If powercut/failure occurs can this damage the laptop and what is best solution to protect it?

If your laptop is plugged in charging and the battery is attached then a powercut/failure occurs can this damage the laptop/charger(ac adapter)/battery and what is the best possible solution to protect it

 

I've had my AC charger lose power quickly because of an outlet issue (house power failure, circuit trips, etc) and I've never noticed any ill harm on my battery, charger, or the laptop itself. Just off the top of my head, but the AC charger is just a mini transformer (like the ones you see on power poles, just smaller and converting 120 VAC to some lower VDC value), so if you suddenly lack power from the outlet, you simply stop converting power at the charger brick since you can't make something from nothing . And the laptop and battery should be fine; it'll be akin to unplugging your laptop. Though if you want to prevent this, you could install a UPS (universal power supply) between your charger and the outlet; however, this is basically just a big battery, and your laptop's battery is basically a built-in UPS for your laptop.

Power surges, on the other hand, can be dangerous to the laptop and its parts. Given a big enough surge, you can toast the charger and the laptop, though I'm not sure if the battery is protected or not. Best way to handle this would be to have a quality surge protector between your charger and the outlet, and to unplug your laptop (and other electronics) from the wall completely if you're in a bad thunderstorm or something.

 

Second that. There isn't sufficient power coming from the adapter, the notebook will automatically switch over to battery power. As far as power surges go, the power adapter should take the brunt of that surge so it should no dangerous amount of juice should ever be forced to the notebook.

 

From my understanding (correct me if I'm wrong), the laptop is always running off the battery even when you have the charger plugged in; the charger just resupplies the battery as you use your computer. And the only time the laptop runs straight off the charger is if you simply don't have the battery in the laptop (though if you experience power failure here, you lose whatever you were working on and may corrupt the OS).

 

Yeah, that's kind of what I meant. The way I was explained this was the batteries in our notebooks work like an EPS. Power comes from the PSU to the battery (EPS) and when there is insufficient power going to the battery from the PSU, the battery is already there powering the system. Technically I don't think there's any switchover cause if the system loses power for even an instant, the whole thing crashes. So it's like you said. The battery is always powering the system, the PSU just supplants power to it when the battery is fully charged.

 

Ah alright. Well, at any rate, we answered OP's question well enough lol

 

Your understanding is incorrect. When the laptop is plugged into the wall charger, the laptop does not use the battery.

That doesn't mean anything. Pull out the battery when the laptop is running and plugged into the charger. Nothing happens.

 

PSU´s can take quite a bit of different voltages. I think the PSU got some built in protection as well. So i guess you shouldnt be too conserned about the net failing. I think it wont hurt your PSU.

 

Huh, I never thought about it that way. I mean who would need to remove their battery whilst the notebook was powered on and running, right?

 

Someone like me, who swaps different batteries to charge them. Also I've been known to pull one out to read the specs on it.

 

Thanks everyone for the helpful reply's

I've still got a couple of questions to ask and would like to know

1.) What if your laptop was off + the ac adapter(charger) is off but its plugged into the wall outlet and then a powercut happens can this do any damage/harm to laptop and ac adapter or anything? I'm from UK and this is what our power outlet looks https://www.electrovision.co.uk/images/pictures_lg/E_jpegs/E341AB.jpg

2.)I've recently bought a surge protector but how would I know if it is working correctly ( http://www.dorkadore.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/MASTERPLUG-Surge-Protected-Adaptor-with-USB.jpg) This is what it looks like

3.) Does A surge protector draw more power when using it instead of just plugging in a wall outlet?

 

1) If it's plugged in, it is susceptible to any surges, spikes and brownouts that happen - and it could (possibly) damage anything that is plugged into it - depending on the specific surge/spike/brownout.

2) That is not a surge protector - the built-in circuits on the notebook are at least an order of magnitude better quality (sorry).

3) Yes, but insignificantly so.

 

Any sort of power spike or surge can cause damage to electronics. FWIW, I have had MANY power outages in my corner of the earth here. Sometimes my notebook was powered on, other times, it was off. I've never had any indication of damage to the notebook or it's components and the PSU was always plugged into the notebook and the wall socket each time.