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[Micro102]

I keep having to change these things ever couple of months. They just stop working for no reason.

It there a company that DOESN'T make these cheap things?

[Gunner-Chan]

Well... Mine was a held together mess of wires that looked like something an Ork would of hacked up. The laptop gave out first.

[Puck]

That's weird. I have an old thinkpad 390X ... the battery has long passed on, the power adapter has taken heavy abuse.. but isnt complaining, at all. Maybe you should get one of those 

would of hacked up.

would HAVE. seriously.

[Tack]

I would mention dell here... but seriously, I hate dell, so don't take my opinion as valid.

[Muz]

Heh, from the perspective of an electrical engineer... the power adaptor is one of the funniest things with laptops. You have a mass of uber-high-tech equipment in a laptop. The battery is by far the most primitive part of the laptop. It fails so easily; keep it fully charged and it drains quickly, keep it uncharged and it dies easily.

The charger has the unfortunate task of having to deal with the schizophrenic battery and has to continually discharge and recharge it to keep it in shape. A lot of manufacturers don't really give a damn about the specs of the battery and just keep charging it when it's full. There's nothing really wrong with this; it's just that it's not good for the battery's health. And it's sort of hard to design something to handle power so precisely, which is why some chargers fail.

tl;dr: get the same charger as your laptop model. It's worth it.

[Micro102]

that one not only gave out, but the plastic melted and sparks flew.....

[Tack]

No offense.

Apologies, full offense intended, but which shitbox company are you with!?

[Strife26]

Aisle 12, right next to DF V 1.0.

 


I've never had much luck with laptop batteries, I just keep my laptop plugged in.

[Micro102]

I use an HP laptop.

[Tack]

and I will now never use a HP laptop. ... I've an asus.

[olemars]

I have a HP laptop and the power charger for it is still working like a charm (about 3.5 years old). Have had to replace the motherboard twice though 

[Puck]

First of all... Is a power adapter for a laptop actually a REAL charger? I always thought the circuit that takes care of the charging currents is inside the laptop, the power adapter is just providing the juice, I thought. (therefor it shouldnt be too hard to replace it with something sturdier, something that probably wasnt even made for laptops)

And: my old thinkpad power adapter still beats y'all. When was that thing built? Early nineties? And still going strong, even with the battery being dead. For years now.

[Mephisto]

I always thought the circuit that takes care of the charging currents is inside the laptop, the power adapter is just providing the juice, I thought.

If that were the case, all they would need is straight wire, correct? Every cord I've seen has the brick attached somewhere in the middle.

[Muz]

The brick is a transformer, I think, which powers down from 240V to whatever you need to use. There might be some circuitry inside too, but it's common sense to never open up any electrical equipment used as a power supply, so I never checked.

Lol, don't buy cheap chargers. Something not made to specs can and do blow up. If they really were the official model, ask for the warranty. If they won't give it to you, talk to the media. Media loves stories about sizzling brand name equipment

[Puck]

I always thought the circuit that takes care of the charging currents is inside the laptop, the power adapter is just providing the juice, I thought.

If that were the case, all they would need is straight wire, correct? Every cord I've seen has the brick attached somewhere in the middle.

I'm no sparksmith, so I lack the proper vocabulary.

There's a difference between something that provides constant juice and soemthing that charges.

Just like the power above me said, I thought the brick is a transformer. And since those devices are more or less usable for different laptops, which all come with different batteries, I thought the laptops themselves are equipped with the circuits that take care of the charging, ie, decide the mA output and the duration. Maybe I'm wrong, but from seeing opened cellphone and laptop batteries I assume most of the charging circuits actually come with the batteries themselves.

The brick just tries to provide whatever volt at whatever maximum ampere amount as reliable as possible.

At least that'd make the most sense to me.

BTW, somebody above said it's THAT hard to design proper chargers. IIRC, once you get a reliable power source, it isnt, at all. At least not, when you know what kind of battery you're charging. And with that I dont mean current and capacity but what materials the batteries are made of. Maybe it's hard to get a charger to be usable for all kinds of different batteries or make it detect what kind it is charging (if that's even possible).

But regulation of a charging cycle... IIRC thats pretty basic stuff. You can even charge batteries (isnt there an english word to discern rechargable batteries from "normal" ones? dont you say "accumulator" or something?) yourself with a proper power source, a watch, and some pretty basic maths