I'm running an Asus N751JX with 16GB RAM. It works perfectly and is a great addition to my small Raspberry pi 3/4 army.
But a heads up for everyone doing this. Please, please remove the laptop battery before running it 24/7. Otherwise this is a serious fire hazard. The hardware and especially the battery are not designed to run under these conditions.
1) Source? Well, as it has been also written here, I hear that from every IT-Department I worked with at work. Also learned it once the hard way and got a swollen battery. It was an old old laptop (around 2003 IIRC) and old laptop batteries are an own story, but since people want to repurpose old hardware, I think this is a reasonable hint. Also Linus Tech Tips brought this up in one video.
Also, the newer your laptop the better it might handle it, but I wouldn't bet on it.
2) Why? From my understanding the constant on/off charging and heat development (also due to faster dust buildup. If the fan runs 24/7 it sucks a lot more dust into the case) is the problem. Especially if you run heavy tasks over a longer period, the hardware will heat up to a level that it is not designed to do.
I will grant that the lighter the load you put on that hardware, the less all this precautions matter. But my principle is, that if something is not designed (and likely not tested) for something, proceed with caution if you understand what you're doing, or leave it be. So if you want to host your static website on it, you might never ever be near any problems. But I still wouldn't recommend it.
Lithium batteries have an approximate 10 year shelf life under optimal conditions. Possibly less when heated consistently by a laptop running 24/7.
If your laptop is already 6-8 years old then if you want to keep the battery in as a UPS system it may be worth considering purchasing a new replacement battery and installing that (if it has not already been replaced)
Most computers will only need a small screwdriver and 10 minutes of work to swap the battery, although you will want to check youtube/ifixit for your specific model first just to make sure the battery isn't glued in or otherwise difficult to remove and replace.
Depends on the hardware - I run 2x Dell E6330 server-laptops and their BIOS has an option to change the charging configuration to "primarily always on AC" - some Latitudes are designed to run docked all the time as "business PCs".
While we're here, turn off TurboBoost in BIOS to keep them running cooler with the lid closed, I've found it really helps when tasks get a little bursty.
Being uncharged is actually pretty tough on the battery, for safety and longevity they're best stores somewhere between 40%-60% charged (that's why they come that way from the factory).
I ran laptops 24/7 on AC with the batteries acting as UPS for over 15 years. Granted, all of them had removable ones with 18650 cells, so no swelling.
The charging method has been standardized a long time ago - they are charged to ~96%, then cut off, if they fall below ~94% they are topped up again.
There is a significant loss of battery life if you do that for years. I used to unplug some of them and do 2-3 full discharge/charge cycles, that usually helped increase the battery life.
Some laptops use the battery as additional power when running at wattage beyond what the AC can provide.
If you want to be safe with your model, you can try removing the battery while the laptop is plugged in - it should not shut off, the circuit for charging the battery and powering the machine are separate.
I lost more batteries in storage - they still discharge, and even though the cells could be revived, the BMS won't let it recharge if it falls below a certain voltage, rendering them dead (unless you find it fun to restore them).
I haven’t seen soldered batteries. You must be thinking of ram. Batteries could be hidden behind the bottom plate but are usually connected by a cable internally and that’s all you need to disconnect. That’s true even for macbooks, iPhones, etc.
>>The hardware and especially the battery are not designed to run under these conditions.
What does that mean?
My laptops run 24x7, not as server but as docked workstations. I have never considered that as a safety risk, and definitely have not considered it outside of norm. At work for a public sector client, we have two floors (few hundred?) laptops plugged in and running 24x7 (ask from IT department is to leave them on overnight for maintenance). Sanity or eco-friendliness aside, this is a first I heard that laptop cannot / should not be run around the clock plugged in...
Curious. My understanding is that, when connected to power, most modern devices bypass the battery entirely when it's above some threshold of charge state.
I have some old Dell laptops that most definitely don't do that. Left running on AC for several hours, the batteries get very warm due to the constant trickle charging.
You lived somewhere and are speaking for the whole country... I live in Zurich (the city) since 2015 (and my wife since 2018) and we have the opposite experience. Small talks with strangers and totally open converations with swiss people if you want. But you have to be open for it. If you are an introvert yourself, people mostly just respect that and cut conversation to a minimum.
And yes, Im speaking mostly for Zurich City as part of Switzerland, not Switzerland as a whole.
I agree but I also disagree, since we have some 1970/80s developers here who teach the attitude "Don't care about details" to younger ones which leads to excessive library usage for even the simplest "problems" (e.g. a team of ours had a JVM crash after they loaded >65K libraries during startup... no one can possibly need so many libraries!) and also to totally stupid design mistakes (e.g a rest service being queried thousand of times per second (open socket, 1 query, close socket) for the same data instead of caching and reusing it in a reasonable context --> massive performance problems).
Thats the maximum "I don't care about details" you can archive and it happens a lot since around 3 years. The older deveopers even talk about "enlighment" and "superior knowledge" to get more young people to their side (it is kinda religious, seriously...)
And there is not re-thinking happening in their heads (fortunately in the heads of the people in charge). All people (including me) who are not a member of this new religion are often excluded from meetings where they discuss the development (or should we say library management?) of new software projects (their current project is failing completely at the moment because those evil details were ignored, popcorn is ready). Critizism is answered with "you're not modern, go away!".
The most "extreme" are not the youngest but the older ones (mostly the 1970s) in their "modern" team.
I'm kinda Gen Z (mid 1993) and I'm seriously concered about this develpoment. I need to understand things in detail and I want to know when and why I need a library especially when you work with critical software as we do. New, modern and fancy often means imature and not battle-tested. New Programming languages don't necessarily solve problems. And writing something on your own is not always wrong, at least when you have good reasons and (most important) the qualification to do it. (remember, in the context of shipping critical software).
I had the same expirience and I am totally with you. At work we use modern C++ which I enjoy, but I have the same liberating and comfortable feeling when I turn back to my small C projects at home.
But I also think that huge C Projects can turn into a hell easily.
Cows are manipulated to produce much much more milk than they would naturally. Also the machnines doing the work are harsh and painful. But even when it is from a farmer doing everything by hand on a really happy cow. Being vegan means in the first place avoiding everything produced by or out of animals. The rule "It must not harm any animal to be vegan" is an additional rule for products which are not made by or out of animals.
Standard super market milk violates both rules.
Source: A friend of mine is vegan since almost 20 years (before it was hyped).
Animals only produce milk for their young. In order for humans to take that milk humans forcibly impregnate the animal then kill its young shortly after birth - never giving it any of its mothers milk. That’s why all dairy is not vegan.
But a heads up for everyone doing this. Please, please remove the laptop battery before running it 24/7. Otherwise this is a serious fire hazard. The hardware and especially the battery are not designed to run under these conditions.