You Can't Be A Pro Gamer With Bad House Wiring

11 January 2017
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The world of professional video games has grown far beyond winning fighting game tournaments or beta testing games. Internet video streaming is one huge area of income, with gamers of all skill levels able to supplement or completely replace the old "win games for money" model with having an entertaining personality for commentary, previews, and reviews. If you plan on starting a home business based on gaming, it won't go too well if your power keeps shutting off (power bill payments aside) or if you don't have enough outlets. Here's a few ways that electricians can help out with your career.

Is Power Loss Really A Big Deal?

You may not notice it from just looking at computers, but they can demand a lot of power. Especially in gaming computers with high-demand components, you'll end up connecting a lot of devices to a home electrical setup that just wasn't designed for constant high demand.

What kind of power supply do you have? That's the biggest point of conflict, since higher wattage power supplies are needed for more powerful video cards—especially if you're running a multiple video card rig for both great gameplay quality and recording.

In addition to the computer's high demand, what about everything else needed to use the computer? Monitors connect to the computer to receive video for display, but they are powered separately. Multitasking means multiple monitors in the tech world, and a gaming productivity setup would have at least 3 power plugs used up. Using separate machines? Add another electrical connection, because that's not saving power.

How Can An Electrician Help?

The first thing to do is find out how old your home's wiring is. Unless you were present for the electrical installation and know the quality, you have no idea if you're just in a house with well-cleaned walls and terrible wiring or a shack that recently had new electrical work done after a fire.

An electrician can point out any flaws and perform repairs if necessary. There's nothing wrong with getting a second opinion, but be sure to document their findings so you can compare notes with other professionals. If a full overhaul of the electrical layout is suggested, absolutely get a second opinion before committing to what could be an unnecessary task.

Adding electrical outlets is the easy part, and can be done on top of the inspection. If you're not doing an inspection, don't try to skip ahead to new outlets, as it can lead to a disaster against the electrician's better advice if failure points are ignored. Fix the problems, then work on additions.

For online gamers and video streamers, internet speed is important. Although wireless internet is convenient and necessary, you'll still need a wired connection to get a fast and consistent connection that wireless can't provide. An electrical services professional can help by bringing the network cables through the walls to any destination necessary—within network cable length limits.

Contact an electrician to discuss upgrades and changes to support a gaming business at home or in a small office.