server is down for maintenance lol

This project has now gone beyond the proof-of-concept phase and is actually running some meaningful services. I have been using the machine for networked storage for many months, running a Plex media server, and have been doing a Minecraft server stream with a friend. Most recently I found smart plugs with open APIs, and I have one in use that governs when a heat lamp in our chicken coop comes on and turns off. A service runs, hourly, a script that queries the local temperature and turns the heat lamp on or off depending on if it is above or below a threshold value, and logs these movements. This project mostly runs on repurposed hardware, but I did get some extra parts to maximize its utility.

At the time of the conversion to the wall server the machine was 11 years old. In fact, the machine was holding up pretty well with these upgrades. Unfortunately, when I upgraded to Windows 10 (from Windows 7) there was no longer driver support for Intel HD 3000 graphics, which is what this processor uses. It was still able to watch videos, but for rendering graphics (gaming, Unity engine) it was unable to perform. Before Windows 10 I had been using it to play Minecraft at decent frame rates (considering), so I do enjoy that it now hosts a Minecraft server with success.

Another part of it is that microcomputers, such as Raspberry Pi units, were not readily available due to the silicon shortages present in 2021 and 2022, when these ideas were being incepted and executed.

Third is the allure of running the oldest and most under-specced hardware possible (within reason) to see just what it can do. I prefer to find both the lower and upper limits of projects. I want to know how powerful a Minecraft server machine actually has to be. That said, I fully intend to replace this machine with a third iteration of the home server. As that happens this hardware will be handed down to a vegetable garden. It will live as an automatic watering system, and I have aspirations to install probes into the soil to govern when the system automatically waters. There will also be wide-angle cameras to record footage that will be edited into time-lapse plant-growing videos.

Lastly, I will talk about power consumption. Running my Plex media server off of a machine that pulls ~14 watts at idle is much more economical than the previous version, which was an unlocked and overclockable Intel I7-8700K chip that was pulling more like 65 watts at idle. Also, the laptop battery doubles as a UPS, giving the comptuer about 5 hours of run time in the event of a power outage. It can also be mounted right on the wooden backboard with the hardware itself.

I wrote a bash script to check if the computer was discharging battery or not, and if it was to monitor the remaining battery life. Once the charge is seen to be below 50% the server properly shuts itself down rather than abruptly losing power when the battery is completely discharged. In any case it logs its hourly readouts to one or another file, depending on if it is actively shutting down or not.

Did the battery die?