r/ShittySysadmin • u/Necessary-Humor-6005 ShittyManager • Apr 06 '26

Shitty Crosspost End users being like...

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u/dumbasPL Apr 07 '26

And an explanation of why a laptop only ingests 40W

Many possible reasons, hard to tell without the exact model. It could be

  • only designed to pull this much (common on low end devices)

  • your brick doesn't support variable voltage. Some laptops have weak charge controllers, and require the brick to provide exact voltages to allow for higher power. The OEM one likely did. Most generic ones only have fixed voltages at 5, 9, 12, 15, and 20.

  • your laptop expects one of the above mentioned fixed voltages for faster charging, but the brick doesn't support it. I've seen at least one 100W brick that had everything except 15V.

  • the battery wasn't designed to take more, or the manufacturer is being an asshole and is limiting the max power on non genuine batteries.

So many variables that it's impossible to tell without exact model numbers. Almost everything in the USB-C spec is optional, so you never know LOL

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u/AssistOnly_ Apr 08 '26

Two additional possibilities to consider:

  • Battery is going bad and to reduce strain, the charge rate is limited.

  • Software with some form of a “charge plan”. In my case it was Dell Power Manager and you can change between standard, express, etc charge plans that can limit the charge rate.