> that's just when plugging in a USB 3 device into a USB 2 port
Dell XPS laptops (and some others) can also warn if the charger isn't providing the full wattage the laptop is rated for. This warning is an option that can be turned off in the BIOS settings.
I usually turn it off because I sometimes intentionally do day trips with a smaller/lighter portable charger which delivers 45w to my laptop which can need up to 65w due to having a discrete GPU. However, 45w is more than sufficient to charge the laptop during normal use on the Balanced power plan with iGPU. I only need more than 45w when gaming with the discrete GPU active.
My wife's work laptop gives this stupid warning anytime any USBC charger is plugged in, other than the Dell brick. So even a dock delivering 100w would get a complaint. The Dell brick offers non-standard charging at 140w, which can't get replaced by standards compliant, smaller chargers.
Just this morning, my old Latitude failed to boot with a “this charger is only giving 20W and that’s not enough to boot this laptop” error. (I was testing a new USB-C charger that’s obviously going back.)
Weirdest part was it was 100% charged, so could have booted with 0 Watts of charger but decided not to boot with 20 Watts more.
Oh, refusing to boot at all is evil. I've never seen that.
Sure, you or I would just unplug the charger and run on battery but bad UX decisions like that generate a support call to me from my 95 yr old mom. It should not only warn and continue to boot, it should use whatever power is on offer to reduce the rate of battery drain.
> that's just when plugging in a USB 3 device into a USB 2 port
Dell XPS laptops (and some others) can also warn if the charger isn't providing the full wattage the laptop is rated for. This warning is an option that can be turned off in the BIOS settings.
I usually turn it off because I sometimes intentionally do day trips with a smaller/lighter portable charger which delivers 45w to my laptop which can need up to 65w due to having a discrete GPU. However, 45w is more than sufficient to charge the laptop during normal use on the Balanced power plan with iGPU. I only need more than 45w when gaming with the discrete GPU active.
My wife's work laptop gives this stupid warning anytime any USBC charger is plugged in, other than the Dell brick. So even a dock delivering 100w would get a complaint. The Dell brick offers non-standard charging at 140w, which can't get replaced by standards compliant, smaller chargers.
Just this morning, my old Latitude failed to boot with a “this charger is only giving 20W and that’s not enough to boot this laptop” error. (I was testing a new USB-C charger that’s obviously going back.)
Weirdest part was it was 100% charged, so could have booted with 0 Watts of charger but decided not to boot with 20 Watts more.
Oh, refusing to boot at all is evil. I've never seen that.
Sure, you or I would just unplug the charger and run on battery but bad UX decisions like that generate a support call to me from my 95 yr old mom. It should not only warn and continue to boot, it should use whatever power is on offer to reduce the rate of battery drain.