A note about Dell laptops and third party USB-C chargers.

I purchased a HyperJuice 100W GaN power adapter thinking it would be a great addition to my travel kit. It's small and can provide up to 100W. It has 2 USB-C ports and 2 A ports. I was hoping to be able to charge my phones and Vostro 7590 while away with it however I ran into a snag.

The Vostro 7590 and my XPS 7390 will only pull a max of 60W from the charger. That's fine for the 7390 but not enough for the 7590. I thought maybe my USB-C cables just were not up to snuff for it so I purchased others and ensured they were USB-IF certified but still stuck at 60W.

Turns out around April of 2019 Dell started implementing power delivery firmware that will only let you go over 60W with Dell branded USB-C adapters. What a bummer. I've tried every firmware for the Vostro but alas it's stuck at 60W. Via research, this has been confirmed on the XPS 9570 and 7590. This likely affects multiple others.

It's good enough for light office stuff, but the second their is any load my battery starts draining. It will still be my go-to charger for travel when I don't expect to push the system.

Just a warning if you're thinking about packing only one power brick and traveling light.

 

So apparently max USB C amps are 5A to get this you need a cable that not only supports this much amp is also need a chip that also allows this 5A, 100watts 3A 60 Watts.

The cable you would need would be I think USB 3.1 Gen 2 or Thunderbolt
This is explained in this article
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-m...-wire-gauge-of-the-cable-were-to-be-increased

I have no idea how Dell is doing this other than using the USB C port with TB technology

here is a more technical explanation on USB C
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB-C

 

Yeah I know about that 5A cable situation. I have 4 different USB-IF 5A certified cables with e-chips (two pairs of some) and none of them work. It's unfortunate that I've spent an additional $60 in cables when the first one didn't work only to find out it's a limitation with Dell. Here is the post that led me to doing more research on it:
https://www.dell.com/community/XPS/9570-won-t-charge-via-TB3/td-p/7312276

Here is the site I used to verify cable compatibility with 5A:
https://www.usb.org/products

 

Yes, I'm betting that they had a lot of issues with that many amps going through there MB is why that put the restriction on the port? While Dell seems to want to produce notebooks with the latest technologies they don't seem to have engineering to implement these same technologies. Their support is in the dumps again too. The company seems to be going downhill quickly, I'm hoping they see this and get a hold of the situation again. I haven't had many issues with my 13 7386, the one issue I did have with a simple solution took me a week and several tech support persons. and I have 3 years of Pro next day warranty
About traveling light this why i bought the 13 7386, then bought the Dell WD 15 for use at home, of course, I don't have your issues since my AC Adapter is only 65w and the Dell WD 15 has a 130W adapter I haven't checked but I'll bet it only charging at 60W to the computer which is more that sufficient for this one.

 

It doesn't have any issues with my Dell 130W USB-C adapter so it can handle it, I'm not sure why they decided to block third party USB-C adapters. They did this on barrel adapters in the past as well though. It's unfortunate for sure.

I forgot to mention I verified everything with a USB-C amp meter.

 

Just an update to this, looks like this Vostro 7590 won't charge with my Google Chrome 65W adapter that I used in the past for my prior XPS systems. Not sure how Dell disabled it but it's a no go. I may be selling this laptop sooner rather than later I guess.

 

Probably their old trick again; id ping via the centre pin:

• How to solve the problem "Dell AC power adapter type cannot be determined"
• Hacking the Dell laptop power adapter

They might've claimed 'warranty purposes' once, but Dell has never released bios updates for legacy products (past warranty) that included a ' skip-id check and bloody well let me use own adapter, tyvm' option, so that only leaves 'profit'.

If the 65W has a centre pin as well then you could solder the id chip inside the adapter. I've still got a few write-once blanks from a similar Dell adapter project ( Maxim 1-Wire DS2502), so could write one with the proper code/wattage, if you like.

If it uses a regular voltage-ground type then get a matching diy laptop-end cable and solder that along with the chip (adapter has to be opened anyway to get the chip in place).

Btw, I'm very curious about their new USB-C 'screw-the-customer' solution. They might've used the very same 1-wire chip or perhaps a simple regular eeprom. Should be able to get one from work, but don't think they'll like it if I take one apart. So if anyone cares to let me borrow one for the cause then send a pm. It'll work fine afterwards, but it probably definitely won't look spic-and-span anymore .

 

I'm wondering if they are building it into the E-chip that is already in place on USB-C cables? The Google adapter still works on my wife's dell, but it's a couple years old. The Dell 65W adapter works just fine on the 7590...

 

This is what I suspect is happening.

For another data point, my XPS 9575 will charge at 65w with any of my three 95W+ non-Dell USB-C chargers but my precision 7540 will only charge with the Dell 130W USB-C and not the others. The Precision also doesn't charge with anything less than a 95w Dell barrel charger.

 

Phew, I'm glad they never blocked my two systems. The best accessory I own is my tiny travel charger.

 

Yeah thankfully it still works with my wife's 7373, that may be our travel laptop now. It does make me hesitant to buy a new Dell though.

 

Lots of other choices. I picked up my travel charger on amazon. It's the size of the charger that came with my 2007 macbook. no big bricks, or two sets of cords. It' works great. The best part is my wife's 11 3000 2 in 1 uses the same charger as my 13 5000 2 in 1 so both are able to be charged while on the move easily.

 

Opening this back up for updates for other dell laptops

 

I have found the Dell XPS chargers to be excellent quality IME.

I would assume the big Dell chargers meet safety & performance standards from several countries and that would be printed on the supply. They may use premium components which presumably deliver smoother power to the laptop and better protection from voltage spikes. Bigger caps to smooth power might be one reason for the bulky size. High quality chargers may extend battery life as a bonus. And may use less electricity as they are generally better engineered and built.

Power supplies matter a lot for mobile phones too as the batteries are so expensive to replace these days. YouTube has plenty of power supply teardown videos and the unbranded stuff is generally garbage. Surprisingly, some of the Amazon stuff was disappointing too.

Leading computer makers and retailers face risk of fire and loss, so have an incentive to issue good power supplies that meet all local standards. Nameless manufacturers and internet retailers don't always play by the rules; the consumer may save money but bears the additional risk with little to any recourse.

 

While I don't currently have a Dell I did investigate USB-C charging for a non-C laptop.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/usb-c-pd-power-non-pd-laptop-yes.834778/

I sifted through a couple of different chargers from multiport and single port that can hit 100W. I landed on the Nektech setup.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B089FC1TRF/ $36 single port C / 100W

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07X4GQ1SS/ $16 2-pack C cables

The thing about some lower end chargers is they split the Watts being delivered sometimes in odd ways. A 2-port charger might go 45/15 or 30/30 . A multiport 4 port might do something different. When trying to juice up your laptop though it needs to be more consistent than a phone or some other device to work consistently. For instance when you're powered off charging is more of a trickle in my case it's ~15W but, when powered on the system can take on 15W + 45W (running need) but, when I use the GTX1650 it jumps to a total draw of 120W which exceeds current P spec of 100W. When I exceed 100W draw it will cause the charging mechanism to flap between charging and not.

So, it kind of depends on which laptop and which mode you're using to figure out the optimum charge being applied to the system. Rumor is though a new standard is coming that goes up to 240W which would cover any scenario on my current laptop but, still wouldn't be enough for newer ones with RTX GPU's that push beyond the total system draw of PD. There may be a stepdown that allows for lower power consumption on RTX allowing a 240W PD charger to provide full power to the system.