--- title: I turned a nearly 10-year-old laptop into the most... description: A nearly 10-year-old Acer Predator Helios 300 gaming laptop was repurposed as a Proxmox node to host admin control tools for a home lab, including Nginx Proxy... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/i-turned-a-nearly-10-year-old-laptop-into-the-most-useful-machine-in-my-home-lab-hwyooru4f twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: I turned a nearly 10-year-old laptop into the most useful machine in my home lab | daily.dev og:description: A nearly 10-year-old Acer Predator Helios 300 gaming laptop was repurposed as a Proxmox node to host admin control tools for a home lab, including Nginx Proxy... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/i-turned-a-nearly-10-year-old-laptop-into-the-most-useful-machine-in-my-home-lab-hwyooru4f og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/HWyOoRu4f.png og:image:alt: I turned a nearly 10-year-old laptop into the most useful machine in my home lab og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # I turned a nearly 10-year-old laptop into the most useful machine in my home lab **[XDA Developers](https://daily.dev/sources/xda-developers)** · 4 min read · 1 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A nearly 10-year-old Acer Predator Helios 300 gaming laptop was repurposed as a Proxmox node to host admin control tools for a home lab, including Nginx Proxy Manager, Authentik, Gotify, and Homarr. Keeping these tools on a separate node with a built-in display and keyboard ensures they stay online even if other server nodes fail. The laptop's GTX 1060 (6GB) is used via LXC passthrough to run large language models with llama.cpp. To safely manage the built-in battery (avoiding overcharge fire risk), Glances monitors battery percentage, Home Assistant pulls those metrics, and a smart plug automation cycles the AC adapter to keep the battery between 30% and 80%. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### How can I use an old laptop's battery as a UPS for a Proxmox home server safely? Install the Glances monitoring utility on the Proxmox shell to expose battery percentage, then integrate Glances with Home Assistant to pull battery metrics. With the laptop's AC adapter plugged into a smart plug, create automations that turn the plug off when the battery reaches 80% and back on when it drops below 30%, avoiding constant trickle charging while still providing outage protection. _daily.dev surfaces home lab tinkering guides like this for anyone repurposing old hardware safely._ ### Can you pass through a laptop's GPU to run LLMs on Proxmox using LXC? Yes, LXC passthrough can expose a laptop's built-in GPU, such as an old GTX 1060 (6GB), to a container even when assigning it directly to a full virtual machine fails. A custom llama.cpp container can then use that outdated graphics card to run large language models locally on a Proxmox node. _Developers experimenting with local LLM hosting track GPU passthrough tricks like this on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Home Assistant and a $9 smart plug solved the biggest issue with my recycled laptop server](https://daily.dev/posts/home-assistant-and-a-9-smart-plug-solved-the-biggest-issue-with-my-recycled-laptop-server-mvvssvmma) · XDA Developers · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [I run a Microsoft 365 killer suite off my laptop, and it's good enough to replace my cloud subscriptions](https://daily.dev/posts/i-run-a-microsoft-365-killer-suite-off-my-laptop-and-it-s-good-enough-to-replace-my-cloud-subscript-ikbnwdbvm) · XDA Developers · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Your old laptop is a decent entry-level Proxmox server – if you respect its limits](https://daily.dev/posts/your-old-laptop-is-a-decent-entry-level-proxmox-server-if-you-respect-its-limits-mdvyw1b2l) · XDA Developers · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [My Coding Agents: Off My Laptop and Onto a Remote Server](https://daily.dev/posts/my-coding-agents-off-my-laptop-and-onto-a-remote-server-zxlgjxw5k) · Atomic Spin · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [I turned an old laptop into the most useful device in my house, and it took an afternoon](https://daily.dev/posts/i-turned-an-old-laptop-into-the-most-useful-device-in-my-house-and-it-took-an-afternoon-ayiwiluev) · XDA Developers · 1 upvotes · 1 comments --- Tags: [#llm](https://daily.dev/tags/llm), [#self-hosting](https://daily.dev/tags/self-hosting), [#homelab](https://daily.dev/tags/homelab), [#proxmox](https://daily.dev/tags/proxmox) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/i-turned-a-nearly-10-year-old-laptop-into-the-most-useful-machine-in-my-home-lab-hwyooru4f) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"I turned a nearly 10-year-old laptop into the most useful machine in my home lab","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/i-turned-a-nearly-10-year-old-laptop-into-the-most-useful-machine-in-my-home-lab-hwyooru4f","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/i-turned-a-nearly-10-year-old-laptop-into-the-most-useful-machine-in-my-home-lab-hwyooru4f"},"datePublished":"2026-08-07T00:01:54.607Z","dateModified":"2026-09-14T06:54:33.395Z","description":"A nearly 10-year-old Acer Predator Helios 300 gaming laptop was repurposed as a Proxmox node to host admin control tools for a home lab, including Nginx Proxy...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/8d79e9bdb3cceec8740c84d7a48b709d?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/8d79e9bdb3cceec8740c84d7a48b709d?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"XDA Developers","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"XDA Developers","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--kCg6yyAP--/f_auto,q_auto/v1774964407/logos/xda-developers?_a=BAMAMiWQ0","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/xda-developers"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/i-turned-a-nearly-10-year-old-laptop-into-the-most-useful-machine-in-my-home-lab-hwyooru4f","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":1},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"llm,self-hosting,homelab,proxmox","timeRequired":"PT4M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"XDA Developers","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/xda-developers"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"I turned a nearly 10-year-old laptop into the most useful machine in my home lab"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/i-turned-a-nearly-10-year-old-laptop-into-the-most-useful-machine-in-my-home-lab-hwyooru4f#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"How can I use an old laptop's battery as a UPS for a Proxmox home server safely?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Install the Glances monitoring utility on the Proxmox shell to expose battery percentage, then integrate Glances with Home Assistant to pull battery metrics. 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