Using WD15 without charging

Question

I have recently discovered that charging my XPS 9570 using usb-c from the WD15 dock causes the laptop to get seriously hot right next to the charging port (left side of the keyboard). Sometimes, the laptop will get so hot that it puts itself to sleep. I have another dell usb-c charger that isn't a dock, and I seem to get the same results from that. Is there any way I can use the WD15 purely for i/o data/ethernet transmission (without charging the laptop) and charge via AC cable instead?

Thank you.

jphughan · Accepted Answer

@joekxne  No.  There's no way to disable the charging capability of the WD15, and to my knowledge no way to disable charging on the system side either.  You could try setting a minimum charge level for your battery so that your battery will be allowed to self-discharge down to a predefined level rather than the power source keeping it topped up all the time.  That will actually improve the longevity of your battery significantly, but it does mean that if you had a 50% minimum charge for example and you ever had to disconnect from a power source unexpectedly, you might only have a 50% charge even if your system had been connected to a power source for several hours beforehand.  And that setting would apply to all power sources, not just the WD15.

joekxne · Answer

Ah okay, I might have to just invest in a non charging dock. Thank you for the reply.

jphughan · Answer

@joekxne  You may find those rather difficult to find, but even if you do, I don't really understand what that achieves if you're saying that a USB-C power adapter causes the same behavior.  Are you planning to run the system on the battery while docked and then charge it only as needed?  That's going to impose a lot of additional wear on your battery, thus reducing its longevity.

joekxne · Answer

@jphughan No, I am trying to charge my laptop via AC instead of usb-c while still having access to my devices that are plugged into the usb c dock: .i.e my monitor, ethernet, keyboard/mouse etc. Can the dell dock still work with those devices while it is plugged in along with the AC power supply? Apologies for the double reply, spelt your user wrong!

jphughan · Answer

@joekxne Your system can work with a WD15 and all attached devices even if it is drawing its power from an AC power adapter instead of the WD15, in fact there are some systems where this is Dell’s explicitly recommended setup because the systems require more power than the 130W max that the WD15 can pass through (like the Precision 7520, for example). But the WD15 still has to remain connected to a power source itself. The WD15 won’t run from power provided by the system.

I still don’t really understand what you’re trying to achieve. An AC adapter actually provides power in DC form because of the AC/DC converter “brick”, and the AC adapter for the XPS 15 9570 is 130W. So regardless of whether you power your system from its normal AC adapter or the USB-C power that the WD15 is plugged into, you're going to be sending 130W DC to the system, in which case I wouldn’t expect to see any temperature differences between those two power delivery methods.

mibtwo4 · Answer

And also I would suggest switching to another dock station - like the Dell D6000; it has both a type-c and usb connection; switching to the latter - makes the dock and all connected devices work without charging the laptop.

And yes @joekxne : otherwise just as @jphughan has explained clearly - no way out of this.

Seeing that that is a 2 year thread - you're well and good with it now.

XPS

Using WD15 without charging

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