How many subscribers do you have?

Nice. I might copy your idea.

Do a BIOS recovery using the jumper. You’ll have to go to download the recovery BIOS from Intel.

Page 52 and 53: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.intel.com/content/dam/support/us/en/documents/boardsandkits/D54250WYB_D34010WYB_TechProdSpec.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiRrLT_5tWJAxVsOTQIHS89FXsQFnoECBQQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0Cwh5M34aQHTbNFOuo5gGA

Edit: didn’t read the full post. You can turn off the other LED in the bios.Youll need a display to know what’s going on and to debug. If no storage is present, it usually boots to PXE boot or a screen that says no boot device found.

Intel integrated graphics is pretty phenomenal for ~5 user HTPC setups and NUC’s are basically the best Intel products ever. Nothing better than it just working out of the box.

Any Intel NUC(the small 4x4 ones) 8th gen or forward will fit the bill.

I’m mildly aligned with your main point OP. Rpi’s have a place and are amazing at many things, but over sold on lots of ‘server’ usages. For the typical homelabber, it’s a hobby so not a big deal that this hardware they likely already have (Rpi) isn’t the best.

However, this point about energy usage means you have either a large energy bill and can’t see the margin increase OR those 11 systems are mostly idle and you simply don’t need all of them running.

More expensive yes, but insane warenty, highest quality, follows specs and actually rated for 24/7 operation

Crazy that nobody pointed you to a bulletproof Intel NUC.