Technology

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

Source

Tom's Hardware

Published

Mar 14, 2026

TL;DR

AI Generated

Enthusiast ScuffedBits extended the run time of a desktop PC powered by 64 AA batteries to over 30 minutes by using three voltage regulators in parallel for stability. By modifying the wiring of the battery packs to achieve 25 volts and adding voltage regulators to maintain a consistent 12 volts, they were able to run the PC smoothly until the batteries depleted. The PC, equipped with an Intel Core i3-530, 8GB of RAM, and a WD SATA SSD, successfully ran games like A Short Hike and Cinebench, showcasing its capabilities. While not a practical solution due to the need for numerous batteries, the experiment demonstrated the potential of alternative power sources for PCs.

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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

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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

TL;DR

Similar Articles

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Amazon employees admit to using AI unnecessarily to pump up internal usage scores — workers complain of intense pressure to use AI tools

Compromised Mistral AI and TanStack packages may have exposed GitHub, cloud and CI/CD credentials in 'mini Shai Hulud' malware infection — supply-chain campaign spreads across npm and AI developer ecosystems like wildfire

Dell SupportAssist update is crashing PCs with constant blue screens and reboot loops — the boot service built for system recovery is the culprit of unending instability