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Comment by ruytlm | Hacker News Reader

I really like this as a way to repurpose old hardware; I have known many laptops that end up sitting around in cupboards after their 'useful' life is over, that could probably still comfortably be serving as lightweight desktops even today.

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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 backplate in the case with extension cables. Airflow could be controlled by temperature inside. Only designing a solder-less power button extension and a universal mount for mainboards in the case might be challenging.

It is really wasteful to throw away old laptop hardware which could be made into either low-end PCs, or game emulator consoles, or home servers, or NAS devices.

Interesting... don't most older laptops have some sort of docking mechanism that exposed basically every connection?

The physical interface wasn't the same for every laptop, but with a common backplane it should be possible to make a seperate docking connector daughterboard for the most popular laptops taking up cupboard space.

I would love to collab on an open-source dock that turns laptops into servers :)

Docking, not necessarily. Laptops have ports all over the place: on the left, on the right, on the back, and sometimes even on the front (like the 3.5mm jack for headphones).

You could probably use only one USB port on the laptop and integrate a hub into the case. But for ethernet, audio, and HDMI, you'd probably need cables. The nice thing about cables in the box is that adapters could be used. If a laptop comes with VGA out only, that can be adapted to HDMI. If there are separate audio out and in jacks, those can be combined with an adapter. If there is no ethernet jack, it could be added with a USB network card. There are also adapters for laptop power supply cables for the C13/C14 three-pin interface.

So a lot of work can be done inside the case by the person building a desktop/console/server out of a laptop. But no one is selling a universal case with a backplate. And desktop cases are difficult to work with because they expect a backplate from a motherboard.

Really, the product could be just an I/O backplate that mounts to standard ATX stand-offs/screws and takes extension cables, plus something to regulate fan speeds by temperature that also has fan headers. The power button might be a challenge for the builder to solve, but with very minor soldering, most power buttons integrated in any case would work.

Instead of a case, I have a couple old laptops which broken screens but everything else is okay. Could I not just detach the screen (hinge and all) and just have the base case with the default laptop keyboard? Then just plug in a hdmi cable in the port and use that as my new screen?

In this case, there would be no need for a universal case because I'm repurposing everything in the laptop "as is" except the screen.

Interestingly, I have a Dell lattitude 5440 that has a dock, and I have the dock. I'd love to use it as a server, but 2 out of 3 of the USB ports are damaged. They seem to share a bus with the camera, so it doesn't work, and the damage seems to stop the usb-3 ports on the dock from working, the only working port is usb-2.

I also have a couple 3350's where the power port is way too loose to use them for much of anything. I need to see if that's replaceable.

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!

Yes - built-in kvm and built-in UPS.

I had an old dell laptop that had a double-high pcmcia port and I inserted two xircom realport LAN cards and had a very nice router with three NICs and no dongles.

I usually pull the batteries out now after a spicy pillow incident.

I heard about people who use simple timer sockets to mitigate that. The battery won't die nearly as quickly if it's not at 100% all the time.

How have battery management systems not evolved to deal with this issue? It's especially confusing considering the massive number of laptops deployed by companies to part time work-from-home employees many of whom keep their devices plugged in nearly 100% of the time.

They haven't evolved to stop issues happening, partly because many a consumer won't understand the need so won't accept it (I'm returning this because it never charges to 100%) and there isn't enough demand from elsewhere for it to affect sales of devices (in office environments those laptops are usually cycled out before it would be a significant issue anyway).

But these days there are often controls in place to cut off power if things look bad (battery getting too hot, mainly) so things are more likely to die on their own rather than setting fire to themselves and anything near-by.

That battery doesn’t look any different to the BMW under catastrophic failure conditions.

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.

Well, it depends on what you use it for. I was thinking about using it for distributed workloads which is more intense than average.

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.

> A slightly less-performant server is better than no server

Holds true regardless of your workload :) Imo sounds like premature optimization.

Media server! It has a built in UPS if the battery works at all. Video transcoding will likely be good, low power draw, will fit on a shelf or 1U rack shelf.

No need to remote into it when you can just open it.

Most, if not the vast majority , laptop and desktop HDMI ports don't support cec. For me this makes it a non-starter as a media center.

> 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 while the battery still has enough life in it at all.

If you are a smart-home-hacker you could rig a controlled plug up to the battery state so you can flip power back on/off when the battery hits a certain level, rather than relying on a fixed time period, though I'm unsure whether that is worth the effort in terms of preventing potential faults and preserving battery life (IIRC charging up to 80-to-90% and discharging to ~40% is considered optimal for prolonging the useful life of modern batteries?) or if it would “just” be an interesting nerd project.

Fun fact about HP pavilion laptops: They need the battery installed to preserve secure boot bios information. Otherwise, it's a complicated set of post interactions to do a one-time reset.

I'd argue just recycle the batteries and have a proper UPS or backup generator. If the batteries are still good, resell them to people who could actually use them. Otherwise, drop them off at a recycling center. Using them as servers, the batteries wouldn't be doing anything 99.9% of the time, and the constant charging and heat would simply kill the batteries. Simply wasteful.

It’s a little half assed though. Moving to a more desktop form factor would allow them to dump the laptop thermal solution with maybe one large case fan and a low profile cpu cooler. You could have an extremely quiet little machine instead of a jet engine that barely moves any air.

I’ve been doing a somewhat similar mod on an old Lenovo tiny pc and it’s definitely great value as long as you put a little effort and thought into it. Once you get into a M.2 to PCIE adapter and cutting holes to fit fans you know you’re building something neat

I thought the same thing, too. But I also wonder if the cooler mounting pattern is going to be compatible with consumer market coolers. I expect the one they've chosen is already tooled.

I've got an older laptop with a busted screen, I've thought about pulling the mainboard and dropping it into a 3D printed chassis myself, and using it as a server. Haven't gotten around to it.

How much cooling does a laptop specced processor require? Presumably they are already engineered to run at lower power (<20 watts) and have severe thermal throttling by default.

The Odroid-H3 <https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-h3-plus/> has a laptop-grade CPU, consuming 10-20W, and is passively cooled; so it seems doable.

Framework uses 28W (TDP) class CPUs on their Intel boards. Better cooling would allow better boosting behaviour. Still, this case plus one of their 13th gen or AMD boards is very tempting.

It’s more that a bigger fan and heat sink is completely silent while laptop blowers are almost always loud at full load

It’s usually not the same. I have a AM4 OEM mini PC which has a B300 motherboard and it’s almost the AM4 Mount but it’s slightly narrower so I had to use zip ties on one end

Previously we were giving our old laptops to friends with kids. Now our kids use our old Macbook air to learn to type and other learning programs.

My old MBP runs our 2010 "smart" TV via HDMI. It's not perfect because we have to get up to change the movie or skip an ad, but it works. And man, that thing still heats up like a mofo even when only running a browser, jeez.

> It's not perfect because we have to get up to change the movie or skip an ad, but it works.

If you're running on a computer rather than a locked-down device, why do you see ads at all?

Also, you've probably already considered this, but a wireless keyboard/mouse would nicely complete a living-room computer.

I bet if you look in the app store there is something in there that will let you use your phone as a media remote.

I use Unified Remote (https://www.unifiedremote.com/) for this, works great.

I agree with this sentiment, I also purchased the pro version and it's the only app I ever bought.

It just works.

Glad to see this app is still kicking. I used it a decade ago in college to control my PC while laying in bed and watching movies.

I used something like this with my computer and xbmc back in the day. I had a wireless keyboard/mouse combo for situations where the remote control was less helpful, but this covered 99% of the requirements quite nicely.

https://www.amazon.com/HP-REMOTE-CONTROL-RECEIVER-EMITTER/dp...

Treat yourself to a wireless keyboard + mouse. There’s a popular Logitech one for $30. You won’t have to get up to change the movie any more.

https://www.logitech.com/en-us/products/keyboards/k400-plus-...

These are great, but beware if you have little kids. Those keys pull of and get lost very easily.

My 2010 MacBook Pro still lives on my network running as a print server for my old laser printer that no longer works with modern OS's due to the lack of 64 bit drivers. I'm looking into installing HomeAssistant and possibly PiHole as well in the near future since it's way overkill for only running a print server.

Or NAS. Or other appliances. "Obsolete" hardware has a lot of life left in it after the mainstream has passed it by.

I have a few old laptops as servers at home. It’s great because they have a (limited) built-in battery backup, and a keyboard and screen are there if you need a local terminal.

My biggest issue with those is that sometimes their cooling solution is ridiculously bad. They have a next-to-nonexistent heat sink, so the fan needs to spin like crazy to cool it down. Bonus points for the fan stopping from time to time, so it has to spin even faster than it would need to if it were running all the time.

Had this is an older HP laptop. My newer one lets me configure it so that the fan spins all the time, so it's very quiet as long as it doesn't do anything.

A fanless laptop sounds attractive for this. Dropping the money on a MacBook Air seems wasteful though, and I’m not aware of other fanless laptops.

Here you go:

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-ThinkPad-X13s-G1-Laptop...

Although IIRC it's more expensive than the Air.

I have a Pixelbook running as a web server. It's nice using old hardware to address new needs.

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