Environmental conditions and motherboard

[mybad]

Do you have a humidity measuring device in your room?

[Jaketown]

Guys, I'm in shock! My input lag and how I feel the game depends on the level of finding my pc from the water level! After moving my computer down to the floor, I noticed that my mouse started to feel much better! I do not know how to explain it, I do not have any scientific data, but I give a tooth that it is so.

Was that supposed to be funny or something? No wonder why this forum slowly becomes a trolling center.

What makes you think I'm joking?
Why don't you trust my research?
If you believe that humidity affects the operation of the PC, you should have the fact that the distance from sea level affects too. You can't deny it any more than dirty electricity.

btw, there is a hidden bios setting "Altitude" - the system altitude above the sea level in meters value "auto-300m-900m-1500m-3000m"

[Thatweirdinputlag]

Guys, I'm in shock! My input lag and how I feel the game depends on the level of finding my pc from the water level! After moving my computer down to the floor, I noticed that my mouse started to feel much better! I do not know how to explain it, I do not have any scientific data, but I give a tooth that it is so.

Was that supposed to be funny or something? No wonder why this forum slowly becomes a trolling center.

What makes you think I'm joking?
Why don't you trust my research?
If you believe that humidity affects the operation of the PC, you should have the fact that the distance from sea level affects too. You can't deny it any more than dirty electricity.

btw, there is a hidden bios setting "Altitude" - the system altitude above the sea level in meters value "auto-300m-900m-1500m-3000m"

Lol, actually? Doesnt that effect fan control? higher altitude = thinner air = fans running at higher rpm?

[Thatweirdinputlag]

@Chief Blur Buster

Your opinion and experiences are very welcomed because I can see that it was never mentioned before. Maybe you have something interesting to add.

Was never mentioned because of its correlation is a little bit poor, doesn't mean no one tried it! The humidity in my room usually sits around 45-55 its generally dry where I live. I tried to increase that humidity before to about 75 or 80% just for a little bit, while my PC was not running ofc. My reasoning for this was static charge tends to build less around a humid atmosphere, since the air itself becomes a bit conductive and the static charge will no longer be saturated at certain places.

That said, I did not notice any improvement on my gaming experience or input lag. The Humidity in my room reached about 76 and I turned on the PC when it was around 70 and the humidifier was off.

[Chief Blur Buster]

Since this is a rare/outlier problem I've moved this to the EMI forum as we don't want these kinds of topics in the conventional latency forum. I've renamed the other forum to include other kinds of rare issues.

Most computers can handle any relative humidity for a while. It's when a computer gets some sustained exposure that some problems starts -- (e.g. weird dominoe effects such as slightly conductive dust coating on the motherboard becoming more conductive because humidity wet the dust a little, etc).

Other times it's a humidity-sensitive component (including defective components), e.g. poorly cased resistor changing its resistor value because humidity leaked into the resistor component. Yet other times it's a hidden corrosion film (a film that looks faintly foggy / white-dust) caused by sustained exposure to high humidity. A humidifier may also emit various kinds of dust (e.g. from the components of tap water, such as calcium carbonate dust). Some of the chemicals in tap water is conductive, and when run through a humidifier, can create some dust that is semi-electrically-conductive. Say, 2-3 years of exposure to a humidifier can put a computer very closer to the trigger point where mere ambient humidity (from summertime).

These are only 2 examples of a million possible causes.

These won't be stuff that happens to 2 users in the same way, so is not one of those "because somebody else had it, I'm guessing it is something I'm also having too" -- not the right kind of troubleshoot path.

However, odd one-off issues always happen all the time, but it's often a million completely different problems affecting completely different people, from odd dominoe effects.

[Chief Blur Buster]

btw, there is a hidden bios setting "Altitude" - the system altitude above the sea level in meters value "auto-300m-900m-1500m-3000m"

Someone "Reported" your post.

I checked, and I have confirmed that you are attempting to make a joke, but it's hard to tell by your tone.
(Scientifically, high altitude can make it more difficult for a computer to keep itself cool -- fans need to spin faster to move the same amount of thinner air -- and less air pressure means less heat transfer).

However, such a hidden BIOS setting does not seem to exist, and I politely ask members to refrain from making such jokes please, in a forum where "rare computer problems" are among the most frustrating kinds of computer problems to troubleshoot.

Appreciated...

[Edit -- there is an altitude setting -- please read reply below instead]

[Chief Blur Buster]

this option exists, have you forgotten how to google?
https://imgur.com/PsqvCpv
after your last posts, I doubt your adequacy and competence. you look like an old fool. Don't get involved in things you don't understand.

Thanks for the correction -- this is a useful setting for adjusting the airflow based on known air pressure.

I did google, but I did not use the right Google-Fu terms to find the setting quickly. As well known, Chief Blur Buster is not perfect,, however, this does not earn you the right to namecall.

Please note that the name calls are not allowed on this forum. I have deleted the forum rule violation from your post, but I am responding to this part of your post.

While this is not the area of expertise for me, I clearly have expertise in other areas (I am in more than 25 peer reviewed science & research papers).

Respect and decorum is appreciated in these forums, and peer review is important, but you have to be circumspect about the diplomacy required around here. We are not Facebook or Twitter here.

You might have taken offense to my earlier post, but a more polite correction is best.

[Chief Blur Buster]

Crossposting:

Most People's Rare/EMI Problems Are Totally Different From Each Other, Despite Similarities

Also it is interesting if difference in power quality outside of PC would make any difference in error correction/latencies in PC with worst cable management setup + eventually worst EMI shielding on cables.

Unfortunately it's hard to prove this or otherwise, but it's quite possible -- one-off longshot type situations.

It's possible, but it almost feels harder to predict than quantum mechanics. You literally have to budget millions of possible EMI along the entire signal path of every single circuit wire (and every path on a chip, and every path inside a component, etc, etc, etc).

Think of this like a S/N budget -- any penny worth of EMI added to the mess can stack up to S/N noise floors weak enough to trigger error-correction storms that add latency. A slightly better cable routing (1 extra millimeter of separation between cables) versus a slightly worse ambient external EMI regime (e.g. 2% difference in strength), can turn this into a practical coin flip.

Importantly, one needs to understand Signal to Noise Ratio (S/N).

Sometimes it behaves like a piggy bank. The S/N margin piggy bank can improve/worsen in real time along the path. A superior power supply can add more to the S/N piggy bank and a worse external EMI can subtract from the S/N margin piggy back, and so on. Because the superior filtering pushes the N down (less noise). Other times it's a great amplifier (inflate S without inflating N). But remember there can be millions (billions) of different piggy banks. A different cable routing can add more to the S/N piggy bank for one part of the computer, but subtract from the S/N piggy bank for a different part of the computer.

Enough bad stuff goes on, you've emptied the S/N piggy bank and the problems finally begin unexpectedly. Also, sometimes certain S/N piggybanks are withdraw-only (never possible to deposit additional margin again) -- it depends on the type of the interference and how the S/N can improve/worsen through successive filtering stages.

But remember in S/N, the S and the N are two independent variables. If your S drops, you also have to drop N to keep your S/N ratio constant. S can be amplified with amplifier stages, but N can also amplify too. And in some stages, S can only decrease while N can never decrease. So if you understand S/N (Signal-to-Noise), every single component (of the billions of components, including every transistor on a silicon chip) have their own separate S/N behavior. That's why overclocking sometimes fails well before the overheating stage -- overclocking reduces S/N ratio of certain transistors and when just ONE transistor fails, the computer crashes. Perhaps it's because a too-fast-switched transistor didn't have enough current through its gate, and the signal flowing through that one transistor was a low S going through the N ratio, and the S/N fell below spec, and so on.

Whether it's a 2 mile long DSL connection, a 1000 mile fiber connection, or a 100 micrometer path on a silicon chip, all of them have S/N ratios. The S is fighting against N. You can overwhelm massive S to nearly non-existent N (e.g. push half a million volts along a power transmission cable). But for chips, your S is super-weak, fighting against N of interference. And there's billions of super-weak S. Only one dominoe needs to fall! Just one. You don't have billions of re-amplifiers on a silicon chip because there's just no room. We made chips so fast and operating so close to the noisefloor, that it's less immune to inference (that's why we don't send powerful GPUs to outer space, and still rely on many old IBM RAD 600 chips -- there's a lot of radiation interference in space outside atmosphere). But likewise, down on Planet Earth, we have enough various kinds of radiation sources to cause problems to computers -- if you're accidentally near enough them, even if it's just a simple defective fridge/dryer/microwave oven running in the next room behind the wall inches away from the radiation-transparent side of your glass computer. Things like that happen.

But even smaller EMI sources like computer monitor power bricks can be a problem when placed too close to a non-metal part of a computer, etc. Or even the 500-watt wire connecting between power supply and GPU -- that can inject some serious EMP to do a bit flip on a SSD chip if the 500 watt wire is routed touching an M.2 SSD, for example. So, pay attention to power wire routing to your GPU and motherboard, don't route those specific wires touching your electronics -- add at least a centimeter or preferably an inch of air gap. That can be all you need (inverse square law is your best friend!)

The big problem is there's practically uncountable number of different S/N ratios in a whole computer (every single circuit path and transistor on every single silicon chip -- not just circuit boards or external wires), and it takes only ONE weak link to start a dominoe effect sometimes. The well designed modern parts will error-correct without crashing (and only give you error-correction latency of various kinds, depending on whether it's a one-off error correction or a complete blizzard of error-correction).

You can focus on the brute hammers (e.g. biggest potential EMI sources), that's where you will win the most in your battles against EMI.

But you can do nothing about those adjacent silicon paths inside your chip, can't reroute everything, not possible. A low-S/N-margin chip (not highly overclockable) could perhaps be more sensitive to external EMI than high S/N-margin chips (e.g. chips that are highly robust, stable, and highly overclockable), so it's also an incentive to add some margins throughout -- hit the low lying apples like buying the right parts (good power supply, good power routing for high-wattage wires inside and outside of the computer, chips that don't crash when overclocked by 5% and then keep them un-overclocked, etc, etc) and you might reduce your odds of random EMI problems by only 50%-75% because you can't control the other billions of S/N ratios. But you can attack the low lying apples specific to your situation -- but be reasonable, don't overdo it.

It's easy to mis-focus on trying to improve an apartment's external EMI regime when simply redoing cable routing may sometimes fix the issue, but it is also easy to mis-focus on trying to fix cable routing, when an intense external EMI regime will overwhelm even the best cable routing. It's easy to roll the wasted-troubleshoot-time dice badly in a blind gamble of troubleshooting EMI without a lab full of equipment.

For almost a five-sigma of population, it is usually a waste of time to spend more than a few hours on EMI mitigation measures (i.e. attacking the low lying apples), the rest is usually just attacking those likelihoods far to the right of the decimal point. And EMI problems are like snowflakes -- because of the infinite (>billions, >trillions) of different S/N weak links inside a computer, inside a circuit board, inside every single one of those chips, etc -- the only hope is to hit the low lying apples and statistically lower our likelihood of EMI-related issues. The "bright beacons of EMI like a 500 watt unshielded wire next to an unshielded data wire" versus those "tiny things that deplete the S/N piggy bank for one single transistor in the middle of a chip".

It's fun to ask to do tests and fun to speculate, but one has a greater appreciation of chip engineers doing a grand fight to S/N ratio that caused Intel to fail to clock faster than 5 GHz and caused GHz to stop increasing... If you didn't train HEAVILY in the laws of physics of S/N, then one can never hope to understand this post even partially.

Again, this is not a "Because it successfully worked for me, it will work for you" type of problem. No two EMI issues by users are identical, although the high-likelihood ones (the ones with more than 1% chance of being the culprit, and/or the outlier ultra-weak S/N dominoes like the LG 5K recall from WiFi-interference complaints) -- by different users might birthday-attack against each other and occasionally two users have the same EMI issue. But more often than not, it's completely separate unique EMI issues. So solution by user A will typically not easily fix issues by user B.

Most EMI work is pre-emptive, by the chip designers and circuit board manufacturers. S/N is a basic staple of electronics circuit-design teachings. It's often the weaker S/N dominoes that slip through, and those unexpected interference sources that tips them.

I crosspost the above because:
- It's easy to jump to conclusions;
- It's easy to accuse others;
- Sometimes moving a computer a few feet triggers some S/N changes (someone mentioned moving computer to floor; a ligitimately possible solution if the desk area had more EMI, or it accidentally jiggled/tightened things)
- Sometimes changing humidity triggers some S/N changes (this is also, independently, separately legitimately possible)
- Sometimes settings exist that we didn't know about (however, small altitude differences in altitude likely would have nothing to do with the slightly different EMI regime of a slightly different computer position, or accidentally jiggled connectors/wires/slots/pins/etc)
- Etc.

The bottom line is that this thread is one of those things too -- often unable to be a "Because it successfully worked for me, it will work for you" type of problem. In these times, it's easily to accidentally go into trolling / debates / fights / etc about this.

The bottom line is that I am even guilty of accidentally not knowing that BIOS has had an "Altitude" adjustment, though it's peripheral to other legitimately possible causes. Because of the nebulous nature of rare/electrical issues, this area is very highly troll-magnet, BUT also "accidentally-thought-you-were-a-troll" situations. There are other areas of the forum that has low troll-risk factor (e.g. Area51) while other areas (like this one) has a high troll-risk factor.

Keep the best etiquette you can in the Rare/EMI forum, folks. I'm not perfect either -- apparently I posted accidental unintentional flamebait, so there's that.

I'll get off my soapbox.

As you know, with tough decisions, we decided to let this forum exist -- with some conditions, knowing the nature of these kinds of problems. I suggest reading the stickies of this forum, to improve patience/tact of this very risky subforum area.

If you are visiting Blur Busters only to visit the EMI forum area, then pay extra heed to 100% fully respecting Blur Busters' work and research at www.blurbusters.com/area51 in BlurBusters' better specialities -- especially for those of you forum members who only registered only to post in the EMI forum, and if you are not familiar with BlurBusters' work. The existence of this EMI forum is peripheral (pun) to Blur Busters' purview, and this existence of this forum is a privelege to encourage discussion and sharing personal issues with EMI, but does not encourage solution-sharing or other-people-shaming. I will be more careful next time personally (e.g. Altitude adjustment) but all the above stands.