Why I Was Supplied With Power Supply Less Than Recommended

biosdell-latitudepower supply

Yesterday I was studying the BIOS of a DELL Latitude E6420 laptop and enabled notifications that check and warn if the power supply is not appropriate for laptop.

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Immediately I got this message:

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The power supply is authentic DELL's power supply but 65W which is less than recommended as BIOS tells me. How will this impact my system and performance? Is this critical and i need to consider buying 90W power supply or i can live with that?

Intel Turbo Boost boosts up to 2.85Ghz which is less than maximum of 3.2GHz processor can handle. Can it be because of a less powerful power supply?

Best Answer

The reason you have a 65W power supply is because you ordered it. When buying this model, one has several options ranging from 60W to 97W. (65W is not mentioned, so I assume that 60W is the same as 65W).

However, only the 60W version supports ExpressCharge, which is described as :

when the computer is turned off, the AC adapter charges a completely discharged battery to 80 percent in about 1 hour and to 100 percent in approximately 2 hours. Charge time is longer with the computer turned on. You can leave the battery in the computer for as long as you like. The battery's internal circuitry prevents the battery from overcharging.

As far as I could find, many people have chosen the 65W battery model over 90W (example here).

Therefore, I would ignore this BIOS message as being useless. If you changed to a 9-cell battery, you would lose ExpressCharge, so would maybe lose more than you gained in charge-time.

As regarding Turbo Boost, its exact functioning is a great mystery that was never fully resolved. Try to contact Dell Support, who might give you a meaningful answer.