russianum1 wrote: ↑11 Oct 2021, 00:22
i would like to ask is it ok to use generator with lithium batteries with old pc parts that been affected by emi ? like monitor psu memory cpu i can use new power cords but i dont know if the hardware emi will be back with the batteries
Short Answer:
Yes, it's OK. And it might solve problems. However, it might not.
Long Answer:
Only if the source of EMI is in built into the hardware. Switching power supplies are a major source of EMI, and switching-based power supplies can be built into a monitor. Unless you know WHERE the EMI is coming from (internally or externally), what you do may not do anything at all.
Especially if the problematic source of EMI is built into one (or more) pieces of your computer hardware -- I've seen switching power supplies go bad inside a monitor or inside a computer power supply, or even in the VRM circuits built into a motherboard.
- Batteries and power cables do not act like "tape recorders" for EMI.
- However, batteries and switching power supplies can be degraded/damaged by really bad electricity and can exhibit different behaviors after exposure to electricity sufficiently bad enough (e.g. like many power surges all day long).
- Damage to power cables from EMI almost never happens. It takes a massive intense EMI (like a lighting bolt & power surge) to damage electrical cables enough to cause it to become problematic. By then, damage is usually visible (burnt plastic).
EMI is a gigantic universe with more possible combinations than there are number of atoms in this galaxy. It's not like a single disease. EMI/EMF/intereference/surges/bad electricity comes in way more forms than you think.
Another problem is we don't always know if the computer is degraded by EMI:
-- Computers can be temporarily affected by EMI (perfectly zero after-effects)
-- Computers can be permanently affected by EMI (surge-damaged power supplies, damaged motherboard, damaged capacitors, etc).
EMI/EMF/interference can be a simple hiccup, or a huge power surge. It can be in the circuits (part of the defects of the system), over the cables (injected in to your system), or wireless (induction, magnetic fields, etc). One EMI may be a million times stronger than a different EMI. An electric lightning bolt hitting your power wires directly is ALSO another form of EMI -- just a rather abrupt, obvious, visible, and damaging type. But there's a lot of invisible kinds of EMI that is a lot weaker too (but still damaging enough), and ever-so-weaker EMI which is just temporary noise for a computer to successfully error-correct (lag down) through with with perfectly zero after-effects.
Also, at the average computer skill levels, sometimes one need 2 separate, completely independently-rebuilt (by different people, completely different components, even NVIDIA GPU cards built by 2 separate vendors) computers, to speed up an amateur non-university-degree EMI troubleshoot. (In that case, occasionally money conveniently compensates for a lack of a university degree, by allowing you the power of testing exclusion situations -- as a time saver). It's a good suggestion if you can afford it, to make sure you've got 2 sets of everything (2 esports rigs) -- making it less likely that your EMI problem is internal, and also throwing in another hardware that might happen to be more external-EMI-resistant.
...(Self aside) In a forum where the average EMI question is of the type of format that frustrates EMI professionals (but remember, we unceremoniously ban elitism-attitudes around here), we try our best to be nice to newbies. But obviously, my long replies are read by hundreds or thousands of users, so I love spending time writing long replies once in a while (not TOO often to hog my time too much, mind you) -- when Chief is in the room, I give a bit of time to my best effort. Thus, because of this complex confusing topic matter that is generally at the very edge or outside Blur Busters specialties, we are an entity picky about temporals of all kinds --- so we try to never dismiss milliseconds (even if they're caused by EMI). So, in a situation where you're unsure whether to ask question in this forum, it's best not to ask until you've read every single post, due to the topic matter, but we understand that some questions still have to be asked once now and then -- no matter how silly a question it might be...
I try my goddamned best try to offer generic solutions that tries to catch-all on a very murky problem (Do you have money? Buy a 2nd system rather than bothering to troubleshoot. Test by mass-exclusion, and binary-search your way to an EMI solution with incrementally smaller parts swaps to rescue your EMI-prone system).
The battery is another generic solution, so it solves a lot of
external EMI causes, but that does not rule out
internal EMI causes. So you're testing 2 esports rigs (one after the other) with a battery rig to attempt to troubleshoot external EMI causes, but it doesn't guarantee lack of internal EMI causes (e.g. EMI generated internally by your rig).
For all kinds of hardware problems (like a mysterious crash problem that is hard to trace) -- binary search is a common troubleshoot technique by programmer-experienced people. You do a lot of parts replacement until the problem is solved (in this case we have 2 separate systems). Then focus on the problem system and swap half of its parts, then swap a quarter of its parts, then an eighth of its parts, until the problem is solved with minimum replaced parts (as much as your wallet can tolerate). The binary search technique is useful for EMI problems because of the "unknown nature" of many forms of internal EMI causes.
Thus, there will be tons of questions because it is so fantastically difficult to learn / answer questions. It's mainly the territory of electrical/electronics engineers with degrees, and is covered in tons of very confusing peer reviewed science papers.
EMI troubleshooting is many thousands times harder to troubleshoot than troubleshooting a noisy laggy Internet line. (Bad DSL is slow often because of EMI -- the long distance from central phone switching office or the DSLAM box, means interference overcomes the DSL speed, in a roundabout way). Now imagine. Instead, even a
single circuit board trace on one of your computer components, is acting up like that bad DSL line and causing internal error-correction latencies -- like a noisy PCI-X lane that is pushing the S/N ratios of your transceiver chip built into your GPU / motherboard. Imagine ping loss on your PCIe, and bingo. The problem is you can't really trace which circuit board trace it is -- there's over 1000+ circuit traces inside a modern computer already being pushed to near its S/N ratios thanks to the final milkings of Moore's Law. We've packed a modern esports PC with error correction algorithms to the brim. No diagnostics software can measure the problem on all possible circuit traces of all your circuit boards in all components of your entire rig -- whether by defect, by design, or by interference, etc.
Unless you know where the EMI is coming from, it's easy to waste a lot of time like unnecessarily worrying about undamaged power cables.
It's actually cheaper to own two esports rigs with two separate monitors than the other types of EMI troubleshoot techniques! Concidential happenstances (such as a loose connection inside a poorly manufactured or old power plug) may blow out sooner with smaller power surges (the kind that can cause arcing) but usually that goes straight into a non-working cable, but is caused more often by wear-tear of unplugging and plugging the cable.
If you can afford a battery and it still can't solve the problem, you can afford a 2nd esports rig (with a GPU of a different vendor, and a monitor of a different vendor), to help your EMI-troubleshooting journey faster (the money-spend technique instead of the university-degree technique).
I say a differently-made system because sometimes we don't know if internal EMI is caused by a warranty defect or caused by a design defect in one of the components. Both situations have happened before. This advice simply increase the troubleshoot "attack surface area" with this general-purpose recommendation. More attempted fixes in a shorter amount of time via "carpet bombing" and "bigger blankets", as a metaphor.
Obviously, all of this can be for naught if your EMI is wirelessly over-the-air and super-strong (e.g. living 10 meters under a near-overloaded 500 kilovolt power transmission line -- some countries build houses/apartments close to them). Or you're living above an industrial/mechanical floor with huge 50-year-old motors (ditto) that's taller than you. My condolences to you if you're this unlucky.
Bat least your "
I'm having a mysterious problem" troubleshooting surface area is huge with batteries and 2 separate esports rigs -- you now have the luxury of binary searching through your problem. (Even though that troubleshooting technique may solve a problem other than EMI, too)
TL;DR: There's no easy fixes for these types of problems. But money may make this type of problem somewhat easier to fix.