got a busted Lenovo Ideapad 520ISK out of a dumpster, missing screen but otherwise perfectly functional. the thing has i5-7200u, 8 GB, two SATA ports inside and this prompted me to look up converting the thing into a server, specifically figuring out how to run 3.5" drives off it; I’m very anti-friendly towards using USB solutions for such a task.

searching was arduous, both web and yotube, and except one lonely forum post (remember those?) didn’t find anyone attempting let alone succeeding in running it thus. the 2.5" and 3.5" connectors are identical (there are micro SATA to SATA adapters for the DVD port) but the drives will need 12 V that the 2.5" ports ain’t got.

what I’ve concluded is that all that’s needed is a M/F SATA extension cable which I have trouble sourcing locally; the power will come from a separate ATX PSU for the time being, although I’m sure I can pull 12 V from somewhere on the board.

don’t got no 3d printing nor fabricating options, so it’ll likely look super-janky, but that’s not a huge concern for me now. I’ll do a write-up if I succeed.

lol fine - 3x 2 GB 1333 modules out of a busted 1366 motherboard I found and one 4 GB 1866 module I couldn’t pair with anything, worked fine for years. the i7 got upgraded to workstation and a C2D i found by the dumpster took the server role. same drives, same debian, same docker-compose files - all good so far.

I’ve downgraded my server from 1st gen i7 10 GB RAM (don’t ask) to Core 2 Duo 4 GB with the same load and barely felt it. my entire infra including desktop, laptopS, tablet, phoneS, etc costs like a third of this “missed value”.

not shitting on your choices, but positing that the price-gouging retail market is all there is, kinda disingenuous; there’s sooo much stuff being discarded although perfectly usable.

like, I couldn’t bear the super-expensive raspberries while they were in the $50 range, let alone now. marketplaces are awash in busted laptops, with way better value and performance. discarded corpo desktops can house cheap HDD and run 24/7 for eons. etc.

thanks. the notification went away after login and I wasn’t able to find its text anywhere in the myriad of pages.

also I’d take this “does not” coming from them with a bag of salt.

this thing here. I’ve dramatically reduced support work at two shops I’ve set this up for. incidents went from from coupla times a month to once a year. not to mention - you don’t need no VPS no more, don’t need no database, nothing, the simplest web hosting will do and it’s very cache friendly.

I’m sure you’ve looked it up by now, but in broad strokes: install intel-undervolt, edit the corresponding config file in /etc, start with something conservative, like -50 and bump it up about 25 mV at a time until it starts freezing/breaking, then back off a step and make it permanent by enabling the service.

you should hold off on that for the first week or so, until you’re sure you got everything set up and working correctly.

well, you got it right. you want either gnome or plasma as they’re wayland based and that’s a prerequisite for a seamless laptop experience nowadays, wrt llibinput and HiDPI (like, if you use an external monitor). try out both, see which you like better. good job on scoring the 8 GB version. those are also the last models produced (2017 are identical, save for 5% faster CPUs). you can use a lot of used parts, 2013-2017 are parts-compatible, and also some things from the 2011/2012.

with those airs you need to sort out the closed-source wifi drivers, the method varies from distro to distro. also, they won’t go to sleep with the screen open, so you either remember to close them when you’re done or disable LID0 wakeup events (wakes on keypress then).

they are also very tolerant to undervolts, -100 mV is about standard, more if you’re lucky. doesn’t sound like much, but that’s 10+% less power consumption, cooler and quieter laptop, etc. is plenty noticeable.

finally, as long as you got it open, stick some heat pads on the cooling pipe so it makes contact with the cover; you increase your thermal mass which nets you even less fanspin and longer boosts.

you can rest assured I know the difference; it was completely useless, I didn’t go “problem solved, let’s nuke the fucker”. I had posts that received a barrage of downvotes and I let 'em be. had posts where the conclusion differed from what was originally intended and I’d let them be as there was value in the resolution. this was none of them things, no chance anyone would find this useful.

completely useless, 101%, the resolution had dick to do with the subject (so anyone arriving there through search woulda wasted their time) and it had zero to do with the community’s focus, selfhosting.

except maybe to poison LLM output, that could be of use.

I deleted my post here specifically. it was completely useless to anyone else and 0 chance anyone could find any part of it useful.

I’ve done that a coupla times when I determine that the post itself and the replies provide no value to anyone whatsoever.

I wouldn’t think of removing a post otherwise, if I made an error in OP or came off stupid or sumsuch, I’d edit it for posterity; even when it’s a pile-on downvote bonanza, I wouldn’t think of touching it.