On Airplane/Alternative Power Supplies for the M17x

So I'm assuming a few things:

1) That the non-empower plugs should be fine for the m17x power brick.
2) That there is no empower capable brick from Dell/AW.
3) That the empower capable 120 watt igo power brick will not deliver enough power to the m17x for it to properly charge or function.
4) That a dell psu from a 17r, m11x and the like will not properly charge/power the laptop.

I fly a fair amount a year and I can see me taking this on a long flight (15 hours to dubai, anyone?) and having a wicked good time.

I have not yet received my m17x and I'd rather not screwup the power regulating circuitry, but I figure someone must have plugged in a xps or m11x power supply to see what happens...

Thanks.

 

i assume it would just maybe tack on an extra hour or less to the battery life since the smaller adapters wouldnt be able to keep up with how much power the r3 is drawing..


you could just pick up three extra batteries lol.. with that 600gb ssd you've got coming in, you could power down, swap batteries, and boot back up in under sixty seconds

 

it was my experience that the on-plane jacks will not run the r3 but will charge it if it is turned off....so i played....slept/charged...played again....

 

I agree with you lol , i have 3 extra batteries but they don't really last. You will get really frustrated watching those battery's unstable count down timing.

I'd prefer get iphone , psp gba & nds they last longer lol.

PS : iphone's wow mmorpg clone is coming soon.

 

I posed a question along these lines over a month ago but I never got any replies. I have experimented with this myself since then on a couple international flights and I'll try to answer you questions as best I can. In response to your questions:

1) That the non-empower plugs should be fine for the m17x power brick.

Unfortunately no. The AC jacks on airplanes are still the same wattage as empower jacks. Like the empower jacks the AC style jacks have built in breakers that will trip if you draw more than they can handle. My m17x power brick is the 240w and if I even plug it into the jack it immediately turns itself off.

2) That there is no empower capable brick from Dell/AW.

Correct to my knowledge, nor are any of the Alienware laptops listed in the compatibility list for any generic empower adapters technically.

3) That the empower capable 120 watt igo power brick will not deliver enough power to the m17x for it to properly charge or function.

Yes and no... More below.

4) That a dell psu from a 17r, m11x and the like will not properly charge/power the laptop.

Haven't tried but probably not.

I fly a fair amount a year and I can see me taking this on a long flight (15 hours to dubai, anyone?) and having a wicked good time.

I have not yet received my m17x and I'd rather not screwup the power regulating circuitry, but I figure someone must have plugged in a xps or m11x power supply to see what happens...

Thanks.[/QUOTE]

So I've played around with this on an m17x r1 and r2. In both cases when using an iGo adapter it shows up as an unsupported adapter but it can work to some degree.

If you aggressively set the the power saving settings (disable crossfire, throttle cpu, turn down screen brightness, enable stealth mode, etc) you can probably get the laptop to work on an empower/airline ac power jack without tripping either the jack's breaker or the iGo's (yes, some models of iGo have an internal breaker that will trip if you draw too much power).

Drivers will also matter when you try this. I have a similar config to a buddy of mine who was on the same flight with his own R2 (only difference is I have a 920xm and he has a fast i5 dual core chip). I had trouble playing games without tripping the breaker even with very aggressive power saving settings while he had greater success. I would get some strange behavior like the laptop would max the brightness and not let me control it when I'm running with the iGo (works fine on battery or supported AC) which unfortunately increased my power draw considerably. I would sometimes have to unplug the adapter to reset the jack when my laptop would spike in power consumption like when starting a new game. I also had trouble with high def video playback in VLC player even though it worked on my Dell Latitude just fine.

I realize this isn't the clear concise "yes or no" you were probably looking for but hopefully this will help you out a bit.

-Byshop

 

Yeah, the m17x tears through battery even under the best of circumstances. I also carry an iPhone, iPad, PSP, DSi xl, 3DS and a book when I travel just in case I get bored.

-Byshop

 

Byshop, I got a question for you: I used to sometimes drive my old M1730 from a 90W power supply, and it used to get superhot. I also read that driving a powerful laptop off of a power supply that supplies less wattage can blow the power supply or damage it. It hasn't happened to me personally but the fact that my power supply ran REALLY hot during those brief periods I connected it leads me be cautious.

Have you had any similar experiences? Or was it just that one power supply?

 

Well, obviously any of this is "at your own risk" but in the case of the iGo I'd say you are safe. The iGo is a variable wattage power supply with auto-switching and if the draw is too great then it'll cut itself off until you unplug it from the outlet for 10 seconds and plug it back in. An OEM power supply designed for a specific model of laptop, however, will probably not have this safety feature so yes I could see that being an issue.

-Byshop