Power cord for Europe

vladwiel wrote:
- P.S. Why, oh why did Dell engineers decide to make
- my life miserable with this grounded plug that no
- other laptops have?
-
-
Not true - Compaq use the same.

You may well find that you can pick up an adaptor for the US plug at your arrival airport. I rather doubt the European power will be too much for your US power cord. If you try it (not plugged into the laptop) and the cord gets even slightly warm then forget it.

What makes you think that your cord is only rated for 110? If it shipped with an A/C adaptor that's rated 110/220, then the cord itself is also rated for 110/220. I think you're sweating about a nonexistent problem.

-A

Well, it says so on the cord: 2.5 A, 125V~
I also found it mentioned somewhere in the Dell Knowledge Base and in the DellTalk. Interestingly, I also found a post from an engineer who was very skeptical of this recommendation, in effect saying that a cord rated for 125V should have no problem conducting 225V. There are no definite answers and it's kind of frustrating. perhaps, as Dell people pointed out somewhere, too few of Dell owners travel abroad to make it an issue worth noticing...
Anyway, having been unable to find a cord that would fit my 3-pronged adapter, I am left with no other option, but to plug it directly into a 225V outlet, via a combination of grounded-to-standard and US-to-European plug adapters. If this fries my laptop's power adapter, I will definitely post a warning here. :-(
akahan wrote:
- What makes you think that your cord is only rated
- for 110? If it shipped with an A/C adaptor that's
- rated 110/220, then the cord itself is also rated
- for 110/220. I think you're sweating about a
- nonexistent problem.
-
--A
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-
-
-

If it's any comfort, I travel abroad all the time with my Dell, using a cord which, like yours, is marked "2.5A 125V," including numerous 220V jurisdictions, and I've never had a problem. This is probably because the cords are rated for current flow, which is amps times volts (or watts). When you double the amount of volts going through, you half the number of amps, and get the same number of watts. The Dell machines draw at most 70 watts continuously (some models less) regardless of whether you're plugging them into 220V or 110V.

If you DID have a problem, though, it wouldn't be that your AC adaptor would get fried, it would be that your cord would get too hot and perhaps start a fire. If you're concerned about this, you might want to touch the cord from time to time and see if it seems to be getting overly warm. My (strong) bet is that it won't.


-A

Thank you, Akahan! That's very encouraging. :-)