Enthusiast rebuilds AA-battery-powered PC, sextuples run time to 30 minutes with 64 batteries — uses three voltage regulators in parallel to achieve stability, runs computer for over 30 minutes on 64 AA cells

Running a desktop PC on 64 AA batteries — (Image credit: ScuffedBits/YouTube)

Creator and enthusiast ScuffedBits successfully ran a desktop PC for about five minutes on AA batteries alone and was even able to complete one round of Minesweeper on it. However, it seemed that that wasn’t long enough, so he decided to redo the project, intending to address the problems of the first build.

The biggest issue they fixed first was the high resistance of the tiny wires used to connect the batteries to the motherboard. Instead of replacing them, ScuffedBits modified the wiring of the battery packs to get around 25 volts, meaning that the PC would now require lower current, preventing instability because of the thin wiring. Of course, 25 volts isn’t good for the motherboard, so they also added three voltage regulators wired in parallel to get a consistent 12 volts until the batteries died. To further ensure that the system works, they also eliminated the alligator clips and soldered the wires directly to the capacitors that came from the original project.

How Long Can 64 AA Batteries Run PC Games? | It Works this Time! - YouTube

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With everything in place, ScuffedBits inserted the last three AA batteries, completing the circuit and bringing the PC to life. Unlike the last time, which needed an external power source to “jumpstart” the computer, it was able to boot straight up using just the AA cells this time. With the voltage holding steady, they were able to log into Windows and show us the specifications of the PC — an Intel Core i3-530 paired with 8GB of RAM and a WD SATA SSD.

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The first thing they did was play one round of A Short Hike, which they finished some three and a half minutes after turning on the computer purely on AA batteries. But what’s more interesting was that they were able to run Cinebench on the system, pushing the rather old CPU to its limits. Even though this processor is rather old, TechPowerUp reports that it still has a power draw of 73 watts. Nevertheless, the system completed the test almost eight minutes after booting up, with no signs of slowing down.

So, after the benchmark, ScuffedBits decided to install Minecraft and play several rounds of Party Games. After that, he tried to install Portal 2, but the system finally died after 33 minutes and 19 seconds — quite a remarkable feat for a home-made AA-battery power solution for a desktop PC. This isn’t groundbreaking technology, especially as we have better battery solutions available to us nowadays. Besides, who would want to purchase 64 AA batteries at a gas station multiple times a day just to keep their laptops fully charged?

The creator also ran a test using a 12-volt car battery on the system, showing that it will work. But they also said that it was going to be quite boring, as the car battery should have enough juice to run the desktop computer for three to four hours without any problems. Nevertheless, the entire thing is still a fun project, tinkering with batteries and PCs, and we hope to see more similarly crazy experiments from ScuffedBits in the future.

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Jowi Morales is a tech enthusiast with years of experience working in the industry. He’s been writing with several tech publications since 2021, where he’s been interested in tech hardware and consumer electronics.

2 Comments Comment from the forums

abufrejoval

That reminds me of a system I had many years ago, somewhere 1995 or 1996, I believe, of which I couldn't find any trace in the internet, even if I always thought it an interesting pioneer....

I did manage to find it: it's otherwise known as the ABC BiCOM 260i.

It was based on a CMOS variant of the 80286 and was designed for ultra low power and price. I believe it was sold perhaps even exclusively by Vobis Computers, a computer company that used hold a rather large marketshare in the 1990's in Germany, but failed even faster than it rose.

It had a passive monochrome LCD display, most likely 640x480 or 640x400 ("Olivetti"), a small 2.5" hard disk with perhaps a couple dozen megabyte, and would have normally run DOS. There is a good chance a floppy drive was external, this was long before USB.

It had a much smaller than normal form factor with a reduced size keyboard that was just big enough to touch type on, very cheap, and flimsy plastic material, perhaps slightly better than a Sinclair ZX81, perhaps even narrower than Vaio, but more longish and obviously not a Sony.

But the main reason this article reminds me of it is that it was designed to run on a set of AA batteries, although I can' remember if it was 4, 6, or 8 of them. There was no charging support of any type, these could be normal acid batteries or rechareable ones, but in those days those were nickel cadmium at lower voltage and even less capacity, so they didn't last enough to get any work done.

Even if it was "low power" by the standards of the days, I ate through batteries with a vengance, so being the clever type, I got myself a lead gel motor scooter battery, which I'd put on the floor, connected that via a cable to the laptop and had it run the computer for hours, way beyond normal laptop endurance in those days.

I then also got myself an external power supply, originally a classical transformer, but then these new fangled switching power supplies came out and I got myself one of those, because it was much lighter and thus a much better fit to a machine that was extremely light weight without any battery.

I ran GeoWorks Ensemble on it, which was a near ideal fit to the machine, because I believe it was even able to use the extra RAM in the system, typically only accessible via protected mode. I also ran some encyclopedia and translation apps on it, there used to be a couple really good and compact ones to fit on to a harddisk in those pre-Internet and Wikipedia days. That and the battery gave me some serious nerd creds at the time.

However, it didn't survive my "clever" thin charger for long, during baggage control on a return flight, I was asked to turn it on to prove it wasn't just hiding a bomb, and while it did turn on, I noticed the screen looked a bit odd and when I tried to use it again later, it turned out to be dead: that switching power supply wasn't stabilized enough and had evidently delivered too much voltage at what little power the machine actually required, killing it far too early.

It seems it wasn't a big success at Vobis, either: it appears only ever so shortly in their sales pamphlets in April/May 1993 for "only" $1250: prices were just not the same in those "good old times"!

It could have run my Microport Unix, which I had bought for the then ridiculous price of only $99 for my 80286 in 1986, except that that OS wasn't a lot of fun and I believe you had to re-configure the system between XMS (protected mode RAM) and EMS (Intel Above Board) mapping of the 2nd MB.

I only mention that in the context of the Fruity Cult's recent Neo...
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abufrejoval

That AA operated Vobis A5 PC (above) could have been my first portable Unix system, just didn't get there before it broke.

The hot and new Neo inspired me to look for a similar sized current alternative, and one that might provide a better experience and value than the €699 Neo.

Adjusted for 30 years of inflation that 16 MHz 80286 BiCom 260i (sold as "A5 PC" by Vobus, because it was about as big as a piece of paper (DIN A4) folded once over (DIN A5) would reach $3000 today, so yes, indeed by comparison the Neo is a bargain.

But while its officially an Android tablet, I'm just running a full KDE Plasma desktop as one app of many on my OnePlus Pad 3 13.2" tablet, plenty of other apps besides without running out of RAM. It sports a "phone" or "tablet" SoC very similar to the A18, 8 core Oryon with up to 4.3 GHz clocks, 16GB of LPDDR5, 512 GB of UFS 4.0 storage, which I consider the better value, because on top of twice RAM and SSD it also comes with a touchscreen, precise angle and pressure sensitive pen and a keyboard cover included for €100 less than the Neo.

And while the scooter battery I had to resort to for the A5 PC to last a day, easily weighted more than a big gamer laptop today, it's 700g for the Pad 3 with the cover, while it easily last a week of casual use, suspended and instant on, or a full extended work day, perhaps even two without a recharge: you just don't get that from a Windows laptop, running Linux won't help. And if you need to recharge it, mobiles are a lot faster than EVs. I have no idea is Macs are like iPads when it comes to "practically always on" use, Windows on ARM failed, using very similar hardware (Elite X 100).

The relative computing performance doesn't really matter that much when what you do is your usual desktop day work, reading, writing, doing spreadsheets etc. That's what I did on the A5, and while the desktop now includes video and animations at colors and resolution that even glossy print never reached, that's what these productivity helpers are still mostly used for. Build quality, endurance and price have simply become outlandishly good today, while I've mostly forgotten, just how expensive these machines used to be.

But then my first 80286 cost me $20.000 in 1086 and I could have chosen to buy the used Mercedes instead. Except I needed the PC to earn money and I wasn't going to drive a taxi: it paid off much better!
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