Best way to use a basement PC from another room
Asked by
MellowCedar42
I recently moved into a new house, and my older custom-built PC will need to stay in the basement. I occasionally move the entire setup to the living room to watch sports on multiple monitors, but I would rather avoid carrying everything up and down the stairs.
The rooms are roughly 50–100 feet apart depending on the cable route. I'm considering a fiber-optic HDMI cable for the display, along with a wireless keyboard and mouse. The receiver would be relatively close horizontally, but there would be a floor, insulation, and other building materials between it and the computer.
Would a wireless keyboard and mouse remain reliable in that situation, or would a wired USB extension, HDMI-over-fiber KVM, or HDMI-over-Ethernet setup be better? I would also like to turn the PC on remotely. The motherboard is an ASUS Z170-A, and I'm wondering whether its BIOS supports powering on from a keyboard or waking through the network. If the computer is shut down, will a wireless keyboard still be able to trigger that function, or would the receiver need to be connected by another method?
Answers
For the least hassle, consider leaving the main PC in the basement and using a small laptop, mini PC, or streaming box upstairs. Sunshine on the gaming PC with Moonlight as the client works very well over wired Ethernet and gives you responsive video and input without running long HDMI and USB cables. Steam streaming is another option and can launch non-Steam programs if you add them manually.
Wake-on-LAN can usually power the computer out of sleep or a soft-off state through an app, provided it is enabled in the BIOS and operating system. The PC still needs standby power, and network adapters do not always support waking from every shutdown state.
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The cleanest permanent wiring solution is an HDMI-over-fiber KVM extender. It sends the display signal over fiber and provides a USB return channel for the keyboard and mouse. Basic models generally support only USB 2.0 human-interface devices, which is all you need here. HDMI-over-Ethernet extenders are also available, but check the supported resolution, refresh rate, and whether the link requires dedicated cable rather than ordinary network equipment.
SableKite26: Search for an HDMI-over-fiber KVM kit rather than a basic fiber HDMI cable. The KVM version includes the USB connection, so you do not need to solve the long-distance keyboard and mouse connection separately.
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I would not count on a wireless keyboard receiver working reliably through a floor. Even if the distance is within the advertised range, floors, insulation, wiring, and metal furniture can cause dropouts or noticeable input delay. An active USB extension cable is a more dependable option; put the keyboard and mouse receiver at the far end, near where you will be sitting.
Avoid chaining several hubs and passive extensions together. A good active USB cable, or a purpose-built HDMI-over-fiber KVM extender, will be much more reliable.
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On the ASUS Z170-A, check the BIOS power-management and APM settings for Wake on PCI-E, power-on-by-keyboard, and related options. USB keyboard power-on support varies by BIOS version and usually requires disabling ErP, because ErP cuts standby power to USB devices when the PC is off. Wake-on-LAN is generally more practical than relying on a wireless keyboard, but the computer must be connected by Ethernet and configured in both the BIOS and Windows.
Another simple option is to run two low-voltage wires to a convenient location and connect them to a momentary switch wired in parallel with the case power button. That gives you a physical remote power button without depending on wireless USB.
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BrightOlive_8: The main limitation is video streaming for services that use DRM. Some sports or subscription-video apps may not capture correctly, so a direct HDMI connection or a dedicated streaming device may be preferable for those.