Yeah until it stopped working. The heat is the problem. It lasts for like 6 months of 24/7 usage.
this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2023
328 points (97.7% liked)
Selfhosted
48689 readers
2362 users here now
A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.
Rules:
-
Be civil: we're here to support and learn from one another. Insults won't be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.
-
No spam posting.
-
Posts have to be centered around self-hosting. There are other communities for discussing hardware or home computing. If it's not obvious why your post topic revolves around selfhosting, please include details to make it clear.
-
Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.
-
Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).
-
No trolling.
Resources:
- selfh.st Newsletter and index of selfhosted software and apps
- awesome-selfhosted software
- awesome-sysadmin resources
- Self-Hosted Podcast from Jupiter Broadcasting
Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.
Questions? DM the mods!
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
A busted up acer netbook on a shelf in my basement ran a Final Fantasy XI private server for several years till it died and I migrated to something sturdier.
Display was wrecked, keyboard destroyed, trackpad gone.. but a single usb port and a vga port still worked so I was able to install an OS. then I removed those and only ever remoted into it. I actually removed the busted display and keyboard to it'd vent heat better - it ran pretty hot and the ventilation on that thing was designed poorly. The reason the keyboard died was actually heat related, melting its underside and warping it.
FFXI Private servers will run on a 2 decades old potato, so this worked until it finally died despite some seriously pathetic specs.
(1gb ram upgraded to 2gb, 1 ghz intel atom single core cpu, yes really)
Many years ago I used old desktop PCs. But nowadays VPS have become so cheap that it's just not worth the hastle, in my opinion.
Ongoing they still seem to cost more than a slightly more powerful system would in a year.
when I first explored the world of kubernetes my nodes consisted of discarded "half-tops," or truly "headless" servers. it was a beautiful abomination.
I actually used to host a pretty sizable minecraft server on a laptop.
Actually worked pretty well, was able to support around 150 or so concurrent users, and this was back in the bukkit days.
For a while I was using a 10 year old Mac Pro G5 as a home server. Conveniently it also doubled as a space heater in the winter.
Old macs are particularly useful as build servers- it's not straightforward to get a fully featured OSX vm to build and test on.
Yeah it’s really difficult to get Mac OS virtualized… I don’t know why, but my VMs always slow down after about 15 minutes and are unusable.
Yup, laptop for testing, old gaming PC for production.
this is the way
I think I'm going to have to buy a wattage meter plug-in to see what my laptops run at with nothing running, a single Docker image of nginx, and then an API image on top of that. I wonder what my RaspberryPi 4 is pulling with my docker images running on there.
Might be worth buying a smart switch with energy monitoring.
Alec's latest model sells for about $30AU and can function as a power meter, temperature logger, smart switch and thermostat.
I feel personally attacked.
I have an 8 core i7 Alienware 17r3 with 32GB RAM I use to host a pen-test lab. It's outdated and only runs Win10, but with Xubuntu 20.04 and VirtualBox, it makes a nice little vm server I can power up and down with plenty of resources.
My websites tor service was hosted on an ancient laptop for the longest time, lol
Looked into selling my old gaming laptop just recently, and it just doesn't seem like its worth selling them, if they are any older than 5 years, and not top spec. Making a server/node/test machine, might be the best option. Still not comfortable with the laptop battery as ups thing.
Still not comfortable with the laptop battery as ups thing.
You probably already looked into it, but just in case: Depending on the model of the laptop, the battery might be removable using simple tools and without having to deal with adhesives.
Still not comfortable with the laptop battery as ups thing.
what do you mean comfortable? It's basically designed for it.
I just use an old laptop as my main computer. Now I have a reason to keep it if I ever upgrade.
My first server box was a laptop that was ten years old at the time.
I have like 3 spare laptops, and another spare computer. I'm not running anything right now because this router doesn't support port forwarding no matter what I try (it's a firmware issue apparently), but they're always there for me when I need them.
Like the other guy suggested, you could use tailscale so you don't need port forwarding. It's what I'm currently using as well
load more comments
(4 replies)
when I first explored the world of kubernetes my nodes consisted of discarded laptops I've dubbed "half-tops," or truly "headless" servers. it was a beautiful abomination.
I love when people find useful tasks for older tech or extend the life of older tech. There is enough e-waste out there.
I took my first foray into media hosting by running subsonic on an old emachines laptop! ain't nothing wrong!
Thinkpad T430, i7 gen 1,16gb home server
Got a laptop with a busted up screen running Plex and it's pretty awesome! We don't need screens where we're going!