Alternate chargers for the M6400

I have an M6400 that came with the monster sized 210w power adapter and I'm trying to find a smaller adapter. Yesterday I tried using a Dell DA90 AC adapter, it is a smaller adapter that is used on the D820 and E1705 laptops. The output voltage is the same as the M6400 adapter, the connector plug is the same, but the max wattage is only 90watts.

As soon as I connected the DA90 the screen jumped to full brightness and the laptop poped up a message saying that this charger may not provide enough power to run the laptop and charge the battery at the same time, no surprise there. What did surprise me was that even when the M6400 is off, the DA90 will not charge the battery at all!

I also used a Kill-A-Watt meter to measure the power use of my M6400 and it uses about 50watts when not using the 3D chip (Quadro FX3700m). Has anyone had any luck using a charger other than the 210watt monster brick? I want to find something smaller and I don't mind a slow battery drain during extensive 3D graphics use.

 

I've read of people using the 130w power adapter from the M4400 successfully. It is about the same size or smaller than your 90w.

Greg

 

The 130W M4400 adapter works. But under full load even the 150W XPS adapter is not enough.

 

Thanks, I think I found it...
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=220311382357

Has anyone tried the Belkin slim 120w adapter? That one is even smaller...

 

I think your M6400 should run fine with the 130W adapter -->
no RGB-LED (consumes 10W more compared to the WXGA+ screen)
P-series CPU (consumes 10W less than T, or 20W less than X cpus)

 

On my M6400 (quad core, FX2700m) it will charge from the 90W one that shipped with my D820, but it only charges slowly. I bought a 150W psu from eBay and that works with no problems at all.
M

 

With the laptop off and your 90w adapter connected, is your blue charging light on? Mine is not. I left it connected for about 3 hours and my battery charge did not increase by a single dot. My D820 adapter is a PA-10 family model DA90PS. I'll probably buy one of the M4400 adapters on ebay, those are PA-13 family so maybe something is different about them.

 

Don't know - didn't try it with the laptop power off. I'll try it later on today and let you know.
M

 

I tried this today, and initially my M6400 wouldn't accept charge from the the 90W adaptor when powered off. However, when I switched the laptop on and logged in, it started to charge with the 90W - and it continued to charge once I shut the laptop down again.

I'm repeating myself here I know...but Dell really need to write a manual for this laptop!

 

David,
Could you elaborate on "not using the 3D chip (Quadro FX3700m)"?

50W is very low. I would like to know how I can get power consumption down to 50W when using the battery.

Is there a setting to turn off the 3D chip or does it power off automatically when not in use?

Thanks.