> The most obvious solution would be make a small PC: more powerful and bigger fans means less noise
In the performance window of "old Thinkpad", why not go fanless? Those lovely little Intel N150 mini-pc boxes are mostly fanless and completely silent - I have on my desk running Jellyfin/web server/etc, and it's inaudible under load.
> but what if it fails to start?
In ~15 years of running headless linux boxes, I've never had one crippled to the point it wouldn't boot as far as ssh.
In the performance window of "old Thinkpad", why not go fanless? Those lovely little Intel N150 mini-pc boxes are mostly fanless and completely silent - I have on my desk running Jellyfin/web server/etc, and it's inaudible under load.
> but what if it fails to start?
In ~15 years of running headless linux boxes, I've never had one crippled to the point it wouldn't boot as far as ssh.