GT60: Want a slim & light power brick for travel

The stock power brick that shipped with my GT60 is huge. This is understandable given that it supplies 180W, but I'd like to pick up a supplemental 19V adapter that's a little more travel friendly.

I'm fine with something that only allows the GT60 to "tread water" while in use, or takes an entire night to recharge the battery ... just so long as the adapter itself can govern itself accordingly and doesn't heat up to a million degrees while in use.

Recommendations?

 

Just put in mind that you won't get full performance with a lesser power brick.

 

I'm also interested in this.
It would be useful when you taking notes and browsing in campus or cofee shop..

Its fine, I'm only need full performance for gaming at home.

 

Coolermaster do a 120W slim brick but use it at your own risk.

 

That's my whole question really: define "risk"

Risk that the power brick will live only a short, miserable life? Risk to the laptop? Risk of setting a conference room on fire? Risk that I won't be able to play the latest FPS for five hours in a row?

 

Lets put it this way: if you over-draw power from your meager power brick, it will overheat. After overheating, comes melting. Then comes Fire. And after that - it all depends on your firefighting skills.

In some situations, it might be worthwhile. But you need to be sure of the exact voltage and amperage of your travel power brick.

In short - dont do it. Its dangerous. All kinds of stuff might go wrong.
You may experience a slight hang in the system and then - explode (kidding).
Actually Im not kidding. Or am I?

 

I read stories from people saying if they weren't there when the adapter smoked up it could have made a bad fire

 

Haha well put there!

Also i do have to agree, it just doesn't seem like a smart idea for a high power laptop like an MSI GT60. It seems too risky to your components and to damaging them.

 

Actually, I see no issue with this.

I have several laptops around the household and the chargers of different wattage cycle around them. Its just that you'll not get full performance and it will charge slower than usual; just keep the battery inside.

 

I would like to think that in 2012, we live in a world where:

• Any power brick has the rudimentary safety circuitry required to limit its own output (regardless how much draw the destination device could potentially take) so that it maintains a safe operating temperature - for as many hours or days as needed
• Any laptop has the basic ability to detect "insufficient" incoming amperage, and either run with reduced performance or supplement the operating wattage with juice from the battery as needed

It's pretty disappointing that we would even need to have a conversation about potential damage to either device.

 

I really doubt you can use a lower volt power adapter like 150W or 120W. I do not think you will have enough power to boot up the unit.

I would recommend you to buy a laptop rolling case to carry the notebook, if you think it is too heavy.

 

I would never attempt to use an adapter of lower voltage, but I as for lower wattage I don't see why the unit shouldn't boot while connected to a 120W brick, when it boots just fine connected to no brick at all.

Maybe I'll call MSI support and ask if there's any risk in attempting this ... but I strongly suspect they will just give me an "officially supported" answer that doesn't provide any really useful info.

 

A lot of it depends if the laptop has built in software/hardware to deal with a lower wattage. However in my experience even without this, you should not have to worry.

HP has a popup called Smart Adapter that recognizes and throttles performance based upon the supplied wattage of the PSU. Maybe MSI has a similar software setup, or you could use one from another manufacturer.

I used to have a 140W Asus G50vt, and run that thing off of a 90W $29.99 ICAN universal adapter for over a year with no issues. The ASUS did not even have any kind of smart throttle technology. The only issues that I encountered was that trying to play games / OC that demanded more than 90 watts resulted in the battery being drained very very slowly (I think this system was one of those ones that didn't throttle on battery)

Now, with my HP DV6Z, which uses a 120W PSU, the system automatically throttles to use a maximum of 90 watts. Performance is diminished but still there (Had to UC CPU to prevent GPU throttle, but could still play battlefield 3). It all becomes about watt management at this point.

If you can find a cheap enough PSU I would say go for it... I always use the small 90W for school and keep the 120W for home use. The 90W actually ran cooler than the 120W brick.

 

Related question: Is the MSI barrel connector on these laptops physically/electrically identical to those used by any other manufacturers?

I'm having trouble finding "MSI" in the dropdown list for a lot of universal power bricks.

 

EDIT: NVM I found out the output voltage is 19V. I have a ton of universal ends on my power supply... I can figure out which one would fit the GT60 and then look on the adapter package to see which manufacturer it was made for. 19V narrows it down to 6 possibilities lol.

Can you please upload a picture of the original connector?

 

An interesting update to this thread:

I was at a local retail shop a few days ago and they had a GT60 out on display. I asked one of the sales staff about using a slimline universal adapter and he was dubious, but said "well let's open up the packaging on this here Targus 90W universal adapter and see if it works."

Long story short, the GT60 wouldn't even power on when plugged in to a 90W external supply.

I am seriously disappointed. Why can't MSI write their firmware so that it detects a "weak" incoming power source and just augment with battery power as necessary? Or allow a "weak" adapter to trickle the battery overnight?

 

Some good news to share:

I talked to MSI support, and was told that while they don't recommend a 90W supply, a 120W adapter should work with a few caveats.

• Light-duty use such as working in MS Office or browsing the web should work no problems
• GPU/CPU intensive games, etc. that start hitting the nVidia card will cause the laptop to detect insufficient wattage and switch to battery, then a few seconds later switch back to AC power, then back to battery, etc. etc. I was warned this will dramatically shorten the battery life.
• The way to tell if the laptop is bouncing against the limits of the power supply is to watch the power indicator in the bottom right corner (Windows). If the icon keeps changing back and forth, look out.

I went out and bought a small "iCan" brand 120W universal adapter and the "number 05" plug fits our MSI laptops. I can confirm that this brick (which is about 1/3 the size and weight of the OEM-supplied brick) seems to work fine for light-duty office type use.

I will report back again in a few weeks with my experiences after long-term use.

 

Why would you get a universal power brick? Just search for chargers for the MSI gx640 which ships with an original MSI 120 watt adapter WITH current protection. Simply shuts off when my graphics card is stressed. Or, get a 90 watt by searching for a charger for the MSI gx620.

The plug that MSI laptops use is also used by Clevo laptops and many Toshiba laptops.

A lower or high voltage, for example 18v or 21v will work just fine. The laptops internal circuitry is actually built to deal with all of these voltages. On the inside, all AC adapters are pretty much the same, except for rarer & older 15v and 12v chargers which WILL destroy the laptop.

I'd like to see the universal adapter you bought - 1/3 the size seems like an exaggeration.

 

Why the universal brick? That's easy: they sell universal adapters in the store I was walking around in today, and they don't happen to sell OEM MSI gx640 adapters.

As for size, the OEM brick is 6.5" x 3.3" x 1.75" = 38 cubic inches, while this universal brick is 5.5" x 2.7" x 0.75" = 11 cubic inches. So it's less than a third actually. Although the weight is closer to 1/2 not 1/3.

 

A good news update: The 120W universal adapter has been working without issue for several weeks now. The GT60 runs fine off 120W AC power and the battery recharge time seems to be just about as quick as when using the OEM 180W adapter.

 

Nice. Well that makes sense.

If your open to soldering your adapter, these are a great deal and they are 150 watt: Delta PA for Dell 150W Power Adapter Precision M90 Inspiron 5150 Alienware M15x | eBay
Dimensions are 6" x 3" x 1" so the universal adapter is about 2/3 the size of this one and its a little less than half the size of the OEM 180 watt.

BTW, you said 'The gt60 runs fine off of 120W AC power...' that would be quite a bit of current at 120 volts!!

 

Anyone know if there is a compatible 180w right angle power brick?

I tried an adapter before, but it ended up damaging the power jack on my 16f2 because the adapter head was so long, a little downward pressure on the end would slowly cause damage over time.
I believe I used this one, or a similar one.
Amazon.com: BiXPower LC53 Right Angle Connector Converter for 5.5 x 2.5mm DC Power Connector: Computers & Accessories

 

Yeah, FSP180-ABAN1, was my stock adaptor for my clevo.

 

Well it took several months, but a problem has emerged with the universal power adapter I've been using. Back when I started using it, I didn't notice any slack or wiggle in the connection, but just today I found the connection was flaky and I had to mess with the alignment of the plug in order to make contact. At first I thought the jack itself on the motherboard had gone defective, and visions on a lengthy RMA started dancing in my head. Once I got home and plugged in to the OEM power brick, there was no slack and the connection was totally fine.

So at the end of the day, a universal power brick using the "05" plug type is not okay even if it seems that way at first. None of the other 12 plug styles that came with the universal kit work either. I guess now I need to decide whether to keep using the "05" plug for travel use - even occasionally - and risk damaging the jack on the motherboard. I just really don't want to lug that huge OEM brick around.

 

I would seriously consider putting a proper 5.5mmx2.5mm lead onto a slim alienware brick.

 

The tip I'm using is 5.5 x 2.5, but it has an indented rib at a slightly different location along the barrel as compared to the stock MSI plug, and I guess that indentation makes all the difference when it comes to solid, consistent electrical contact.

Question: what other MSI models use the exact same power adapter and plug style as the GT60? Maybe a used brick from an old machine can help me out.

 

None with that tip will have a higher rating due to the ratings of the tip, any brand tends to switch beyond 180W.