laptop 180watt psu

zalazin

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I have a Gigabyte Aorus 15-w9 laptop I just went to 32GB ram. Now the specs. 8750h, 760P INTEL SSD Nvme, 970 1TB Nvme, Micron 2TB ssd, RTX 2060 6GB, and fancy keyboard lights. Came with a Chicony Power Supply rated at 180. Am concerned that 180 watt is pushing it. I hooked up my Kilowatt meter and running Prime95 and Control at the same time I saw 186 watts show, but isn't that only the ac watts being drawn from the house AC therefore being that no devices is 100 percent efficient could not be out putting 180..Am I right in that? I don't believe that is any app that can actually show the laptops real power consumption?
 
My similarly specced out Acer has an 180 watt supply and Ive had no issues.

My rig differences are a gtx 1060 and 16 GB ram but it has an nvm drive (intel) and an extra SSD (Samsung).

Also is 17" 1080P screen with backlit keyboard.

I have had it almost a year and played all kinds of new games on it with no issues.
 
No crashes or memory errors appears stable. I also read somewhere that 16 or 32 it's not the capacity of ram that uses more power but the actual number ram modules. Two is two...
 
I also have a USB powered laptop cooling fan it sits on plus a USB 3 hub with Gbit ethernet and a Corsair M65 USB mouse and USB phone charger for my winfone all plugged into it all the time to boot.
 
Yeah... laptop chargers tend to be a fair bit less efficient than the typical computer power supply, so 186 watts wall is probably 160 watts to laptop. Power management is strict in a laptop, and they're generally controlled so that they don't exceed the rated power draw of the charger. You'll probably find that benchmarking your CPU and GPU separately will result in higher scores than benchmarking them at the same time, which is the result of power and/or thermal management.
 
you would know if the charger wasn't sufficient; either the laptop would throttle- or you would see the battery draining during heavy use even though you're plugged in. I've seen both happen.

on the other hand, if you notice the charger getting extremely hot- even if the laptop is running fine- that's a sign that a higher-capacity unit wouldn't be wasted even if it's not really needed.
 
So i'm Probably safe as the brick does not get really hot just warm... Thank for your input.....
 
I don't believe that is any app that can actually show the laptops real power consumption?

There is no software that can do this with 100% accuracy, but there is hardware. The best non-destructive method is a DC clamp ammeter on the wire between the laptop and power brick, but they're pretty expensive.

https://www.fluke.com/en-us/product/electrical-testing/clamp-meters/fluke-325

A destructive method would be to chop the power cable from the laptop to the power brick and insert an ammeter in series. I've done this in the past with a bench power supply for laptop diagnostics, but I don't recommend it since modern laptop chargers usually have 1 wire circuits to communicate with the laptop and laptops will generally run in "limp" mode if they can't determine what charger they're connected to.
 
The Extech is probably a good meter for the entry level or home hobbyist. Fluke meters are so expensive because they're for the professional market where reliability, accuracy and safety is required. They go through all of the qualification and safety rating tests to make sure the user is adequately protected from the electric gear they're working on.

I know I wouldn't use huang lo brand meter to clamp to a three phase panel. But for testing a laptop power brick, it's a bit overkill.
 
You can get it if you're simply curious or if you really need that extra piece of mind. My laptop from 2013 requires a 95 watt charger and will go into limp mode (CPU and GPU throttled, battery won't charge) if a 65 watt charger is connected. And it will send popup messages telling me to connect a 95 watt charger.
 
Did a little more looking found them even cheaper. https://www.amazon.com/Meterk-Multi...RM6HWY3P5QQ&psc=1&refRID=HSG2HTK2BRM6HWY3P5QQ

would this probably be good enough? I will only use this infrequently so I don't want spend a whole lot....

Yeah that'd be fine, it has a DC current mode.

You can get it if you're simply curious or if you really need that extra piece of mind. My laptop from 2013 requires a 95 watt charger and will go into limp mode (CPU and GPU throttled, battery won't charge) if a 65 watt charger is connected. And it will send popup messages telling me to connect a 95 watt charger.

I hate laptops that do this. When you use a lesser power brick, it either goes into limp mode, or uses the battery to make up for the current demand. OEMs have purposely been selling laptops with undersized power bricks for years which causes severe battery wear. I always get laptops in for repair with dead/damaged batteries from undersized power bricks and hear the same complaints over and over again. "my battery is always dead and won't charge and my computer is slow."
 
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Yeah that'd be fine, it has a DC current mode.



I hate laptops that do this. When you use a lesser power brick, it either goes into limp mode, or uses the battery to make up for the current demand. OEMs have purposely been selling laptops with undersized power bricks for years which causes severe battery wear. I always get laptops in for repair with dead/damaged batteries from undersized power bricks and hear the same complaints over and over again. "my battery is always dead and won't charge and my computer is slow."
I just got the Meterk MK06 but not sure if its even working, in continuity setting the probes don't beep when touched they do in all my older meters...and the display shows OL...any real way to test this thing?
 
I just got the Meterk MK06 but not sure if its even working, in continuity setting the probes don't beep when touched they do in all my older meters...and the display shows OL...any real way to test this thing?

I'd say make sure its in the correct mode, it looked like it has several buttons in addition to the dial to change modes, which could alter between the probes and the clamps.

Also, not all meters have a beep in continuity mode. I have a couple that don't and one which can turn the beep on and off.
 
figured how to turn on continuity beep. As to DC current read, From the videos on youtube it looks as if you can only use the positive wire in the right polarity direction. So possibly you can't get the current without removing the wires protective outer sheath and separating the neg and pos wires from the brick... I'm not doing that as power brick is still under warranty.... I can however do this on an old laptop to see if that works...
 
figured how to turn on continuity beep. As to DC current read, From the videos on youtube it looks as if you can only use the positive wire in the right polarity direction. So possibly you can't get the current without removing the wires protective outer sheath and separating the neg and pos wires from the brick... I'm not doing that as power brick is still under warranty.... I can however do this on an old laptop to see if that works...

that is correct abt the current measuring... it will only work if one lead is taken out and measured separately. the contactless clamp meter is basically half of a transformer; if both the power leads are inside the clamp the electromagnetic fields they generate will cancel each other out from the meters perspective. it would be like measuring water flow thru a sink by taking the flow upwards thru the supply line and subtracting the flow of the same water going down the drain... comes out to zero. U need to measure only one. That may be difficult to do with a laptop charger without utterly destroying it though- often the DC line is coaxial with the positive being a copper core in the middle and the negative being wire or foil wrapped around the outside of the core. good call to try it with a charger you don't care for much. another option could be to get/make an extender cable (plug like the laptop on one end plug like the charger on the other) with side-by-side wires that you could just pull apart to fit the meter between. then when you want to measure current u just stick the extender between the charger and the laptop, nondestructive and keeps the meter out of the circuit for convenience.
 
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