@Dave_Rado Dell has kept the same 19.5 V output on their power adapters from at least the D Series Latitudes even through to today, so you won’t damage anything by mixing and matching power adapters. Using a higher wattage power adapter than needed won’t do any damage, and on some systems it can result in faster battery charging, although typically the extra capacity will just go unused. Using a LOWER wattage source won’t do any damage either, but you may well see performance throttling. The power consumption difference between an SSD and an HDD is pretty negligible within the overall draw of the system, so I wouldn’t expect that to make a difference. And if you have 90-130W power supplies handy, then I’d suggest just using them.
I’m surprised your E6540 came with a 130W adapter, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that’s the minimum recommended wattage for that system if you bought it used, which I presume you did at this stage. The correct wattage on some models is variable based on the specs of the hardware — configurations of the same system model that include a higher-end CPU and/or a discrete GPU can raise the power supply requirement. If you connect an undersized power supply, you should see a warning about that during boot, and that warning will identify the recommended minimum wattage. The only reason you might not see that warning would be if the warning was disabled. To rule that out, look in the BIOS for an option about “adapter warnings”, either an enable/disable checkbox or an option to reset them, which will turn them back on if they were disabled. At that point if your system boots without complaint with a given adapter connected, then that adapter will be usable for optimal performance with that system.
There's no warning when I boot the E6540 while it's plugged into a 65W power supply - but I can't work out how to check the BIOS. It's running Windows 10.
Following the advice here, I tried going to Settings>Update & Security>Recovery, then under the Advanced startup option I clicked Restart now; and on the blue screen I selected Troubleshoot, and then Advanced options - but there was no UEFI Firmware Settings option listed there.
I also tried booting in the normal way and pressing F10 repeatedly immediately after pressing the power button, but that didn't work either - it just loaded Windows.
Any ideas?
I have one 130W and one 90W power adapter and will use both, but there are three sockets in my house that I like to plug my computers into, so if there's no downside to using a 65W adapter with my E6540 then using one would save me from having to buy another 90W adapter as I already have a couple of 65W adapters. But if there's a significant performance hit to doing so then I'll buy a 90W one, which is why I'd like to find out for sure.
Here's a screen capture of what I see when I press F2 while booting up. I can't see anything about adapter warnings. Any idea how I can find it in this menu?
That was it, thanks. Adapter warnings were turned off. I turned them on and got a warning - so it looks like I'll need to either buy a 90W power supply or just live with reduced performance with one of the three adapters I use. Either way, it's good to know for sure.
"Post Behavior" is such an unintuitive heading for a power adapter warning that I never thought of expanding it. I expanded all the ones that looked as if they might be the right one but none of them were ...
@Dave_Rado Happy to help. I would have thought it would have been obvious to expand each of the categories in the BIOS to find the item I described earlier rather than just looking down the category headings and the items that were already expanded by default, but glad you got some extra help before I was able to check the forum again.
@Dave_Rado "POST" stands for "Power-On Self Test", and since the adapter warning if enabled and triggered appears at boot, as I mentioned originally, it is a possible behavior that occurs during POST. But then there's the reality that not all interfaces are designed intuitively, and for that matter not everyone's intuition will be the same -- which is why if what's intuitive fails, there's something to be said for exploring even the paths that don't seem intuitive. The BIOS Setup doesn't have THAT many items to go through, so I would've thought you might just go through them all in that case rather than giving up partway through, posting a reply to this thread, and waiting what for someone to point you directly to the that option, which I suspect took longer than it would have taken for you to just look yourself. But obviously my intuition on that was off.
jphughan
9 Legend
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14K Posts
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August 15th, 2020 14:00
@Dave_Rado Dell has kept the same 19.5 V output on their power adapters from at least the D Series Latitudes even through to today, so you won’t damage anything by mixing and matching power adapters. Using a higher wattage power adapter than needed won’t do any damage, and on some systems it can result in faster battery charging, although typically the extra capacity will just go unused. Using a LOWER wattage source won’t do any damage either, but you may well see performance throttling. The power consumption difference between an SSD and an HDD is pretty negligible within the overall draw of the system, so I wouldn’t expect that to make a difference. And if you have 90-130W power supplies handy, then I’d suggest just using them.
I’m surprised your E6540 came with a 130W adapter, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that’s the minimum recommended wattage for that system if you bought it used, which I presume you did at this stage. The correct wattage on some models is variable based on the specs of the hardware — configurations of the same system model that include a higher-end CPU and/or a discrete GPU can raise the power supply requirement. If you connect an undersized power supply, you should see a warning about that during boot, and that warning will identify the recommended minimum wattage. The only reason you might not see that warning would be if the warning was disabled. To rule that out, look in the BIOS for an option about “adapter warnings”, either an enable/disable checkbox or an option to reset them, which will turn them back on if they were disabled. At that point if your system boots without complaint with a given adapter connected, then that adapter will be usable for optimal performance with that system.
Dave_Rado
34 Posts
0
August 15th, 2020 15:00
Hi jphughan
Many thanks for the speedy reply.
There's no warning when I boot the E6540 while it's plugged into a 65W power supply - but I can't work out how to check the BIOS. It's running Windows 10.
Following the advice here, I tried going to Settings>Update & Security>Recovery, then under the Advanced startup option I clicked Restart now; and on the blue screen I selected Troubleshoot, and then Advanced options - but there was no UEFI Firmware Settings option listed there.
I also tried booting in the normal way and pressing F10 repeatedly immediately after pressing the power button, but that didn't work either - it just loaded Windows.
Any ideas?
I have one 130W and one 90W power adapter and will use both, but there are three sockets in my house that I like to plug my computers into, so if there's no downside to using a 65W adapter with my E6540 then using one would save me from having to buy another 90W adapter as I already have a couple of 65W adapters. But if there's a significant performance hit to doing so then I'll buy a 90W one, which is why I'd like to find out for sure.
Many thanks again.
Dave
jphughan
9 Legend
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14K Posts
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August 15th, 2020 15:00
@Dave_Rado Happy to help. To get into the BIOS on Dell laptops and desktops, you press F2 during startup, not F10.
Dave_Rado
34 Posts
0
August 16th, 2020 09:00
Hi again jphughan
Here's a screen capture of what I see when I press F2 while booting up. I can't see anything about adapter warnings. Any idea how I can find it in this menu?
Dave
U2CAMEB4ME
4 Operator
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6.2K Posts
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August 16th, 2020 11:00
Welcome to the Dell Community @Dave_Rado
Look under "Post Behavior"
Best regards,
U2
Dave_Rado
34 Posts
0
August 16th, 2020 11:00
Hi U2CAMEB4ME
That was it, thanks. Adapter warnings were turned off. I turned them on and got a warning - so it looks like I'll need to either buy a 90W power supply or just live with reduced performance with one of the three adapters I use. Either way, it's good to know for sure.
Many thanks again and to jphughan as well.
Dave
Dave_Rado
34 Posts
0
August 16th, 2020 12:00
"Post Behavior" is such an unintuitive heading for a power adapter warning that I never thought of expanding it. I expanded all the ones that looked as if they might be the right one but none of them were ...
jphughan
9 Legend
•
14K Posts
0
August 16th, 2020 12:00
@Dave_Rado Happy to help. I would have thought it would have been obvious to expand each of the categories in the BIOS to find the item I described earlier rather than just looking down the category headings and the items that were already expanded by default, but glad you got some extra help before I was able to check the forum again.
jphughan
9 Legend
•
14K Posts
0
August 16th, 2020 18:00
@Dave_Rado "POST" stands for "Power-On Self Test", and since the adapter warning if enabled and triggered appears at boot, as I mentioned originally, it is a possible behavior that occurs during POST. But then there's the reality that not all interfaces are designed intuitively, and for that matter not everyone's intuition will be the same -- which is why if what's intuitive fails, there's something to be said for exploring even the paths that don't seem intuitive. The BIOS Setup doesn't have THAT many items to go through, so I would've thought you might just go through them all in that case rather than giving up partway through, posting a reply to this thread, and waiting what for someone to point you directly to the that option, which I suspect took longer than it would have taken for you to just look yourself. But obviously my intuition on that was off.