Hi all, forgive me if this is a ridiculous question. I'm really not sure if electricity isn't just a fancy word for magic! I have a ac charger for my laptop that is 19V and 6A I also have an ac charger that is not made for my laptop, but is 19V and 3A Is it safe to use the second charger with my laptop, or will the battery explode, killing me and those I hold dearest? Cheers in advance! Tony
The 19V 3A charger will not make your battery explode, but probably it will not be powerful enough for your laptop, especially since the original is 19V 6A.
I think it is safe to try it. Probably can recharge the battery when laptop is off; may or may not have enough ooomph to run the laptop.
Do check the polarity of the connector. You want + or plus going to
+, - or negative go> The 19V 3A charger will not make your battery explode, but probably it
The voltage rating of a power supply tells you what voltage (electron pressure) it outputs, and the amp rating tells you how much current it can output (how many electrons per second, where 1 A = some enormous number of electrons per second).
If your computer needs 6 A then 3 A will not power it adequately.
The battery won't explode: The inadequate power supply will probably overheat and may be a fire hazard. If you're lucky, it will just fail.
If you exceed its current requirements, it may also not regulate the voltage properly and may damage your laptop.
Brotherwarren wrote:
I seriously doubt that your laptop will consume 114W of power while operating (P =19V x 6A). I suspect the 6A rating is the maximum surge rating for the charger but it would normally be required to output around 50% of that I would first check that the 3A charger has the same plug type/size and polarity as the original and then give it a go. I am sure it will work ok but if it tends to run HOT then you know it isn't satisfactory.
Agreed. That's basically what I was going to say, especially the second part. Plugging a well under rated adapter into a laptop would be extremely foolish.
Dave
You'd perhaps be surprised. Many modern 'desktop replacement' laptops with desktop CPUs, lots of RAM and powerful video chips/lots of video RAM use that sort of power. I've seen many laptops with Athlon 3000+ cpus etc with huge power requirements, and they commonly have battery lives of an hour or even less when running hard.
If the manufacturer supplied a 6 Amp adapter then it's blatantly obvious IMO that running a 3 Amp adapter is asking for trouble. It's not just the adapter that is at risk, the laptop could be destroyed if the adapter decides to freak out and go into an overvoltage state.
Dave
No. It would try to work after a fashion.
Good ones may do ! Would you risk it ?
Graham
Well speaking from experience- an overloaded switchmode laptop psu can pulse on-off-on-off or hunt as it fails to maintain a steady regulated output, and this can cause serious damage to the laptop. Yes, some power supplies may just shut down safely, but I wouldn't chance it with such an expensive load!
Regardless of all this, it simply isn't good practice to replace the correct power supply with a lower rated one. Manufacturers are rarely hugely generous with ratings of PSUs, certainly not by a factor of 100%, and if they supply a 6A one, it's a good bet there's a compelling reason not to use a much lower rated one.
Dave
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