I have a laptop, and my adapter doesn't work.
My laptop needs a 90W adapter. My friend has a 65W adapter of the same
brand. Is it okay to charge my battery with another type of charger
without turning the computer on?! Just to give it a charge..

Thanks!

<mc.preist******.com> wrote in message
news:1168085370.656544.49400@i15g2000cwa.googlegro ups.com
> I have a laptop, and my adapter doesn't work.
> My laptop needs a 90W adapter. My friend has a 65W adapter of the same
> brand. Is it okay to charge my battery with another type of charger
> without turning the computer on?! Just to give it a charge..

That usually would be okay. Unless you have one of those fast charging
laptops. Plus stating the make and model of your laptop would help. Also
the friends laptop as well.

WARNING: I assumed you know that the voltage and polarity of both
adapters have to be the same. You knew this right?

--
Bill

On Jan 6, 10:03 pm, "BillW50" <Bill...@aol.kom> wrote:

> WARNING: I assumed you know that the voltage and polarity of both
> adapters have to be the same. You knew this right?


Sure!

The Laptops:
AC 90W - Dell Inspiron 9400/E1405 (mine)
AC 65W - Dell Inspiron 6400

The outputs on the adapters are the same, except the Watts.

Note: My laptop has a 8-cell battery, with extra capacity (4-hours).
Anyway.. even the adapters look almost identically, the only difference
is the size.. But I don't want to hurt my battery.. Only if it's 100%
safe to do it.

<mc.preist******.com> wrote in message
news:1168096267.024371.200560@s80g2000cwa.googlegr oups.com
> On Jan 6, 10:03 pm, "BillW50" <Bill...@aol.kom> wrote:
>
>> WARNING: I assumed you know that the voltage and polarity of both
>> adapters have to be the same. You knew this right?
>
>
> Sure!
>
> The Laptops:
> AC 90W - Dell Inspiron 9400/E1405 (mine)
> AC 65W - Dell Inspiron 6400
>
> The outputs on the adapters are the same, except the Watts.
>
> Note: My laptop has a 8-cell battery, with extra capacity (4-hours).
> Anyway.. even the adapters look almost identically, the only
> difference is the size.. But I don't want to hurt my battery.. Only
> if it's 100% safe to do it.

Well it shouldn't hurt your laptop none. Your friend's adapter might be
in slight amount of trouble if your laptop wants more than 65 watts.
Although if that happens, it should be designed to just shutdown
automatically.

Once can get fancy by adding fuses and a watt meter and all. But it
would be okay to go ahead. And watch the charging lite and make sure it
indicates everything is ok. Also keep checking your friend's adapter in
case it gets hotter than normal. If everything is ok, your friend's
adapter and of course your laptop will be fine.

--
Bill

I'm not sure that a Dell adapter of lower wattage will be recognized by
the laptop. I had a similar situation and the battery would not charge
with the lower wattage power supply for some reason. The BIOS would not
allow the battery to charge, although it would run the laptop.
Go figure!
Ken

mc.preist******.com wrote:
> I have a laptop, and my adapter doesn't work.
> My laptop needs a 90W adapter. My friend has a 65W adapter of the same
> brand. Is it okay to charge my battery with another type of charger
> without turning the computer on?! Just to give it a charge..
>
> Thanks!

"ken10254" <kwolfdds******.com> wrote in message
news:1168133439.466171.218470@s34g2000cwa.googlegr oups.com
> I'm not sure that a Dell adapter of lower wattage will be recognized
> by the laptop. I had a similar situation and the battery would not
> charge with the lower wattage power supply for some reason. The BIOS
> would not allow the battery to charge, although it would run the
> laptop.
> Go figure!
> Ken

Well some laptops will do this if there isn't enough power to do both.
As by design they will kill off the battery charging. I think this came
about with outlets (lower power) on airlines.

--
Bill

BillW50 wrote:

> > AC 90W - Dell Inspiron 9400/E1405 (mine)
> > AC 65W - Dell Inspiron 6400
> >
>
> Well it shouldn't hurt your laptop none. Your friend's adapter might be
> in slight amount of trouble if your laptop wants more than 65 watts.

It won't hurt anything, it just won't work. Dell machines of reasonably
recent vintage can identify the attached AC adapter and will not charge
off an unidentified or underpowered adapter.

On 6 Jan 2007 17:30:39 -0800, "ken10254" <kwolfdds******.com> wrote:
>I'm not sure that a Dell adapter of lower wattage will be recognized by
>the laptop. I had a similar situation and the battery would not charge
>with the lower wattage power supply for some reason. The BIOS would not
>allow the battery to charge, although it would run the laptop.
>Go figure!
>Ken
>
>mc.preist******.com wrote:
>> I have a laptop, and my adapter doesn't work.
>> My laptop needs a 90W adapter. My friend has a 65W adapter of the same
>> brand. Is it okay to charge my battery with another type of charger
>> without turning the computer on?! Just to give it a charge..
>>
>> Thanks!

I had a couple of Dell laptops (year before last, I think) that were
similar to this (the newer one was an Inspiron 8200, I think) and the
only issue I had with using the lower wattage power supply with the
8200 was that the battery would actually discharge (slowly) if I ran
the laptop while trying to charge the battery. I also got a message
telling me that the laptop would be running at max-battery speed,
rather than A/C supported speed.

If I turned the laptop off, the battery would charge, however.

Good luck,
--Charles

On Jan 7, 1:05 pm, Charles Marslett <c-deletethis-marsl...******.com>
wrote:
> On 6 Jan 2007 17:30:39 -0800, "ken10254" <kwolf...******.com> wrote:
>
>
> If I turned the laptop off, the battery would charge, however.
>

I though it should be so.. When you don't turn the laptop on the BIOS
can not decide if your battery can be charged or not. I'll try to give
my laptop a charge, see how it works. I'm just concerned about hurting
my battery. I'm not a hardware engineer, so I'd rather be careful.

cheers,

That's exactly what happened in my case. Also, the cpu ran at half
speed as mentioned in another post. No charge of the battery even if
the laptop was off.
Ken

zwsdotcom******.com wrote:
> BillW50 wrote:
>
> > > AC 90W - Dell Inspiron 9400/E1405 (mine)
> > > AC 65W - Dell Inspiron 6400
> > >
> >
> > Well it shouldn't hurt your laptop none. Your friend's adapter might be
> > in slight amount of trouble if your laptop wants more than 65 watts.
>
> It won't hurt anything, it just won't work. Dell machines of reasonably
> recent vintage can identify the attached AC adapter and will not charge
> off an unidentified or underpowered adapter.