Dell

TL;DR The headless problem: Running a refurb bench means stacking PCs, but monitors/keyboards create noise and clutter. You need remote hands. PiKVM V4 Plus is a network KVM: remote video capture, USB keyboard/mouse emulation, virtual media mounting, and ATX relay control—all in a $300 device. Multiport Switch extender lets one PiKVM control up to four machines simultaneously by flipping an RJ45 port. Dell CCTK (Command | Configure) automates BIOS settings from WinPE: set AHCI, enable PXE, disable Secure Boot, configure Wake-on-LAN, tag assets—all without touching F2. Unattended imaging = BIOS automation + PXE boot + virtual media mounting. Chain ten machines without hands-on intervention. Gotchas matter: AHCI after Windows install = BSOD; Secure Boot changes need a setup password; BitLocker auto-encrypts Win11 and blocks generalize; Deep Sleep disables S5 wake. Why I Needed This I’ve been buying government-surplus refurbished machines to flip—mostly surplus OptiPlex machines—and my original setup was a single monitor, keyboard, and mouse swapped between machines. That works for one box. It doesn’t scale to five. ...

TL;DR I keep four small-form-factor PCs on a bench for testing and repurposing — bought used, need fresh OS images, fresh BIOS settings, and no monitor or keyboard. A PiKVM V4 Plus with a multiport switch gives me eyes and hands on all four boxes over the network. Dell’s cctk command-line tool (Command | Configure) lets me bake BIOS settings — boot order, AHCI mode, Wake-on-LAN, power-on-after-failure — into scripted runs instead of clicking through F2 menus. No monitor, no keyboard, no physical access for weeks at a time. Everything repeatable, everything as code. ...

TL;DR My production homelab runs on Lenovo M920q tinies, and I still think those are the sweet spot. But if I were starting over today with a tight budget, I’d buy a stack of government-surplus Dell OptiPlex 7060 and 7070 desktops instead. They go for around $150 each refurbished — 6-core 8th/9th-gen Intel, an SSD, and Windows 11 already on them — and they make excellent Kubernetes nodes with exactly two cheap upgrades: a bit more RAM and a second network card. ...

TL;DR Everyone reaches for a mini PC or a Pi for a homelab node. The thing nobody tells you: a used business laptop is a server with a built-in UPS, screen, and keyboard bolted on for free. A Dell Latitude 7400 — 8th-gen Core i5, 16 GB RAM, NVMe SSD — runs about $150 used, draws ~10 W with the lid shut, and when the power flickers it doesn’t even notice, because it’s running off its own battery. I run a couple as edge nodes. Here’s the case for it and the five-minute headless setup. ...