Warning Latitude D-series PSU with E-series laptops

My old laptop is a Latitude D800, I have various power adapters for it (two PA-10 90W, a PA-12 65W, a slim PA-12 auto-air 65W) and now I also have the E6500, which came with the slim PA-3E 90W.

I have the E6500 set in the BIOS to give adapter warnings, and also have it set for express charge. I have happily used the E6500 with the old 65W adapters (which do give the low power warning) and the new 90W adapter.

Today I visited a customer where I permanently leave one of the PA-10 90W adapters (saves a couple of minutes unwinding/plugging/unplugging/winding per visit!) and used it with the E6500, after about half an hour the PSU gave a very loud bang, and blew the 5A (240v) mains fuse

When I unplugged it and felt the PSU, it was very hot, and obviously smelt of "magic smoke", thankfully the E6500 wasn't harmed by this and I switched to using the new PA-3E adapter which ran very cool for the rest of the day.

It is entirely possible the old PA-10 PSU was about to fail anyway, but I have used it several days every week for the past six months or so with the D800, without problems, so just a warning to people mixing D series PSUs with E series laptops, hopefully mine is a one-off and nobody else will report anything similar.

 

Looking at the figures of PA-10 and PA-3E they are identical so I hope your case is an one-off issue. I am also using PA-10/PA-12 for my E6500. So far it's OK but PA-12 does go quite hot.

 

I believe the energy consumption of the E-series is even less than the D-series, so its likely that the power supply was defective.

 

My new E6400 (delivered 5 weeks ago) was supplied with a PA-10 90W PSU "with cord wrapping" in the description, so Dell must think they are 100% compatible. I would have much preferred to receive the new E series 90W PSU which is thinner and lighter.

I think that PA-10 PSU which blew up is concidental and nothing relating to the E series.

John

 

John, have you tried calling support to see if you could get the new adapter?

 

Not yet. I did email my "Account Manager" but he appears to have died since he is totally unresponsive. It's on my to-do list to try and get one of the new adaptors.

John