/or using wireless peripherals, in case your accessory cables is acting like antennas).

Instead of troubleshooting a mostly unsolvable problem (at least in some countries if you live in an urban life in a high-density city centre that has iffy ambient electromagnetics spectrum)... If you are one that has major interference problems (e.g. old urban areas in Eastern Europe country are pretty iffy) -- the best solution is to simply brute force and shotgun as much as you can.

Offgridding solutions + extra distance away from potential interference sources that may be hidden in the next room or adjacent to building or in grid etc). Offgrid in a rural setting would probably give you the best results, but Internet quality can be an issue too (and is usually a bigger problem).

With the giant price drop on portable batteries (e.g. Jackery Power Station and the cheap clones thereof), even an apartment dweller can buy a $1000-to-$2000 lithium iron phosphate (LiFePo4) battery bank of about 1.5 KW to 2 KW+ capacity that can now power a 500 watt gaming PC for a few hours nowadays! No solar needed; just recharge it like a gigantic cellphone power bank powerful enough to power an RTX 4090 gaming PC. If you're living in an apartment and want a luggable beer-cooler-sized battery on wheels. They're usually used for camping but are powerful enough to power a whole gaming PC rig offgrid, without needing to buy solar panels. You recharge the battery bank from your electricity, and then power the gaming PC that way. Ideally a separate battery for the router + a non-metal connection (WiFi or fiber optic media converters) between router and PC. Nothing from a dirty power grid touching either router nor gaming rig (at least until your beercooler-sized battery bank depletes). Skip the troubleshooting, skip the wasted time, go straight to offgrid if you have the money, if you're unlucky to live in a country with a super-dirty electricity grid with interference strong enough create lag-inducing error-correction events inside your PC.

Cheap offgriding at low 4 figures:
Portable Power Stations capable of powering a 500-watt GeForce RTX-powered gaming PC for about 3-4 hours:
www.google.com/search?q=2000+watt-hour+portable+power+stations
Essentially a UPS on steroids.

This easy "shotgun away a zillon wired EMI issues" solution for wired EMI (electrical grid) is now available for $1K that fixes most external-EMI-over-wire -- except for wireless/inducted EMI and internal EMI (e.g. defective or poorly shielded computer component creating EMI into other computer components). Worse comes to worse if it ends up useless in solving EMI, it's still a useful UPS-on-stereoids that allows you to keep gaming for a few hours into a blackout, so there's other "perks" that can help justify the purchase of a giant cooler-size 2000-watt-hour battery power bank. Great for camping and parks too (e.g. outdoor movie projector party). If your time is worth $25/hour, you've wasted money if you've spent 40+ hours troubleshooting wired EMI issues, and just want to bypass your power company for a while with a giant UPS battery for your PC.

A multipurpose equivalent of a giant UPS that is useful in blackouts and camping is a side door exit to solving double-digit percentage of EMI issues (the wired part of EMI).

Now that being said, your lag problem is PROBABLY not EMI related. It can be, but over 99% of the time is a wild goose chase to red herrings. A lot of time is wasted troubleshooting all of this, obviously.

Thank you Chief for your long explanetion and clarification about EMI related issues.

It's a complexe problem that is affecting a lot of people and after all these years there is still nobody that found a solution.

Like you said, the best way to make sure its not related to electricity would be to use a power bank. Even if its becoming cheaper, it is still a budget for most of us in case this isnt fixing the issue (not so easy to return).

I have another question, can a GPU induce error-correction events inside the PC ? and if yes, what would be a way to fix it ?
(asking because no matter how long i'm using my pc after it has been shut down for a while, i always get perfect hit reg/no desync but it quickly deterior after gpu is on load )