141–150 of 160 posts
Hmm what's the power consumption of these (parts of) laptops? And how bad it is power wise and cpu wise to have usb-c ethernet instead of pci? Thinking home server here.
To you question regarding Ethernet, USB-C is capable of running faster than gigabit. I think it's around 5 gigabit? The PCIe lane from an add-in card is still being used in either case. The power difference would be negligible.
I know framework is a popular company on tech forums but it's always felt like a solution in search of a problem. Laptops I own that only have a CPU are rarely computationally bounded in what I'm trying to do, by the time the CPU is showing its age the battery and case are usually showing their age too. But lets say I need the most up to date CPU and can't wait, why would I now need a desktop computer with no expanda…
Many of my computer systems over the years have gone on to help others because I was able to fix them up and donate them. An i7-2600K with 8GB of RAM is still able to run pretty much any common applications, and that CPU came out in 2011, more than a decade ago.
The most common parts to fail and need repair or replacement are fans and power supplies, and in laptops fans and batteries, the rest of the hardware is still good far past 3 or 5 years in age. It’s a travesty we as a society have tried to turn solid state electronics into something disposable.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don’t need to re-case them. I had three old thinkpads as servers a few years ago. Took the batteries out and connected them to Ethernet switch. Built in KVM. Job done!
Aside from aesthetics, I also want to re-case them for better airflow than what's in the laptop body. There can be quite a lot of sustained performance to unlock this way, as laptops thermal-throttle a lot compared to servers and desktops.
I gave up on worrying about those details - just installed ProxMox, set it on a shelf in the basement, moved on. Works great for the tasks I'm running.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, or servers. I've been searching for ways to convert an older Dell laptop mainboard into a simple server. It has great power consumption on account of being a laptop logic board, and enough power to run serious server workloads. Unfortunately, I do not think a universal product for reusing laptop logic boards exists. Although it might be easy enough to make. All ports on the logic board could be wired up to a bac…
> Yes, or servers. Though take care with the batteries. Left plugged in 24/7 some turn a bit fiery after a time, or just fail in a way that takes out the device at an inconvenient time. Some remove batteries from laptops used this way for that reason, though that throws away the built-in-UPS benefit. Another option to mitigate the issue is a timer switch that disconnects power for an hour every few, this works well w…
I think it would be really cool if there was a way to make one of these that repurpose the laptop display port as a built in DisplayPort or find a way to make a power adapter (maybe Ethernet, too?) not take up one of the 4 available ports. That would make it an insta-buy for me since otherwise I'm having to plug in a keyboard, mouse, and display and I'm left with a portless desktop machine.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, or servers. I've been searching for ways to convert an older Dell laptop mainboard into a simple server. It has great power consumption on account of being a laptop logic board, and enough power to run serious server workloads. Unfortunately, I do not think a universal product for reusing laptop logic boards exists. Although it might be easy enough to make. All ports on the logic board could be wired up to a bac…
> Yes, or servers. Though take care with the batteries. Left plugged in 24/7 some turn a bit fiery after a time, or just fail in a way that takes out the device at an inconvenient time. Some remove batteries from laptops used this way for that reason, though that throws away the built-in-UPS benefit. Another option to mitigate the issue is a timer switch that disconnects power for an hour every few, this works well w…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Aside from aesthetics, I also want to re-case them for better airflow than what's in the laptop body. There can be quite a lot of sustained performance to unlock this way, as laptops thermal-throttle a lot compared to servers and desktops.
A slightly less-performant server is better than no server :) I gave up on worrying about those details - just installed ProxMox, set it on a shelf in the basement, moved on. Works great for the tasks I'm running.
I was even thinking about how much mileage could one get from a rack of old laptop logic boards. Gaming laptops sold for parts are much, much cheaper than "real" server hardware. It appeals to me because of the reuse aspect as well.
*edit not Ubuntu given this post on the state of package management: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35354729
Nice idea: "Universal mounting Supports VESA 100mm x 100mm mounting"