Streamer Uwos Lab built an entirely battery powered gaming PC over the course of a five-hour stream last week. The rules were simple: no laptops, and no lithium ion AA batteries. The build had to be a desktop that could play a game while only relying on battery power.
The self-described ‘Mad-scientist streamer’ explained their plan simply enough, saying, “We’re going to wire eight AA in series to get 12 volts. And then we’re going to take 50 of those banks and wire them in parallel to get a high current, 12 volts, feed that into a DC to ATX power supply, and get our desktop online.”
A bit of quick and dirty maths initially suggested the streamer would need about 400 Alkaline AA batteries to pull this project off, but they ended up only wiring together 192 in total. These were split across three laser-cut wooden boxes. Each one contains 64 batteries, plus all the clips and contact pads needed to transmit power to the desktop, and then is wrapped in duct tape (via Tom’s Hardware). I’d say ‘Now, that’s mad science,’ but we’re not quite there yet.
As for the PC itself, Uwos Lab didn’t say much about its specs. However, we do know its based on an AM4 motherboard, and does not have a discrete GPU, so it likely uses a G-series AMD processor. The build doesn’t even have its own internal storage.
As such, Uwos Lab decides to boot from a USB drive instead—specifically into a Hannah Montana Linux. Not only that, the streamer then used this incredibly specific version of Linux to benchmark the rig. CPU usage was at the 98% mark while Uwos Lab simultaneously ran a Linux stress test and watched their own stream from the battery-powered PC. Okay, now that’s mad science.
Uwos Lab says the 192 alkaline AA batteries supplied enough juice for the desktop to run for 30 minutes, and reckons it could even “run a couple more hours before the power drop becomes too much” with what was left in the custom cells.
Similarly, back in March, tech creator ScuffedBits used the same brand of AA batteries to power a gaming PC for 33 minutes and 19 seconds. When it comes to battery powered hardware projects, the most impressive I’ve seen this year YouTuber Chris Doel salvaged the lithium ion batteries from 500 discarded vapes to power not just his PC, but his house and workshop as well. Perhaps there’s still some juice left in the tank of the battery-powered project idea.
