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Re: How I solved my particular input lag,floaty mouse,desync, degraded visuals problem

Posted: 09 Jan 2026, 20:35
by Slender
astroasis wrote:
09 Jan 2026, 18:33
I'm now convinced this issue is in the air for me, its night time now for me and I'm noticing my laptop connected to my TV just gained picture clarity and responsiveness in the last half an hour, also my phone just gained these same benefits.
Didn't you know?
What type of house is yours? I mean, what is it made of?
I think the problem somehow gets into the metal parts of our walls, interference on the air. The building is not properly grounded, moreover, it is possible that the neutral of your outlet is connected to metal in the walls.

Re: How I solved my particular input lag,floaty mouse,desync, degraded visuals problem

Posted: 10 Jan 2026, 04:45
by MK92
It's not air interference from the walls. Just test it.

-Get a power strip and put your PC and monitor on the floor in the biggest room in your home, in the middle of the room - the farthest possible from any wall and sockets
-Build a "tent" from aluminium foil -the foil should be on the floor with the PC and monitor sitting on the foil, and then simply cover both PC and monitor with foil, fully. Use duct tape to seal the foil on the floor, and then simply cover entire area, so both monitor and PC would be fully inside the foil tent, no air gaps - leave only the very small hole for your mouse and another small hole where you could see on the monitor, and a small gap for power cord - which should also be covered in foil.

Any air inteference from walls / outlets would be suppressed, if you are far away from walls and use aluminium foil it is not possible to interfere anymore. If the problem is still there, its the wall electricity problem, not air.

The problem is 95% overloaded / loose neutral wire, because in many apartments, the neutral wire is shared between all apartments, and someone has some heavy load on it and mess up entire building. At the night, many people stop using electricity = less noise on neutral. And what can we do about it? Literally nothing, they would need to re-wire neutral through entire building, or install extra neutrals, and this would cost 10,000€+.

Re: How I solved my particular input lag,floaty mouse,desync, degraded visuals problem

Posted: 10 Jan 2026, 05:15
by dervu
MK92 wrote:
10 Jan 2026, 04:45
It's not air interference from the walls. Just test it.

-Get a power strip and put your PC and monitor on the floor in the biggest room in your home, in the middle of the room - the farthest possible from any wall and sockets
-Build a "tent" from aluminium foil -the foil should be on the floor with the PC and monitor sitting on the foil, and then simply cover both PC and monitor with foil, fully. Use duct tape to seal the foil on the floor, and then simply cover entire area, so both monitor and PC would be fully inside the foil tent, no air gaps - leave only the very small hole for your mouse and another small hole where you could see on the monitor, and a small gap for power cord - which should also be covered in foil.

Any air inteference from walls / outlets would be suppressed, if you are far away from walls and use aluminium foil it is not possible to interfere anymore. If the problem is still there, its the wall electricity problem, not air.

The problem is 95% overloaded / loose neutral wire, because in many apartments, the neutral wire is shared between all apartments, and someone has some heavy load on it and mess up entire building. At the night, many people stop using electricity = less noise on neutral. And what can we do about it? Literally nothing, they would need to re-wire neutral through entire building, or install extra neutrals, and this would cost 10,000€+.
That test is flawed. You can't be really sure your equipment filters out everything on the cable that could be picked up from air.
You would have to run on UPS battery during this test.

Re: How I solved my particular input lag,floaty mouse,desync, degraded visuals problem

Posted: 10 Jan 2026, 07:30
by astroasis
Slender wrote:
09 Jan 2026, 20:35
astroasis wrote:
09 Jan 2026, 18:33
I'm now convinced this issue is in the air for me, its night time now for me and I'm noticing my laptop connected to my TV just gained picture clarity and responsiveness in the last half an hour, also my phone just gained these same benefits.
Didn't you know?
What type of house is yours? I mean, what is it made of?
I think the problem somehow gets into the metal parts of our walls, interference on the air. The building is not properly grounded, moreover, it is possible that the neutral of your outlet is connected to metal in the walls.
Im in an apartment in the UK, its quite old but the only metal things i can see are pipes like for drains and whatnot. I had this same issue in a detached house in the same town however

Re: How I solved my particular input lag,floaty mouse,desync, degraded visuals problem

Posted: 10 Jan 2026, 07:31
by Slender
MK92 wrote:
10 Jan 2026, 04:45

-Build a "tent" from aluminium foil -the foil should be on the floor with the PC and monitor.
BRAVO! U make good antenna for problem! Now pc 100% can cautch issue from every place from that building.

Re: How I solved my particular input lag,floaty mouse,desync, degraded visuals problem

Posted: 17 Jan 2026, 13:05
by astroasis
So chatgpt assures me that this is 100% an emitted RFI/EMI issue where everything in my flat is acting as a sort of antenna for it, this explains how just moving wires makes my pc monitor look better and smoother at 144hz for example. It suggests that the incoming AC and things like harmonics is not the issue, and that its the layout of our homes

Re: How I solved my particular input lag,floaty mouse,desync, degraded visuals problem

Posted: 17 Jan 2026, 15:42
by MK92
Do not rely on chatbots lol, they don't know shit and are just guessing stuff, I managed to convince it that the surge protector is the problem and then the bot promised that it would be 100% fixed if I change it, then I said that my PSU power cord is a little bit bent and then came to the conclusion that this is the 100% the problem

Re: How I solved my particular input lag,floaty mouse,desync, degraded visuals problem

Posted: 18 Jan 2026, 11:55
by astroasis
it has to be emitted (not conducted from the outlet, which is why balanced isolation transformer, filters, ups etc dont work in my case) RFI for me, i removed everything metal from close to my pc and other unused electronic devices and its staying more consistent, obviously not 100% because i cant change things like metal pipework and radiators

Re: How I solved my particular input lag,floaty mouse,desync, degraded visuals problem

Posted: 14 Jun 2026, 09:48
by Racord
Hi everyone! A guy in the ru input lag community noticed a massive improvement after rebuilding an old, oxidized aluminum-to-copper wire splice in his apartment. He noted that his neutral-to-ground voltage dropped from 1–3V down to 0.5–1V. I discussed the physics behind this with an AI, and it suggested an interesting power delivery solution. I can't test it myself right now due to a lack of equipment, but maybe some of you can.

The Core Problem: Dirty Neutral and Neighbor Noise
In reality, the main neutral line of a residential building is flooded with heavy high-frequency (HF) electromagnetic noise generated by hundreds of neighbors (inverter A/Cs, induction cooktops, elevator variable-frequency drives). Because of this, the neutral-to-ground potential constantly fluctuates. As a result, the Y-capacitor inside the PC power supply on the neutral side unintentionally conducts in reverse: it allows all this neighboring HF garbage to bleed directly onto the metal PC chassis.

Since the PC chassis is directly tied to the motherboard's signal ground (GND), this HF noise introduces severe phase noise (jitter) into the motherboard's PLL clock generators and degrades the reference voltage of the mouse sensor's internal ADC. This electrical instability causes hardware-level timing drift during interrupt handling and coordinate processing, which translates into that notorious "heavy/muddy" mouse tracking feeling.

What People Usually Get Wrong
Typically, people just plug their PC directly into a standard 1:1 isolation transformer, leaving the secondary grid fully "floating" (where both output lines are completely isolated and have an undefined, floating potential relative to earth). However, consumer ATX power supplies are strictly designed and safety-certified for asymmetrical grids (a distinct Line and Neutral). Running them in a floating mode alters the intended path for common-mode noise dissipation, meaning the line noise keeps circulating inside the system instead of being effectively suppressed.

The Solution: Forcing a Local Reference Zero
The solution is to force-create a local reference zero:
  1. Get a true 1:1 isolation transformer (1.0–1.6 kVA) with an electrostatic shield between the primary and secondary windings.
  2. Connect the "dirty" wall ground ONLY to the external metal chassis of the transformer itself (for fire safety).
  3. The most important part: Take one of the two output wires from the secondary winding of the transformer and physically bond it to a clean, dedicated personal ground.
By doing this, we explicitly pin this wire to the ground potential, turning it into a dedicated, crystal-clear reference zero (strictly 0.00V). The second wire automatically becomes a clean, isolated phase (Line). This brings three perfect lines to your PC power strip, completely isolated from neighboring voltage sags and line noise.

What This Achieves in Practice
This completely separates the PC from kilometers of dirty residential neutral cabling. The input Y-capacitor on the neutral side completely calms down because the potential difference between the new neutral and the PC chassis becomes exactly zero. The PSU filter operates at maximum efficiency, instantly dumping the PSU's own internal switching noise to ground. The motherboard's PLL and the mouse sensor's signal ground are cleared of high-frequency jitter, yielding the cleanest possible "raw input" for the mouse.

The only catch for me right now is that I need the isolation transformer and a solid personal ground setup, which I currently lack.

Has anyone here tried using an isolation transformer in this specific configuration—grounding one leg of the secondary winding to establish a reference zero, rather than just running it in a standard "floating" mode?

Re: How I solved my particular input lag,floaty mouse,desync, degraded visuals problem

Posted: 14 Jun 2026, 10:34
by gjk
Racord wrote:
14 Jun 2026, 09:48
Hi everyone! A guy in the ru input lag community noticed a massive improvement after rebuilding an old, oxidized aluminum-to-copper wire splice in his apartment. He noted that his neutral-to-ground voltage dropped from 1–3V down to 0.5–1V. I discussed the physics behind this with an AI, and it suggested an interesting power delivery solution. I can't test it myself right now due to a lack of equipment, but maybe some of you can.

The Core Problem: Dirty Neutral and Neighbor Noise
In reality, the main neutral line of a residential building is flooded with heavy high-frequency (HF) electromagnetic noise generated by hundreds of neighbors (inverter A/Cs, induction cooktops, elevator variable-frequency drives). Because of this, the neutral-to-ground potential constantly fluctuates. As a result, the Y-capacitor inside the PC power supply on the neutral side unintentionally conducts in reverse: it allows all this neighboring HF garbage to bleed directly onto the metal PC chassis.

Since the PC chassis is directly tied to the motherboard's signal ground (GND), this HF noise introduces severe phase noise (jitter) into the motherboard's PLL clock generators and degrades the reference voltage of the mouse sensor's internal ADC. This electrical instability causes hardware-level timing drift during interrupt handling and coordinate processing, which translates into that notorious "heavy/muddy" mouse tracking feeling.

What People Usually Get Wrong
Typically, people just plug their PC directly into a standard 1:1 isolation transformer, leaving the secondary grid fully "floating" (where both output lines are completely isolated and have an undefined, floating potential relative to earth). However, consumer ATX power supplies are strictly designed and safety-certified for asymmetrical grids (a distinct Line and Neutral). Running them in a floating mode alters the intended path for common-mode noise dissipation, meaning the line noise keeps circulating inside the system instead of being effectively suppressed.

The Solution: Forcing a Local Reference Zero
The solution is to force-create a local reference zero:
  1. Get a true 1:1 isolation transformer (1.0–1.6 kVA) with an electrostatic shield between the primary and secondary windings.
  2. Connect the "dirty" wall ground ONLY to the external metal chassis of the transformer itself (for fire safety).
  3. The most important part: Take one of the two output wires from the secondary winding of the transformer and physically bond it to a clean, dedicated personal ground.
By doing this, we explicitly pin this wire to the ground potential, turning it into a dedicated, crystal-clear reference zero (strictly 0.00V). The second wire automatically becomes a clean, isolated phase (Line). This brings three perfect lines to your PC power strip, completely isolated from neighboring voltage sags and line noise.

What This Achieves in Practice
This completely separates the PC from kilometers of dirty residential neutral cabling. The input Y-capacitor on the neutral side completely calms down because the potential difference between the new neutral and the PC chassis becomes exactly zero. The PSU filter operates at maximum efficiency, instantly dumping the PSU's own internal switching noise to ground. The motherboard's PLL and the mouse sensor's signal ground are cleared of high-frequency jitter, yielding the cleanest possible "raw input" for the mouse.

The only catch for me right now is that I need the isolation transformer and a solid personal ground setup, which I currently lack.

Has anyone here tried using an isolation transformer in this specific configuration—grounding one leg of the secondary winding to establish a reference zero, rather than just running it in a standard "floating" mode?
This guy from my country tried an isolation transformer with no success, although, I don't know which one he used.
https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads ... s.3642136/

There is also another guy who tried an isolation transformer with ups and solved it. (offline)