AW notebooks and smaller power adapters

Greetings,
I have AW15 r2 w/ 965m and the 180W, 130W, 90W power adapters. I believe the 180W is designed for the 980m. When traveling I prefer to take a smallest power adapter as possible. Do you know which is the smaller power adapter that can charge the AW15 including when the AW15 is off?

When gaming with AW15 using the 130W, it says "plugged in but not charging" and the GPU often stuck at 30 fps even in TF2 or CSGO lowest settings, where GPU usage is only around 10%. Is there any way, we can make the system increase GPU power/usage without using the 180W? Is it worth getting a 150W Power adapter to try?

I have GA for GTX 1080, etc.

Thanks so much.

 

It's likely a case of the charger ID + how Dell laptops work with certain PSUs getting in the way. That said, the 240w PSU is for the GTX 980m, not the 180w. I do wonder if you get more performance on battery than you do with that 130w charger.
Given that none of the current Alienware laptops use a 150w charger, I don't think you'll see much success there. However, I do remember the 13 R1 playing nice with bigger chargers.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Dell-150-Watt-Adapter-Charger-Alienware/dp/B0030ER9R0

 

You are putting tremendous strain on the battery now while using lower wattage psu's.

The 15r2 uses around 200~210watt of power with the 980M. The 965m needs around a 160watt psu due to the larger battery that needs to be charged.

 

Thanks so much to all for the useful info. Has anyone tried the 150W. My guess is that 180W is only needed if both CPU and GPU are at 100% (maybe even for 6820HK, I have 6700HQ). Often my total CPU & GPU load is less than 70%. I don't mind using a smaller PSU if somehow I can get it to charge the battery even if notebook is off. I think it should be able to charge the battery if somehow the system (security?) will accept the lower current at a slow charge rate.

Thanks so much again.

 

But you remember that idiot on this forum that said 180w was okay with 980M? xD

 

Well it is until you fully stress it, I was fooled too by the way because other systems that did run on an 180watt PSu with a 980M. But the AW has a double sized battery that needs its juice as well.