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Laptop as server, how to best manage battery? (lemmy.ca)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by mgrimace@lemmy.ca to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world

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Hello folks,

What do folks recommend as good practices to use a laptop as an always on, always plugged-in server? Specifically, how to manage the battery and some of the potential cautions/dangers of keeping it plugged in.

I have a spare Dell workstation laptop that I'd like to use as a Proxmox node. I've seen a number of posts where folks will mention that using a spare laptop works well because it has a built in 'UPS', but then in the comments there's caution about the battery being plugged in all the time.

I'm curious what folks do in terms of battery management, assuming I want to keep this as hands-off/low maintenance (but fireproof) as possible.

Thank you all so much, ~M

Update: thank you all so much for the great advice. This is a Dell Workstation and it does have a 'Primarily AC use' power setting in the BIOS, as well as custom charge levels available. Appreciate it and I hope this discussion helps other folks looking to do the same!

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[–] IcedRaktajino@startrek.website 15 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

If it's a relatively recent laptop, it should be fine.

Many of them will let you set custom charge limits. If yours supports that, limit it to like 60% or thereabouts. Long enough that you can get some UPS use out of it but not full enough it's ever gonna go spicy pillow on you.

If it won't let you set a charge limit, they'll still kind of float around full charge but not stay at 100% all the time. Even plugged in, mine will drop down from 100% to eventually 92% before it will start charging back to 100 again. That's over the course of several days to a week.

If the laptop is older than about 2017 or so, or still has a removable battery, you might want to just take the battery out and use an external UPS as those typically don't have the extra charge management features newer ones do.

To run them full time, you either want to remove the screen or "tent" them because a lot of heat is dissipated through the keyboard, and it's normally expected to be open while running because of that. By "tent", I mean open it halfway and put the screen facing down so it's standing up and shaped like a tent.