Raspberry Pi Forums

Hi guys,

I was wondering if i could use my RasPi to boost my pc. I have the PI model B and wanted to connect it to my pc in a way that they would work together and combine to be one pc. Please help.

Think about it this way. You've got two laptops, can you use one to "boost" the other?

NO!

Think about it this way. You could regard the RPi as a plug-in or extension module that gives your PC access to 'physical' interfaces like LEDs, switches, temperature probes, servos etc that would not normally be available on a PC. It isn't really 'one system', but it is certainly a boost to what a PC alone can do.

So, YES!

You can't really use your Pi to boost the PC because they are separate systems. Your PC (unless it is extremely old) is already much more powerful than your Pi - perhaps 50x to 100x more powerful. The Pi and the PC have separate CPUs, separate memory and separate storage. The closest they can ever really get is communicating over the network.

Also, your Pi is a server system, whereas your PC is (probably) a desktop/laptop system. So they are designed to perform different functions. The Pi is very good at running always-on server programs like web servers, file servers, streaming servers etc, whereas the PC is good at running big applications like word processors, spreadsheets and browsers.

If your PC is running some always-on services, such as a web server (quite unlikely), they you could have the Pi do that instead. in that sense, the Pi would be "helping" the PC by taking some jobs from it. Or if you have children, you could persuade them to use the Pi instead of your PC. That would probably help your PC too.