A huge upshot to using a laptop is you have a built-in UPS and KVM.
it only works as a UPS if you periodically discharge the battery. My first “server” was a compaq laptop, I had used it for years and then reprovisioned it to Ubuntu Server, after 2 or 3 years of 24/7 if you unplugged it at all it just instant died because keeping it 100% charged all the time killed the battery.
Naively I assumed that anything in the last decade or so with a battery already has some sort of battery management system that regulates this stuff to help prolong battery lifespan, but maybe I’m wrong.
Yea, which is a fair expectation, but it’s not a safe assumption. Verify it does before prolonged use. Make sure its well ventilated(heat is killer to batteries as well), and that some form of BMS is present on the system, and that it’s enabled because some have the system but have it disabled by default.
I had one active a good while back. To quote Buddy Guy ‘…ain’t nuthin’ wrong with that.’ Hell, I have a 15 year old, self build computer. I use it daily. It works, and pretty well too.
If you haven’t already, I’d see if you can run it sans battery, just power cord. Reason being, old laptop batteries can be a hazard. They can swell and burst, they can over heat,. In some cases, they can become a fire hazard. Best to be safe.
If you’ve already done so, then awesome , and ignore the second paragraph. Is this your first foray into selfhosting?
Ideally see if you can do a battery charge limit. Lithium batteries are happiest around 40-60% charge. If you can limit it that low then you keep your built in UPS, don’t risk the CPU running at a crawl, and the battery is happy. Even just the normal 80% that good laptops offer will be sufficient.
Well, that’s something to think about. I’ve always thought it best to take mine out. Tempting fate and all that.
Wow… Never thought about this ! To bad my battery died years ago ! Craptop still going strong though 👍💪
I have a machine that’s 12 years old, I built it back in the early 2010s. I have some extra video cards laying around so I slapped a 2080 in and it’s now a dedicated Beat Saber machine (I don’t touch Facebook or Google code on any device with PII, so I’ve really missed playing Beat Saber.)
It runs at 90+FPS no matter the song, and it’s got about 500 songs so far. I love that machine soooo much.
When I built mine, I purposefully spent the $$ for a long term service machine and stocked it with all the cutting edge tech of the day in it like SLI which was wildly popular then, maxed out the mobo with RAM to 96 GB, etc. It’s no modern gaming machine, but it will handle most anything you throw at it.
Niiiiice! I did SLI 7900GTs when Crysis came out and it ran at like 40+ FPS even with explosions on screen! It cost me an unholy amount…
the machine I now use for Beat Saber wasn’t as crazy as the Crysis machine: it’s an i5-4790k, 16 or 32GB DDR3, and a couple SSDs. I replaced its 1070 just because I had a better card laying around. I hope it works well for many years to come! It’s also SOMEHOW inexplicably powered by a 500w bronze semi-modular PSU that seems like it’s going to go on forever into eternity… I hope so, it’s been so good to me!
If you’re curious what I’m running on here, it’s mostly containers plus one VM for Docker. (I’ve made my dislike for Docker as a distribution platform known elsewhere on here and this is why).
Most are various wikis that I’m testing, MediaWiki, Bookstack, DokuWiki, PmWiki, An Otter Wiki, DocMost.
Which model toughbook?
CF-53
I bought it used from Amazon about 5 years ago, so it hasn’t been in my possession the whole time. It was likely used enterprise/industrial stock. Judging by how one of the modifier keys is stuck it was well-used. The seller replaced the original hard drive with an SSD and the battery may have been replaced as well.
Prior to becoming my home lab it was my ham shack computer running win 10.
