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>does anyone know if there's any caveats to "recycling" a laptop's motherboard? The biggest caveat in re-using old compute hardware IMO is power consumption, p

>does anyone know if there's any caveats to "recycling" a laptop's motherboard? The biggest caveat in re-using old compute hardware IMO is power consumption, power-efficiency has been one consistent improvement in every new generation of computer chips. So, a new Raspberry Pi is almost always as capable as your old hardware for HTPC but more power efficient. Except maybe say extremely high quality video, say 8K 10 bit video. >Unfortunately, it possible that my attempt to fix a dead fan is what busted the header. You can try passive heatsink or passing the fan thermal management to separate unit altogether like Corsair Commandar(I haven't tried it). You can also use your hardware for only GPGPU applications & HW accel on GPU to reduce load on CPU e.g. Separate stream encoding machine.

walrus01 6y ago
> The biggest caveat in re-using old compute hardware IMO is power consumption, power-efficiency has been one consistent improvement in every new generation of computer chips. So, a new Raspberry Pi is almost always as capable as your old hardware for HTPC but more power efficient. yes but your typical laptop rarely exceeds 30W, so if your electricity is priced at $0.12 per kWh, and you run that laptop 24x7 for a year: 22.32 kWh per month same as $2.67 of electricity
- arcticbull 6y ago
  Or 3.6% of a Bitcoin transaction per month haha
  - DJBunnies 6y ago
    Being snarky is fun, but in this case misleading. Transactions don’t consume this electricity, competing for the next block does.
    - arcticbull 6y ago
      The block of transactions lol literally a problem for division. I could have written “1% of the energy required to process of a block of 3 transactions”
      - DJBunnies 6y ago
        The quantity of transactions here is irrelevant, so is the power cost per transaction.
        arcticbull 6y ago
        lol, ok, then the power cost per block of 3 transactions. Multiply by 3.
        DJBunnies 6y ago
        You multiply by zero as the transactions do not contribute to energy usage.
        arcticbull 6y ago
        haha, without transactions you wouldn't need to mine anything would you. The network is already secure and the data valid. If there were no transactions the ledger wouldn't need to be appended to, and in that case you could just throw it into read-only storage and call it a day. Transactions are the only thing that contributes to energy usage.
        DJBunnies 6y ago
        I think you are confused. The only thing that contributes to energy usage is mining blocks, aka the block reward subsidy. Without transactions, it would still happen that way. And does, in the form of empty blocks.
        arcticbull 6y ago
d3nj4l 6y ago
First of all, thanks! > The biggest caveat in re-using old compute hardware IMO is power consumption This is a relatively recent laptop (it has a GTX 1060 inside!), and I can't get hardware that capable for cheap enough for it to be worth it. My only reason for making it an HTPC is that I don't want to see it gather dust on a shelf for no reason. > You can try passive heatsink I've considered that + other cheap ways, but I'm concerned about mounting. The CPU runs hot, even when well cooled, so I'd need some way to get good contact with the die without harming it. There's a few screw slots around it, but those are for the heat pipes it comes with. That's the biggest challenge in this project from my perspective. > You can also use your hardware for only GPGPU applications & HW accel on GPU to reduce load on CPU e.g. Separate stream encoding machine Unfortunately, I don't have any use cases where that could come in handy. Working a full-time job killed my dreams of producing content :'). I just want this to sit at my 4K TV and play content without snooping on me, like all the big name boxes do.
- hattmall 6y ago
  Mineral oil submersion for cooling may work
  - dmos62 6y ago
    Or, keeping it in a moisture-conditioned freezer. Or, ... That's it, that's the only impractical idea I had. Oh wait, water cooling!
- sgtnoodle 6y ago
  I have a 5 year old laptop whose display died after 2 years. Rather disappointing that high-end stuff doesn't last and manufactures don't seem to care, but that's another rant. I plugged it into my TV to use for emulators. It's fun to play occasionally, but overall I hate it because of how whiny and high maintenance windows 10 is. Every single freaking time I want to use it, I have to pull it out from under the blu-ray player and reassure it of its insecurities. Every few days it will randomly wake up and start loudly revving its fans up and down too, just to remind me that it exists to torment me.
sgtnoodle 6y ago
If you're worried about power consumption from a cost perspective, it's going to take a long time to break even from the cost of new hardware, even for a cheap pi. If you're worried about it from an environmental perspective, it often takes more energy / resource mining / pollution to manufacture a new piece of hardware than the total amount saved from not running older hardware over a longer lifetime. Running a computer / smartphone / tablet until it doesn't work well enough for its purpose is generally better for the environment than upgrading because shiny, because it slightly reduces the demand for new hardware.
- sgtnoodle 6y ago
  I had a nightmare last night that my 3 year old smartphone's screen got horribly scratched enough to be a constant nuisance but not bad enough to interfere with its function, and I had to decide whether or not to give up and upgrade.
  - rland 6y ago
    This isn't necessarily related to the discussion at hand, but it reminded me: I got a huge crack (https://ibb.co/1mPxC6C https://ibb.co/1mPxC6C) in my smartphone's screen right around New Year's. One of my goals was to use my phone less (less social media). The crack is a big, ~.25in black diagonal line across the screen, but the touch still works. Because it's a diagonal crack, I can still read whole text messages/emails/etc, I just have to scroll the right way. It's now March and I still haven't fixed my screen, mostly out of laziness since I'm home all the time, but also because it's done wonders to my smartphone use. I practically don't idly scroll anymore, just because it's really annoying to do so, and I don't miss it at all. Everyone thinks I'm nuts, but I haven't read twitter in like 3 months so who's the crazy one? I'd say, don't bother upgrading! Enjoy that the addictive quality of your smartphone is diminished.
    - sgtnoodle 6y ago
      Lol, thankfully it was just a dream and my screen is still flawless! I did stop bothering to put protective glass on it after that cracked a few months ago. The only thing I read obsessively on my phone these days is hacker news. :-) I stopped using most social media 6 or 7 years ago.
alias_neo 6y ago
This is the key for me, and a major reason I've always avoided the cheap, older hardware off of eBay for home use. My server rack consists of new (released) at time of purchase hardware with power efficiency as a major focus. One measurement which really surprised me was that my 2019 XPS 13 idles with about 1.5W, screen on according to powertop. That's less power than a Raspberry Pi takes to idle!

walrus01 6y ago

> The biggest caveat in re-using old compute hardware IMO is power consumption, power-efficiency has been one consistent improvement in every new generation of computer chips. So, a new Raspberry Pi is almost always as capable as your old hardware for HTPC but more power efficient. yes but your typical laptop rarely exceeds 30W, so if your electricity is priced at $0.12 per kWh, and you run that laptop 24x7 for a year: 22.32 kWh per month same as $2.67 of electricity

arcticbull 6y ago
Or 3.6% of a Bitcoin transaction per month haha
- DJBunnies 6y ago
  Being snarky is fun, but in this case misleading. Transactions don’t consume this electricity, competing for the next block does.
  - arcticbull 6y ago
    The block of transactions lol literally a problem for division. I could have written “1% of the energy required to process of a block of 3 transactions”
    - DJBunnies 6y ago
      The quantity of transactions here is irrelevant, so is the power cost per transaction.
      - arcticbull 6y ago
        lol, ok, then the power cost per block of 3 transactions. Multiply by 3.
        DJBunnies 6y ago
        You multiply by zero as the transactions do not contribute to energy usage.
        arcticbull 6y ago
        haha, without transactions you wouldn't need to mine anything would you. The network is already secure and the data valid. If there were no transactions the ledger wouldn't need to be appended to, and in that case you could just throw it into read-only storage and call it a day. Transactions are the only thing that contributes to energy usage.
        DJBunnies 6y ago
        I think you are confused. The only thing that contributes to energy usage is mining blocks, aka the block reward subsidy. Without transactions, it would still happen that way. And does, in the form of empty blocks.
        arcticbull 6y ago

d3nj4l 6y ago

First of all, thanks! > The biggest caveat in re-using old compute hardware IMO is power consumption This is a relatively recent laptop (it has a GTX 1060 inside!), and I can't get hardware that capable for cheap enough for it to be worth it. My only reason for making it an HTPC is that I don't want to see it gather dust on a shelf for no reason. > You can try passive heatsink I've considered that + other cheap ways, but I'm concerned about mounting. The CPU runs hot, even when well cooled, so I'd need some way to get good contact with the die without harming it. There's a few screw slots around it, but those are for the heat pipes it comes with. That's the biggest challenge in this project from my perspective. > You can also use your hardware for only GPGPU applications & HW accel on GPU to reduce load on CPU e.g. Separate stream encoding machine Unfortunately, I don't have any use cases where that could come in handy. Working a full-time job killed my dreams of producing content :'). I just want this to sit at my 4K TV and play content without snooping on me, like all the big name boxes do.

hattmall 6y ago
Mineral oil submersion for cooling may work
- dmos62 6y ago
  Or, keeping it in a moisture-conditioned freezer. Or, ... That's it, that's the only impractical idea I had. Oh wait, water cooling!
sgtnoodle 6y ago
I have a 5 year old laptop whose display died after 2 years. Rather disappointing that high-end stuff doesn't last and manufactures don't seem to care, but that's another rant. I plugged it into my TV to use for emulators. It's fun to play occasionally, but overall I hate it because of how whiny and high maintenance windows 10 is. Every single freaking time I want to use it, I have to pull it out from under the blu-ray player and reassure it of its insecurities. Every few days it will randomly wake up and start loudly revving its fans up and down too, just to remind me that it exists to torment me.

sgtnoodle 6y ago

If you're worried about power consumption from a cost perspective, it's going to take a long time to break even from the cost of new hardware, even for a cheap pi. If you're worried about it from an environmental perspective, it often takes more energy / resource mining / pollution to manufacture a new piece of hardware than the total amount saved from not running older hardware over a longer lifetime. Running a computer / smartphone / tablet until it doesn't work well enough for its purpose is generally better for the environment than upgrading because shiny, because it slightly reduces the demand for new hardware.

sgtnoodle 6y ago
I had a nightmare last night that my 3 year old smartphone's screen got horribly scratched enough to be a constant nuisance but not bad enough to interfere with its function, and I had to decide whether or not to give up and upgrade.
- rland 6y ago
  This isn't necessarily related to the discussion at hand, but it reminded me: I got a huge crack (https://ibb.co/1mPxC6C https://ibb.co/1mPxC6C) in my smartphone's screen right around New Year's. One of my goals was to use my phone less (less social media). The crack is a big, ~.25in black diagonal line across the screen, but the touch still works. Because it's a diagonal crack, I can still read whole text messages/emails/etc, I just have to scroll the right way. It's now March and I still haven't fixed my screen, mostly out of laziness since I'm home all the time, but also because it's done wonders to my smartphone use. I practically don't idly scroll anymore, just because it's really annoying to do so, and I don't miss it at all. Everyone thinks I'm nuts, but I haven't read twitter in like 3 months so who's the crazy one? I'd say, don't bother upgrading! Enjoy that the addictive quality of your smartphone is diminished.
  - sgtnoodle 6y ago
    Lol, thankfully it was just a dream and my screen is still flawless! I did stop bothering to put protective glass on it after that cracked a few months ago. The only thing I read obsessively on my phone these days is hacker news. :-) I stopped using most social media 6 or 7 years ago.

alias_neo 6y ago

This is the key for me, and a major reason I've always avoided the cheap, older hardware off of eBay for home use. My server rack consists of new (released) at time of purchase hardware with power efficiency as a major focus. One measurement which really surprised me was that my 2019 XPS 13 idles with about 1.5W, screen on according to powertop. That's less power than a Raspberry Pi takes to idle!