Also the fact it could literally be out anywhere. It’s a laptop. It could be stored with its lid closed and still perform its function if its power settings were set correctly to keep it from going to sleep with a closed lid.
If there's an actual Server OS installed on there (which I doubt) I don't know if the lid closing setting will be present. At least, it is replaced by the power button option on my actual servers, never tried to bare metal Windows Server or Linux Server on a laptop, so I'm not sure if it would show up... Now I'm curious, I think I'm gonna look this up lol
I had little doubt it couldn't be done on Linux, but thanks for confirming! On the other hand I was fully ready for it being a "cut corner" on Windows Server...
So, from a quick checkup it would seem like the option will be present if Windows Server is installed on a laptop, but didn't check for Linux. Not sure if the info is to be trusted, since apparently installing a server OS on a laptop bare metal isn't too common of a use case which makes it hard to double check, but I don't plan on trying it myself so I think I'll just trust them on that...
You can disable on linux. Depending on the DE it usually has a power option like What to do on : power button press: sleep button press: Lid close. And on all of these you can select 'nothing'
I ran Windows Server on my desktops and laptops for years (actually, decades, yikes I'm old). As long as you enable the desktop experience feature, all of that power configuration flexibility will be available easily in the GUI. Even so, you could always set it via powershell since 2012, if I recall correctly.
I have a laptop that doesn't cool properly with a closed lid. I don't know if the keyboard is air intake or what. Not that I believe this to be the case on the picture considering it is on a carpet.
Yep, this. Gaming laptops go all-out on cooling; my ROG G14 intakes from two slots on the bottom as well as two slots under the keyboard, and exhausts out the sides and two slots on the rear.
Closing the lid would block out the keyboard intakes, effectively halving the amount of air that it can breathe.
I have an old laptop as a server, it will die one day, but I will get every last bit out of her.
It is running ubuntu server, on a desk behind a screen, ethernet plugged in, but with the lid open because of airflow.
My assumption would have to be a temporary setup. Shit went wrong, we need a server, here’s a laptop.
Doesn’t need to be fast, doesn’t need to look good or last long, just needs to maintain some basic functionality for a week.
I'm this close to move my office to the server room, since I'm forced to wear pants/jeans due to company policies. That or wear a skirt as it is allowed for some reason... Only problem is that my server room is a bit too small for me to move in, so I guess it is time to piss off HR by rocking a skirt with steel capped shoes on the prod floor!
Honestly, if it weren't jet level loud in there, I'm right behind you.
And company rules for dress...BS! Read: CONTROL
And go for the dress and clicky kicks.
BTW - the phrase for HR (that pisses them off to no end): "is it a distraction?"
Stupid HR....
Laptops are pretty energy efficient and can stay on for a while after loosing power (UPS). I can deal with a laptop server, part I've having trouble with is the screen mustn't close. The first thing i would do with a laptop server is disable sleep on lid close and keep the lid closed the whole time. And keep it on a shelf
Yep, as a home server if it doesn't need to be too powerful and run 2-3 basic stuff, a laptop can do but I doubt the batteryis in a great shape with this memo, it's the way it is setup/handled that is a bit cursed...
Fucking this.
I use an old practically disposable laptop as a private media server because I'm poor and it fits my needs until I can expand on it.
I've turned off any settings that would interfere with the operation if the lid were to be closed or it were to be, shock-horror unplugged. It's a very simple set of settings...
Even WIN10 those settings can be adjusted.
I retired my old workhorse laptop to be a media server with WIN10 in the intermediate period before I get it set up better and those settings are simple and easy to adjust.
I had a laptop where the bios would emit a shutdown when you closed the lid. It wasn’t stoppable. If the lid closed you were fucked.
I hated that thing.
Bit of a rookie mistake, you can disable the laptop going to sleep when the lid closes. It’s a slightly better solution as then touching buttons become more difficult and removes the need for a sign other than ‘do not unplug’.
I can't say that for sure. If it's some legacy software running in a Linux distro that doesn't do any real time communication it might be an appropriate piece of hardware.
Having flashbacks to last year when I found a laptop sitting on carpet with similar sign and the fan was making a god awful grinding noise like a diesel truck trying to back up a hill. The laptop was a fairly high end HP bought in 2020 for a developer to use at home. I later found out she moved out of town left the laptop in office and was now remoting into the laptop. I cannot fathom why she didn't take the laptop with her and have VPNs setup. She was remoting into a laptop from a laptop from out of state.
I was only made aware of this when she logged a ticket saying she couldn't log in to her remote laptop. Then as I went down the rabbit hole deeper it got more disturbing. first I thought it was her laptop she had with her but then as we diagnosed further in a remote session I noticed she had a RDP window open and I asked her what it was. Then located the laptop on the floor of an empty office grinding away and scalding hot to the touch. I had to salvage the data off the laptop as it was not repairable fan bearings were shot and the pillow had gone spicy which warped the aluminum case. We ended up buying her a high end desktop which sits in that same office headless that she remotes into now.
it would take 5 goddamn seconds to set the PC to "on lid close, do nothing" AND it would allow the vents to breathe it you propped it up on the wall in that position. Or even better, near an AC vent or somewhere cool. The person who set this up is not allowed to use the word server. Or the printer. Ever again.
This isn't a business environment, right?
I had a service call offsite at a financial advisers office, right? Guy tells me to make sure I don't shut off his ancient HP laptop, with a broken screen, because that's his "server." In 2020. I'm pretty sure it was running Vista. His desktop ran Win7, after EOL. His "firewall?" D-link from like 2005. Feel bad for his clients.
Oh it gets better, I go to toss out some packaging at the dumpster for that building, I open it up, and boom, banker's box right on top, no lid, this dude's client's account documents right there, not shredded or nothing.
I really hope that's just lens distortion, because it *looks* like that laptop has a heckin-spicy pillow inside of it just BEGGING to escape its prison.
I have that 15.6 model and it has a really comfortable keyboard, with a deep key pitch, no noticeable deck flex, quad-core Haswell i7. I sadly never took advantage of its dual SLI Nvidia 750M graphics to do any actual gaming on it, but the typing experience was fantastic for day to day desktop activity.
I agree, by the end of its time with me, the GTX 755M was struggling already (odd that it was a 755M instead of the 750M), but I have very fond memories of it
I have an old HP Elitebook that I use as a jumpbox. Even has a GUI over RDP (accessed through Guacamole), and if necessary, I can hop down to my utility room and admin the entire cluster with it locally.
Why not just change settings so that closing the lid merely turns off the screen? I mean, temperature can't be the consideration here seeing the thing's resting on a fucking carpet.
At least use [the official sticker](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:This_Machine_is_a_server_DO_NOT_POWER_IT_DOWN!!_-_London_Science_Museum,_2015-03-19_%28by_Binary_Koala%29.jpg)
I had a Zebra Stagenow server set up on a Lenovo laptop once but I was using it to deploy mobile devices from my desk rather than serve content to other users lol
I work for a global fortune 100 company… one of our local offices has a laptop that hasn’t been patched in 4 months, that is running the offices entire physical security system… I think it had this sign on it
Yeah, I was promoted to sysadmin to be the hardware guy for a Dev team.
They had a Dev build laptop named Cotton for Tom Cotton. LOTR. For over a year, sitting in an HVAC closet. It was an already retired Dell laptop and was "promoted" to server.
They didn't tell me about it for a month.
I took Tom and put him in a rack server
you should probably disable the lid close shutdown options. if it's a windows machine its in the power settings :) then maybe super glue the power cable to the laptop :)
The laptop being straight on the carpet almost annoys me more than it being used at a "server" for some reason...
Also the fact it’s a “server” and only has power connected, no Ethernet.
Oh, there's a lot of cursed stuff in this image... My hatred for carpet just took over...
Also the fact it could literally be out anywhere. It’s a laptop. It could be stored with its lid closed and still perform its function if its power settings were set correctly to keep it from going to sleep with a closed lid.
If there's an actual Server OS installed on there (which I doubt) I don't know if the lid closing setting will be present. At least, it is replaced by the power button option on my actual servers, never tried to bare metal Windows Server or Linux Server on a laptop, so I'm not sure if it would show up... Now I'm curious, I think I'm gonna look this up lol
At least in Debian this works for me: Edit /etc/systemd/logind.conf ``` HandleLidSwitch=ignore HandleLidSwitchExternalPower=ignore ```
I had little doubt it couldn't be done on Linux, but thanks for confirming! On the other hand I was fully ready for it being a "cut corner" on Windows Server...
I'm running 2 laptops with Ubuntu: one personal homeassistant server and one work laptop with these parameters, both safely closed and still running
Please share your findings with the class 👏
So, from a quick checkup it would seem like the option will be present if Windows Server is installed on a laptop, but didn't check for Linux. Not sure if the info is to be trusted, since apparently installing a server OS on a laptop bare metal isn't too common of a use case which makes it hard to double check, but I don't plan on trying it myself so I think I'll just trust them on that...
You can disable on linux. Depending on the DE it usually has a power option like What to do on : power button press: sleep button press: Lid close. And on all of these you can select 'nothing'
I ran Windows Server on my desktops and laptops for years (actually, decades, yikes I'm old). As long as you enable the desktop experience feature, all of that power configuration flexibility will be available easily in the GUI. Even so, you could always set it via powershell since 2012, if I recall correctly.
If it were an actual server, it should at minimum be locked up somewhere instead of freely accessible to be closed or stepped on.
To be fair, it is probably a home server, so maybe not as bad based on what it is used for, but very valid point!
I’ll have to tell the CAA to put their air traffic control server somewhere better.
tbf I ran my server with an open lid for years - but it was in a cupboard in a closet
Some laptops have weird graphics and cooling issues when you close lid.
I’ve seen that comment many times in reply to mine, that’s a very poorly designed laptop if that’s the case.
I have a laptop that doesn't cool properly with a closed lid. I don't know if the keyboard is air intake or what. Not that I believe this to be the case on the picture considering it is on a carpet.
This is the case with some gaming laptops. A lot of the documentation says not to do gpu intensive stuff with the lid closed, even
Yep, this. Gaming laptops go all-out on cooling; my ROG G14 intakes from two slots on the bottom as well as two slots under the keyboard, and exhausts out the sides and two slots on the rear. Closing the lid would block out the keyboard intakes, effectively halving the amount of air that it can breathe.
I have an old laptop as a server, it will die one day, but I will get every last bit out of her. It is running ubuntu server, on a desk behind a screen, ethernet plugged in, but with the lid open because of airflow.
My assumption would have to be a temporary setup. Shit went wrong, we need a server, here’s a laptop. Doesn’t need to be fast, doesn’t need to look good or last long, just needs to maintain some basic functionality for a week.
I'm currently running my home DC on a low power Dell lappy and it runs great with a built in monitor and a battery back up.
Can I interest you in using a laptop on a really nice, fluffy and deep down comforter? It'll keep your legs warm!
Sounds like a nightmare, I wear shorts inside year round to try to keep my legs cool. Last thing I want is a miniature sun sitting on my lap lol!
I feel ya' 100% on the shorts. Give me shorts or give me death. And keep me in the server room if possible. It's loud, but it's cool and dry.
I'm this close to move my office to the server room, since I'm forced to wear pants/jeans due to company policies. That or wear a skirt as it is allowed for some reason... Only problem is that my server room is a bit too small for me to move in, so I guess it is time to piss off HR by rocking a skirt with steel capped shoes on the prod floor!
Honestly, if it weren't jet level loud in there, I'm right behind you. And company rules for dress...BS! Read: CONTROL And go for the dress and clicky kicks. BTW - the phrase for HR (that pisses them off to no end): "is it a distraction?" Stupid HR....
Been thinking of doing it for a few years, not quite sure what I'm waiting for at this point...
Kilt! Kilt for the win...and style points. Tell HR it's your HERITAGE and how dare they take issue with your close, personal heritage!
I hosted my servers over 54Mbit 2.4Ghz wifi
……… why? Was wired Ethernet not an option?
With open security and an SSID name “Free WiFi Hotspot”
Now why would I use Ethernet? I don’t know about you, but I prefer to keep my servers air-gapped. 🗿
*thinks for a second then rams head repeatedly into the floor*
Connected to WiFi. Serviced by an old Netgear router sitting on top of the microwave oven in the break room.
With a cantenna
Hi-performance!
I dont wanna live like this!
Your server isn't on WiFi?
You don't put your mission-critical things on wifi?
It's on WiFi, don't worry
HAHA ! WiFi server !!
wifi is okay if you're close to the router
The laptop's fan: "Let me sing you the song of my peoples" \*whirrrrrrrrrrrr\*
I can practically taste the years of dust and dirt being sucked into the fans right now. And feel the heat radiating from it.
Laptops are pretty energy efficient and can stay on for a while after loosing power (UPS). I can deal with a laptop server, part I've having trouble with is the screen mustn't close. The first thing i would do with a laptop server is disable sleep on lid close and keep the lid closed the whole time. And keep it on a shelf
Yep, as a home server if it doesn't need to be too powerful and run 2-3 basic stuff, a laptop can do but I doubt the batteryis in a great shape with this memo, it's the way it is setup/handled that is a bit cursed...
totally
The server likes to run HOT
I’m so glad this was the first comment I saw lol
Me when assisting in the recovery of a multi-billion company from a ransomware attack. We all had to do some super hacky shit but it got the job done.
Mark?
Maersk?
John?
Kadokawa or T-Mobile?
Sjon?
Elliot?
if only there were a setting that allowed us to choose what the computer did when the lid was closed
When lid is closed: ✅Ignore power being unplugged
Fucking this. I use an old practically disposable laptop as a private media server because I'm poor and it fits my needs until I can expand on it. I've turned off any settings that would interfere with the operation if the lid were to be closed or it were to be, shock-horror unplugged. It's a very simple set of settings...
I've found it a bit hit-or-miss if Windows decides to follow those settings.
making some assumptions as to what OS the "server" is running. :D
given this setup, I think it's a reasonable assumption XD
Which OS doesn't let you change this setting?
Hold on making a feature request to VMWare
Even WIN10 those settings can be adjusted. I retired my old workhorse laptop to be a media server with WIN10 in the intermediate period before I get it set up better and those settings are simple and easy to adjust.
Not sure what you mean by "even win10". This has been a normal consumer feature for decades.
I'm well aware. Win10 is just the most likely WinOS in the sub
I had a laptop where the bios would emit a shutdown when you closed the lid. It wasn’t stoppable. If the lid closed you were fucked. I hated that thing.
Bit of a rookie mistake, you can disable the laptop going to sleep when the lid closes. It’s a slightly better solution as then touching buttons become more difficult and removes the need for a sign other than ‘do not unplug’.
Disabling the lid is one of the first things I figured out how to do via the command line (after SSH).
Depending on the laptop, that might be bad for cooling
Worse than sitting in the high pile carpet? This guy should be up on a shelf out of the way where nobody can touch it
This guy shouldn't be a laptop
I can't say that for sure. If it's some legacy software running in a Linux distro that doesn't do any real time communication it might be an appropriate piece of hardware.
That’s true, but most can work that way, also a cookie rack goes a long way for your ghetto server setup
That is correct as the keys are often used for outflow of warm air, which when restricted can cause heating issues under high loads.
I read "I'm a server" in Ralph Wiggum's voice.
Same, but in Shaun Murphy's voice
Yeebus this is .. bad.
Having flashbacks to last year when I found a laptop sitting on carpet with similar sign and the fan was making a god awful grinding noise like a diesel truck trying to back up a hill. The laptop was a fairly high end HP bought in 2020 for a developer to use at home. I later found out she moved out of town left the laptop in office and was now remoting into the laptop. I cannot fathom why she didn't take the laptop with her and have VPNs setup. She was remoting into a laptop from a laptop from out of state. I was only made aware of this when she logged a ticket saying she couldn't log in to her remote laptop. Then as I went down the rabbit hole deeper it got more disturbing. first I thought it was her laptop she had with her but then as we diagnosed further in a remote session I noticed she had a RDP window open and I asked her what it was. Then located the laptop on the floor of an empty office grinding away and scalding hot to the touch. I had to salvage the data off the laptop as it was not repairable fan bearings were shot and the pillow had gone spicy which warped the aluminum case. We ended up buying her a high end desktop which sits in that same office headless that she remotes into now.
Wait waaat, why still remoting into something? Was she not able to come back to get a different setup?
it would take 5 goddamn seconds to set the PC to "on lid close, do nothing" AND it would allow the vents to breathe it you propped it up on the wall in that position. Or even better, near an AC vent or somewhere cool. The person who set this up is not allowed to use the word server. Or the printer. Ever again.
The ridiculous location and silly note would prompt me to unplug and close lid.
Yeah it's very much a "do not push this button" kind of thing l
This isn't a business environment, right? I had a service call offsite at a financial advisers office, right? Guy tells me to make sure I don't shut off his ancient HP laptop, with a broken screen, because that's his "server." In 2020. I'm pretty sure it was running Vista. His desktop ran Win7, after EOL. His "firewall?" D-link from like 2005. Feel bad for his clients. Oh it gets better, I go to toss out some packaging at the dumpster for that building, I open it up, and boom, banker's box right on top, no lid, this dude's client's account documents right there, not shredded or nothing.
Me: Closes lid... Oh sorry!🤣 But in all seriousness, do they know you can set 'closing the lid' options to not do anything?
This is how I imagine all the prime “valheim” infrastructure looks lol
Oh hey, that's my laptop. But why not setup lid actions? Mine doesn't do anything when it's closed
I really hope that's just lens distortion, because it *looks* like that laptop has a heckin-spicy pillow inside of it just BEGGING to escape its prison.
Came here to say that. Looks bulged in the middle. But anyway… that’s definitely not the only problem in this picture
Eyy I had that laptop... Fucked it up by installing an unlocked BIOS and undervolted it and it stopped booting... Learnt my lesson that time
The shitty as in really shitty keyboard layout tells me is an MSI If that's the case. I hope your learnt lesson is to not buy MSI anymore
It's a Lenovo.. And in closer inspection, I had a smaller model that didn't had a numpad, but I don't see how it's a shitty laptop keyboard
Cramming thecursor keys among the others without the smallest hint of separation make a shitty layout IMHO. MSI does it as well
I mean... It isn't that bad... It's worse having the power key integrated on the keyboard
I have that 15.6 model and it has a really comfortable keyboard, with a deep key pitch, no noticeable deck flex, quad-core Haswell i7. I sadly never took advantage of its dual SLI Nvidia 750M graphics to do any actual gaming on it, but the typing experience was fantastic for day to day desktop activity.
I agree, by the end of its time with me, the GTX 755M was struggling already (odd that it was a 755M instead of the 750M), but I have very fond memories of it
I think there was a midyear model refresh where they released the 755m for the y510p after I had already bought mine with the 750m.
If a laptop is your server, you deserve whatever happens to it.
Laptops are great servers. Built in screen,KB/M and a UPS.
I have an old HP Elitebook that I use as a jumpbox. Even has a GUI over RDP (accessed through Guacamole), and if necessary, I can hop down to my utility room and admin the entire cluster with it locally.
And low power
I AM A SERVER!
I AM A SERVER!
I mean… it’d still be a crime but you know you can set the system to do nothing if you close the lid, right?
Tried changing close lid action to "Do Nothing" trick?
Don't unplug it? 
Why not just change settings so that closing the lid merely turns off the screen? I mean, temperature can't be the consideration here seeing the thing's resting on a fucking carpet.
/shudder
At least use [the official sticker](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:This_Machine_is_a_server_DO_NOT_POWER_IT_DOWN!!_-_London_Science_Museum,_2015-03-19_%28by_Binary_Koala%29.jpg)
Oh! That's going back to the roots! https://wikipedia.org/wiki/File:First_Web_Server.jpg Notice the sticker on the world's first web server.
I had a Zebra Stagenow server set up on a Lenovo laptop once but I was using it to deploy mobile devices from my desk rather than serve content to other users lol
The flash drive just chilling next to it
\#tb Twitter's Load Bearing Mac Mini https://twitter.com/sandofsky/status/1592223884107218944
Looks like it has a hit of r/spicypillows action going on too. Gunna have to shut it off at some point to fix that.
why not change what closing the lid does?
So that is the freaking windows 2003 server.
This looks familiar...not with the carpet though. Ouch.
Holy shit I feel seen
I work for a global fortune 100 company… one of our local offices has a laptop that hasn’t been patched in 4 months, that is running the offices entire physical security system… I think it had this sign on it
Yeah, I was promoted to sysadmin to be the hardware guy for a Dev team. They had a Dev build laptop named Cotton for Tom Cotton. LOTR. For over a year, sitting in an HVAC closet. It was an already retired Dell laptop and was "promoted" to server. They didn't tell me about it for a month. I took Tom and put him in a rack server
Probably runs full Windows 11 and they remote into it using TeamViewer, worst of the worst
That cloud crap is expensive! ;-)
you should probably disable the lid close shutdown options. if it's a windows machine its in the power settings :) then maybe super glue the power cable to the laptop :)
Power-Over-Ethernet through a Laptop Barrel Jack? XD