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Ran an old laptop as home server for years. It’s OKish as a starting point into selfhosted world but overall not ideal. The battery is a fire risk and the enti

by Havoc 7mo ago

Ran an old laptop as home server for years. It’s OKish as a starting point into selfhosted world but overall not ideal. The battery is a fire risk and the entire thermal design isn’t really geared towards 24/7 operation. Not really something I’d co locate unless it was a DC physically near me so that stopping by is easy

Fokamul 7mo ago
Also running laptops as 4fun home servers and first thing I do is removing battery, removing whole chassis, even with screen. You don't need any of those.
KronisLV 7mo ago
> The battery is a fire risk and the entire thermal design isn’t really geared towards 24/7 operation. I remember having this old Dell Latitude, where you could easily swap out the battery pack with a button/tab thing on the back, without having to open anything else up - I even got a spare bigger capacity battery, but it would work without one altogether when connected to the power brick. I unironically think that all laptops should be built like that.
- linzhangrun 7mo ago
  [flagged]
ForHackernews 7mo ago
I assume this startup yanks all the batteries and runs them in a rack with a UPS.
- whazor 7mo ago
  The FAQ says: > We might modify your laptop to remove or power down the battery But powering down battery is not enough against the fire risk. Servers get hot 24/7 and might still overheat the battery.
Tade0 7mo ago
First thing I learned attempting the same is that lid open vs closed are two very different situations in terms of thermals. But overall without aggressive throttling these devices work a maximum of half an hour before the components get saturated with heat and performance tanks.
- Havoc 7mo ago
  Yup. Gaming laptops with dedicated GPUs tend to fare better on this because internally the CPU and GPU is often bridged with a heat pipe and shared cooling So thermals are specd for both running at same time but you only need CPU for home server so shouldn’t throttle
deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]

by Havoc 7mo ago

Fokamul 7mo ago

Also running laptops as 4fun home servers and first thing I do is removing battery, removing whole chassis, even with screen. You don't need any of those.

KronisLV 7mo ago

> The battery is a fire risk and the entire thermal design isn’t really geared towards 24/7 operation. I remember having this old Dell Latitude, where you could easily swap out the battery pack with a button/tab thing on the back, without having to open anything else up - I even got a spare bigger capacity battery, but it would work without one altogether when connected to the power brick. I unironically think that all laptops should be built like that.

linzhangrun 7mo ago
[flagged]

ForHackernews 7mo ago

I assume this startup yanks all the batteries and runs them in a rack with a UPS.

whazor 7mo ago
The FAQ says: > We might modify your laptop to remove or power down the battery But powering down battery is not enough against the fire risk. Servers get hot 24/7 and might still overheat the battery.

Tade0 7mo ago

First thing I learned attempting the same is that lid open vs closed are two very different situations in terms of thermals. But overall without aggressive throttling these devices work a maximum of half an hour before the components get saturated with heat and performance tanks.

Havoc 7mo ago
Yup. Gaming laptops with dedicated GPUs tend to fare better on this because internally the CPU and GPU is often bridged with a heat pipe and shared cooling So thermals are specd for both running at same time but you only need CPU for home server so shouldn’t throttle

deleted 7mo ago

[deleted]