I recently converted an old dell laptop to a server by installing Ubuntu server and casa os on it as I wanted to have some info of how it works but since then I have grown a liking towards the sheer amount of things I can host on it. I want to host pihole/adguard on it but i don’t know if it is safe to keep it running overnight as it’s a laptop. Currently I shut it down at night but for adguard I’ll need it running all the time. I’m just worried abut the battery or maybe the hardware will malfunction as its a laptop.
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I have an old hp dual core laptop running Ubuntu with pihole on it 24/7. Battery is in, plugged in, with screen open and on 24/7 - 365. It’s been fine now for over a year, i upgrade the software once every few months.
Why do you leave the screen open?
A small general purpose computer, like a RPI, would pay itself considering the electrical bill.
Have been running a laptop as my omv server and Dell optiplex and Micros 24/7 you’re good.
Maybe go ahead and take out the battery for now. If you want to keep it in as a built in ups(one of the main benefits of using a laptop), one route is to run Home Assistant and put the laptop power cord on a smart plug. Figure out how to get the laptop battery % into Home Assistant and turn the plug on if the laptop goes below about 35% and back off when it goes above 85%. This is the strategy used by many people to prevent spicy pillows in wall mounted tablets, but same idea would apply here.
Nice idea might try that, for time being will remove the battery.
I ran my Alienware laptop for about 5 years 24/7 and I didn’t even remove the battery. The battery did turn to complete junk though, so I’d recommend removing it.
Give it a couple years and you’ll have a server rack in your closet
Oh my god my wallet is already starting to sweat
host pihole/adguard - get a cheap rasberry pi 3+ and host either of these and never worry about it. I run adguard on one, works fine. I update it every so often and reboot it maybe monthly for the hell of it. Uses a cell phone charger for AC power.
For now I’m planning to have everything in one place I might buy some pies or optiplex to expand it in the future
Laptop so remove battery and if everything is accessed via webui then keep the lid closed so the screen isn’t just sitting there doing nothing 24/7 wasting power for no reason. If you have a laptop that can’t function without the battery (really odd to have this happen) then go ahead and have a spare ready for when the other dies out in a few years of constant use. Otherwise there is no big deal in running 24/7
Couldn’t find a setting to turn off the display so I keep it shut , I disabled the lid switch so closing the lid won’t suspend the laptop. About the battery many people told me to remove it so i will try that once the turn the server on today
YEs I agree the screen should be turned off, but that can be a software thing. As the screen on ubuntu server by default powers down after a few minutes anyway.
Some laptops vent heat out the keyboard, so closing the lid can trap heat. OP check how warm the keyboard is after being on for a while. You don’t even have to have the screen open all the way, just a little bit (10 degrees) to allow the heat to get out.
Not sure if it’s possible, but check the bios/uefi for so.e battery management settings. If you can set a charge threshold of 60 percent, you can leave the battery in while charging basically forever. The only concern at that point would be heat, but you’d need the battery to sit at like 45c nonstop to see degradation.
There is no sign of battery management in bios so i just removed the battery