Can you go off-grid and still have a decent-enough PC Experience?

[JosephEK]

Not so much "SFF" as it is just being minimalist in nature, how feasible is it to have a "good enough" PC experience off the grid?

Let's say hypothetically that you were prepping for military/economic disasters and trying to make yourself completely independent of money beyond initial equipment costs.

To be free of electricity bills you would go completely solar powered.
To be free of property tax you would squat someplace well hidden in a state/national park...
...that is lucky enough to have free Wi-fi for atleast some level of internet connection.

What kind of PC would be ideal for that situation? Would it be best to get a low power laptop that uses integrated graphics so that you can run off its battery? Or would it be possible to run a NUC-like system + Monitor off some kind of battery so you can use it whenever the sun isn't shining? Personally the laptop seems to be the better option to me, but make sure to have some spare peripherals in-case the laptops's were to break. How good of a solar panel would you need to power a laptop charger, phone charger, LED light bulb. IDK if a fridge or pump would be feasible.

 

[W1NN1NG]

I mean, there's 12v interverters and such you could realistically run a small grade system off solar, how much it would run down would all depend on your wattage worth of panels I'm sure I'm not completely knowledgeable in this sorta thing but I've watched plenty of tiny home videos to get some sorts of knowledge out of it.

 

[Phuncz]

You'd basically need to start by lowering all the needs you have to the most efficient: most efficient CPU, most efficient power supply and most efficient usage.

Scenario one: just browsing, hermit-style

Lets start with a scenario one: just run a web browser and use it to access this forum. Basically I'd choose a tablet-like device and you can almost run it from some solar power and let's say 20.000mAh worth of extra juice to last about a week of 8 hour browsing. Wireless would give you plenty of freedom anyway and with a wireless bridge or configurable router you'd be able to jack in most unprotected environments that have internet and power anyway.

Scenario two: gaming as the last man on earth

If you'd also want to play games in a post-apocalyptic world with no internet, electricity and humans left, it would very much depend on the game. Let's consider Factorio since it's light-weight, offline playable (if not bought from Steam) and can last you long enough to forget you're the last human alive. Or a good simulator to plan rebuilding society if you'd find a partner of the opposite sex. But I digress.

Anyway, you'd need yet again an efficient platform. Let's start with usage. Let's say you're out hunting for food and shed-scrap 8 hours, sleep for 8 hours so you have 8 hours time to kill to play games. So you could use solar power and a large enough battery to last you for 8 hours.

Let's look at the game's minimum/recommended spec:
Minimum: 4GB RAM, 512MB VRAM, Dual core 3GHz+ processor, 1280x720 screen resolution, 1GB of disk space.
Recommended: 8GB RAM, 2GB VRAM, Quad core 3GHz+ processor.
OS support: Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista. macOS El Capitan, Yosemite, Mavericks, Mountain Lion, Lion. Linux (tarball installation).

I'd normally recommend Linux since it's the most hardware platform agnostic, but it also requires a software engineer level knowledge to troubleshoot if there's no internet to search. It might work if you got it completely figured out before the apocalypse though. I'd go with Windows 7 because I don't want to die knowing I could have gamed to my death because Linux was being quirky.
As far as I know you can run Windows 7 offline without an issue after activating. You'd want to have atleast two SSDs in RAID 1 to not one day boot into "No Operating System found" and have a backup image of your OS and game on an external USB 3.0 SSD too.

CPU:
The recommended 3GHz+ Quad Core might be to beefy as a target, so lets look at a power-efficient 2GHz+ quad core:
Intel Xeon E3-1240L v5 (4 cores, 8 threads, 2.1 GHz - 3.2 GHz, 25W TDP, Socket 1151)

Motherboard:
The motherboard needs to last, so I'll consider business class hardware. Since we want two storage devices and M.2 SATA seems the more power efficient storage, something like this board comes to mind:
Asus P10S-M DC (M.2 RAID1, ECC RAM, mATX)

GPU:
The GPU can be quite low-end but needs again to be the most power efficient.
This needs more consideration but I'm going for the Palit GTX 1050 Ti KalmX, since it's one of the most power-efficient GPUs that runs off motherboard power, the most power efficient at load and the most power efficient at idle. Ofcourse we would undervolt this card as much as possible to increase the lifetime and battery usage. It's also passive so no need to replace fans. It will also run heavier games if you're overflowing in battery power due to the scorching sun.

PSU:
Power supply needs to be something that's as close the the battery's output and the motherboard's input to reduce losses and multiple voltage conversions. Batteries might not be the best way for long-term usage, unless someone knows of rechargeable batteries that last well over a decade. Maybe capacitors ? Anyway, power supply wise I'd look into PicoPSU 120-160W range that runs off 12-24V DC, which is what we should aim for with our battery/capacitor solution. Maybe the PicoPSU 120 WI25 ?

That's it for now, need to tackle more

 

[EdZ]

A crate full of Raspberry Pis, SD Cards, LCD screens, keyboards and mice. If there is no infrastructure available to produce replacment microelectronics, the best you can hope for is to have more spares than MTBF intervals over your lifetime.

 

[rcodi]

I feel like we'll see fairly decent experiences with ARM based platforms in the next few years (ex: Pinebook). Something like that should have enough battery life to last you through the day and then charge from a solar battery bank of some sort.

 

[JosephEK]

You'd basically need to start by lowering all the needs you have to the most efficient: most efficient CPU, most efficient power supply and most efficient usage.

A crate full of Raspberry Pis, SD Cards, LCD screens, keyboards and mice. If there is no infrastructure available to produce replacment microelectronics, the best you can hope for is to have more spares than MTBF intervals over your lifetime.

I do like the "gaming as last man on earth", but I'm not talking high-end gaming. I'm talking: Minecraft, Stardew Valley, Runescape, Shovel Knight, Bit Blaster XL, Undertale, Don't Starve and maybe some Verdun or other light single-player shooters (Personally I'm waiting for Instalation 01 which is an independent Halo-themed game which supposedly has Microsoft's blessings).

 

[TheDreamingMonk]

As I sit right now, my PC ( 7700k, gtx1060sc, silverstone 450w psu ) along with my television and audio system ( only about 80w worth of sound ), mini fridge ( more like a half fridge ) and all of my lighting are all run strictly on solar power. It's not hard to do, but to get decent enough wattage to run standard electronics, it can be expensive to set up.

Granted, I could lighten things up quite a bit still. But there's no point for now.

The only thing not on it are things like the dish washer ( though I do most by hand anyways ), washer and dryer , water heater and my garage... basically the larger things that require a bit more power. Though there are options out there. I just haven't bothered with them for now.

Your other option is going with diesel generators or propane generators, using them to charge a large battery bank to supply the weeks power needs would be a great option. Using them and their fuel once a week to charge up the bank, maximizing the overall consumption or fuel. This is more or less how some semi trucks run.

For squatting purposes you can mount solar panels to the roof of a van / trailer / rv or whatever you have. and throw a battery bank under the body.

But you run into other issues in a SHTF scenario. And you'll quickly realize you don't have time for gaming when living off grid, since you'll be needing to tend to crops and possibly livestock in order to stay alive. That is essentially a full time job in itself. Not to mention repairs to the property. Hunting if not raising your own livestock ( assuming you want meat ). Quite honestly, if you're preparing for any kind of economic meltdown, a PC is the last of your worries. So much so, that I wouldn't even bother making one for that purpose. If you have some kind of meltdown, war, economy, whatever... public wifi is going to disappear quick.

Let's consider Factorio since it's light-weight, offline playable (if not bought from Steam)

It is regardless where you buy it. If you buy it on their site, you get a Steam key. If you buy it on Steam you can link your Steam account to an account on their site and get the key. Sorry, I've spent way too much time with Factorio and have bought it with both systems before they linked everything.

And even with Steam, you simply have to ping their servers once every 90? days I think it is. Hardly a bottleneck.

And when you get to a big factory... it's anything but lightweight. It can bog down plenty of computer without much help.

 

[CaneyJ]

My main advice is to avoid using inverters like the plague. They are very inefficient and are totally unnecessary for a battery-based desktop setup. Use a DC-DC supply like a HD-Plex 160W or 400W.

I run a portable battery-powered gaming desktop off a beefy 20AH, 6S Lithium-Polymer pack designed to run big octocoper drones. [https://hobbyking.com/en_us/multistar-high-capacity-6s-20000mah-multi-rotor-lipo-pack.html ]

I get around 5+ hours of gaming time and recharge the pack in just over an hour on either a small generator or from a mains socket in a coffee shop using a 20-Amp RC Hobby charger [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01M07WNV5/?tag=theminutiae-20 ]
and a 24V-AC power supply
https://www.amazon.co.uk/JOYLIT-Swi...1503298211&sr=8-1&keywords=600w+24v+switching

My setup isn’t the latest but it’s still very efficient. I run a 65W TDP i5-4590S [with turbo-boost disabled but still gives me 3Ghz], an Asrock H81 ITX motherboard, a basic Palit GTX1050Ti 4GB, 2x 4GB DDR3 Samsung Low-Profile 1.35V RAM, a Samsung Evo 850 500GB 2.5” SSD and a 160W HD-Plex DC-DC Power Supply inside a tiny bespoke ITX case.

Along with a Chinese 15.6” USB powered 1080P monitor, the whole setup under gaming load uses around 80 watts on average and peaks at 103 watts.

At the moment I play Doom and Overwatch connected to my phone on 4G via USB tether and it performs perfectly fine at 60fps.

When playing Overwatch which is a low GPU demand game, I can drop my power use even further to around 70 watts by using MSI afterburner power limiting and still easily get 60fps on high graphics to match the monitors 60Hz limit.

My Lipo pack has 444 Watt-Hours of energy which gives me 5 straight gaming hours. I monitor my energy use with one of these https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_...rh=i:aps,k:watt+meter+130a&tag=theminutiae-20

I also have a BX100 cell alarm [ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MQSHS4N/?tag=theminutiae-20 ]for early warning about low-cell voltage reminding me to shut down and I have a final protection via one of these low-voltage disconnect boards which cut pack power when under 3.5V per cell. http://bed-electronics.com/product/lipo-6-cell-battery-protector-sbs6s15c/.

Since the whole LIPO pack is only 2.5kg, I can carry this along with the small 20-Amp charger and AC-24V Power supply with me to locals with AC sockets and recharge whilst having a meal.

Between the pack, LVD and watt meter, I also run a buck converter which brings the viable pack voltage [25V-21V] down to a steady 19V which is the optimum level for a HD-Plex.

If you run a more conventional 12V lead-acid setup along with solar; you can use an in-line low battery disconnect such as this: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B018TK5WIM/?tag=theminutiae-20 along with the 130 Amp watt-meter to measure power use that I linked to earlier.

Instead of a buck converter, you can use a 12V-19V boost converter to feed the HD-Plex [& 19V monitor?] directly such as this one here https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MQJ4IJJ/?tag=theminutiae-20

 

[Phuncz]

It is regardless where you buy it. If you buy it on their site, you get a Steam key. If you buy it on Steam you can link your Steam account to an account on their site and get the key. Sorry, I've spent way too much time with Factorio and have bought it with both systems before they linked everything.

And even with Steam, you simply have to ping their servers once every 90? days I think it is. Hardly a bottleneck.

We're talking full-blown apocalypse here (in my example), so servers aren't available ever. So a ping every 90 days is basically 3 months of play. But luckily there is Good Old Games: https://www.gog.com/game/factorio (no online DRM)

And when you get to a big factory... it's anything but lightweight. It can bog down plenty of computer without much help.

Not really an insurmountable issue, just start over. I guess when you have years to spend and not work, it will become a challenge on its own. The game's development is seeing regular optimizations, so until the apocalypse arrives...