Is it okay if I plug my Razer Blade into a cheaper power supply instead of the one that came with it?
Is it okay if I plug my Razer Blade into a cheaper power supply instead of the one that came with it?
I ask because I am considering using a 65w usb-c charger with this laptop instead of the original Razer 100w charger when travelling and I want to know if that will limit what I can do on the laptop? In particular, will 4k video editing be hampered or even be impossible? My laptop is a Razer Blade Stealth 13 (Early 2020) - RZ09-0310 The original PSU is a USB-C Razer 100w RC30-0310, which outputs at 5v 3a, 9v 3a, 15v 3a, 20v 5a. Why does it output at 4 different voltages and which voltage is used for charging the battery? This is a 100w charger, most usb-c chargeers for small laptops are 65w so why is this Razer charger more powerful? Is the extra power (100w as opposed to 65w) to charge the battery faster or are there some resource intensive taks on the laptop, such as high frame rate gaming, or 4k video editing, that require the psu to be outputting at 100w? Would a generic usb-c charger that can only provide 65w maximum provide the laptop with suffcient power under all circumstances? It has been my experience over the years with using laptops that the most resource-intensive processing cannot be done on battery but requires the psu to be connected to the machine, though I have never seen anything posted on the net to corroborate this. I have looked on the internet to try to understand USB-C power delivery but stil haven't found anything to answer my questions. Your insight is appreciated.
When you look at a review of this laptop, it uses up to 70 watts for its power consumption. So, if you only have a 65 watt charger, it probably won't charge fully right now. But I think there might be something inside the laptop that lets it use that 65 watt charger, just not at full speed. In any case, here are three things that could happen: First, the laptop uses the charger but never charges the battery; second, the charger overheats because of safety issues and catches fire; third, the laptop works fine but the charger is cheaply made and gets too hot. To answer other questions though: USB-PD lets you send out several signals at once. The device needs to talk to the charger so they can decide what power makes sense for both sides. This laptop uses a 20 volt output, which you can see on the sticker near the bottom of the battery pack. Other settings might be required because it is expected that you will use this laptop to charge other USB-PD devices. Because the hardware inside is very powerful, laptops with just a 65 watt charger probably do not have a dedicated graphics card (GPU). This device also needs to be able to give power when using the laptop at its highest and charging the battery at the same time. It has to allow both tasks to happen without getting too hot or failing. No, I am pointing to the review link I shared; that specific laptop can actually use more than 65 watts. Batteries have a maximum safe discharge rate rated in terms of C, where one hour (1C) means the battery lasts for an hour at full power. While some internet figures tell me lithium-ion batteries might handle up to 10C safely, it depends on the type of chemistry and how they were built. But a common rule of thumb I see is usually just 1C. So if we assume that this battery has 51 watt-hours (which matches the 2020 Razer Blade 13 Stealth specs), then the battery can only provide about 51 watts, which is lower than the maximum power tested to consume it. Since the CPU is rated for 25 watts and the GPU for 35 watts, there isn't any room left for other things. They will have to drop their power levels or share a smaller power envelope.
Thanks for your long answer. Now I have what I need to understand better. I was surprised to hear that this laptop only uses up to 70 watts of power at most. Or did I misread it? I already own a 65-watt charger and have been using it with the laptop all along. It charges the battery and doesn't get too hot. Maybe it won't last if I don't put it through its true tests on this specific charger yet. I haven't edited 4k video in full resolution playback mode to see how it holds up under that load. Perhaps that is when the charger would actually start failing. The 65-watt charger is much smaller than the original Razer version, which is why people like traveling with it. But here is my real question: Could this thing break down if I am editing video and really pushing things? To find out exactly why the Razer charger had more power in the beginning even though a 65-watt one seemed to work fine for me, I just needed to know more about that specific scenario. I apologize if my first message was a little confusing on this point.
The laptop used 70 watts while playing a game, because both its processor and graphics card worked hard together. If you're making video edits or doing other heavy stuff, that mostly means the CPU is working all day long. You probably don't care if your charger feels hot, but if it gets too warm to hold comfortably, then you should try to put the laptop down at least once while charging.