[clnq]

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.

[dspillett]

> 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.

[waselighis]

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.

[scratchfi]

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.

[nnnnc]

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!

[clnq]

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.

[somehnguy]

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.

[clnq]

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.

[somehnguy]

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

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

[rsync]

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.

[nnnnc]

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

[hbossy]

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.

[voxadam]

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.

[dspillett]

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.

[nnnnc]

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

[jareklupinski]

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 :)

[clnq]

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.

[fraudsyndrome]

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.

[pnutjam]

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.

[lostlogin]

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.

[jimktrains2]

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.