I pulled the mainboard out of my Framework Laptop 13 and turned it into a truly modular Proxmox server
Swapping out components like they're going out of fashion.
The author of the story acquired a Framework Laptop 13 and decided to repurpose its mainboard into a modular Proxmox server for their home lab. The laptop's low-power capabilities and modularity appealed to them, prompting the idea of utilizing it for a home server. Upon dismantling the laptop and removing the mainboard, they found it to be a capable single-board computer (SBC) with a minimal power draw.
The mainboard housed the CPU, GPU, RAM, and storage, all soldered or installed on the primary PCB. It could be powered on using a single USB-C power input, with a dedicated power switch on the PCB. The author installed 16GB of DDR5 RAM and an AMD Ryzen 7 7840U CPU, which provided ample power for running Linux containers and virtual machines.
The thermal performance was excellent due to the lack of enclosed components, allowing for better sustained performance under load. While the author does not recommend using the Framework Laptop 13 or its mainboard as a home server for everyone, they found it to be a compelling setup for those with a spare laptop at hand, offering a more power-efficient alternative to traditional enterprise servers or workstation consolidation projects.
Written by urgent.news from XDA Developers's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
