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Is there any use for my old laptop? (alien.top)
submitted 1 year ago by Big-Finding2976@alien.top to c/main@selfhosted.forum
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I've recently bought a Lenovo ThinkPad T480, i5-8350U, 16GB, 256GB SSD, which does everything I need from a laptop (I mainly use my desktop PC anyway).

My old laptop is a Travelmate 5720, Core 2 Duo T7300, 4GB, 128GB SSD. It boots fairly quickly and it's usable for basic stuff like browsing, but running Windows 10 the CPU is at 99% most of the time just from the background Windows processes, so the noisy fan is running at full speed, and doing Windiws updates takes ages

It's not worth spending any money to upgrade the RAM or SSD, but I could replace the DVD drive with a spare 256GB that I've got. The current SSD is almost full but that's because I've got dual-boot Windows and Linux installed, so if I was only running Linux it would probably be sufficient.

Before I scrap it (I'll keep the SSD), I was just wondering if there's anything that it might be better suited for than my desktop, laptop, M700 SFF PC (which is my main self-hosted machine and backup server) and my various RPis?

Maybe being portable gives it an advantage for some task over the other machines? The battery isn't great, probably runs for an hour or so, but at least I can disconnect it from the power and move it around without shutting it down, and it will keep running for a while if there's a powercut, or I have to turn off the mains to do some DIY. Of course, my modem/router wouldn't have any power then, not would any of my other PCs, but I could use my phone as a temporary hotspot to maintain connectivity for whatever is running on the laptop.

Or maybe having a keyboard and monitor gives it some advantages over the RPi for some particular task I haven't thought of? The M700 won't have a keyboard or monitor connected most of the time either, but I'm not sure it matters when I can just SSH or VNC into these machines from my desktop.

Or maybe there's some software I might want to run permanently on a dedicated machine, rather than having it on my new laptop or my desktop, where I need to reboot into Linux or Windows for different tasks (and with the new laptop I'll sometimes want to take it out with me), so they won't be able to run any software permanently? Although if that's the only reason, a RPi would probably be just as good for this.

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[–] dazchad@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It's not normal for a computer to be using 99% CPU with background tasks only. I'd format and reisntall windows. If that doesn't work, there's a chance there's a rootkit infection. In that case, the laptop is a no-go for anything.

In any case, as others have pointed out, I don't see a lot of benefit of hanging with this laptop if you already have other computers. Unless you want to retire those devices and use the laptop only?

[–] Big-Finding2976@alien.top 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I just reinstalled Linux Mint on the whole drive and even with that it uses 60-80% of the CPU when updating. Synaptic used about 40%, right now two instances of rsync are using about 40% between them, dpkg sometimes uses 30-43%, so I'm not surprised that Windows with all its background processes and telemetry would use more.

[–] dazchad@alien.top 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's fine to have high CPU usage when something is actually running. I meant that it's not normal to have background tasks (open programs that aren't actively being used) consistently consuming too much CPU. 0~5% would be healthy. Maybe even 10%. Most definitely not 75%+.

[–] Big-Finding2976@alien.top 2 points 1 year ago

Windows always seems to be running something in the background, either Defender updates or telemetry, so Linux should be much better once the updates have finished.

[–] omnichad@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Higher CPU usage is good. It means it's not IO bound and it will finish sooner. The problem comes when your CPU scheduler doesn't give priority to keeping the system responsive.

[–] Big-Finding2976@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Linux definitely seems much better in that respect than Windows.

[–] omnichad@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

Windows is very bad at this. If you try to change priority of a task in Task Manager, you literally get a warning that it might make your system unstable. And they don't prioritize responsiveness of the GUI so any time a virus scan starts or Windows Update kicks off, most computers feel extremely slow. Those should both always be background tasks that should only be using spare cycles only.

[–] katrinatransfem@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

If it is a machine you don't use frequently, then Windows Update + Windows Defender will use a lot of CPU at startup until they have finished what they are doing, which could take many hours.

[–] You_Wen_AzzHu@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

Limit the cpu to run at 30% . Remove the battery .then you are fine.

[–] PMaxxGaming@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I repurposed an old laptop that wasn't running very well by taking the guts out of it and stuffing it into an old 1U server chassis and installed Proxmox on bare metal.

Currently running a HAOS VM, Docker in an LXC, and I'm in the process of trying to set up WireGuard in an LXC.

I honestly can't remember the exact specs of the laptop, but it's very old, and with what I'm currently running I've still got tons of overhead left.

I do have a monitor/kbm plugged into it and I'm running XFCE just incase I want to check on something locally while I'm downstairs, but generally the monitor is turned off (in case the power goes out, it won't be an unnecessary drain on my UPS) and I just ssh in or use one of the Web-GUI's, depending on the service I'm working on at the time.

[–] Big-Finding2976@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

I hadn't thought of putting the guts into another case. I don't think I'll do that with this laptop, as it's running OK and it has a functional monitor and kbm (mostly, the v key is a bit unreliable), but if I definitely wanted to use it as a headless machine to run 24/7 off the mains (with a UPS backup instead of the battery) that would be an option.

[–] xardoniak@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The main advantage of a laptop in a homelab is the "built in UPS" but they're not designed to be left on 24/7

Realistically though, that's pretty old hardware. Do you know what the power consumption is like? It may be cheaper over 6 months to buy a raspberry pi or thin client and use that instead.

[–] Big-Finding2976@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

Yeah, running it without the battery (if that works, I don't think it does with all laptops) is safer but that loses the advantage of having the battery backup, and if you can't leave it running 24/7 that rather limits what you can use it for.

I've got a smart plug that measures the power used, so I'll see what that shows.

[–] Beastmind@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Anything and nothing really.

One time in a small company we used a laptop as pfsense network entry point 🤷‍♂️

[–] Big-Finding2976@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

Maybe I could use this laptop as a pfsense machine. It's got a Gigabit Ethernet port and it looks like I can get a USB2 to Gigabit Ethernet adapter for about £15, so if that would be sufficient to maintain full speeds with my Gigabit fibre Internet, that could be an option.

[–] Vampire_Duchess@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

hi, i started another laptop a dell xps with core duo cpu and just 4gb ram. I don't have any spare ssd for that so I used a 500GB black Western Digital.

The battery is removable.

so far is running dietpi (debian) server and running some docker containers, including a metube to download videos/music from YouTube.

cpu performance is awesome. I wish to have a moderm i7 but I'm okay.

but also added navidrome for music streaming and works fantastic. Also added wireguard server via PiVPN and mostly I'll be using this to sharp some linux, docker, ansible, and dev skills.

is not 24 hrs but mostly is a lab. doesn't have kvm or vm instructions so not sure it can handle proxmox but ram is limited.

but has more cpu/86 than my raspberry pi. but consume more power.

[–] Big-Finding2976@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

Hmm, I guess I could keep it on a table in the corner to use it as a terminal to control music streaming from my server, so I don't need to turn on my main PC (or let guests use my main PC) for that.

Having a spare laptop I can use on the sofa to experiment and learn stuff without worrying about messing up anything important might be useful too. I might be able to do that just as easily by using my new laptop as a terminal to SSH or VNC into my RPi or M700, and if I'm using docker there may be little risk of messing up anything important, but there's always a bit of a risk, and if I mess up badly on a spare laptop I can just quit until I feel like reinstalling it and starting again, whereas if I mess up on my RPi or M700 and break something important I'd need to fix it immediately, when I might not have the time or energy to do that.