ThinkPad Mini Dock Plus Series 3 with 65W charger

[andrewferguson]

I'm thinking of getting a dock for my T420 (running Debian 9 Linux), and am likely going to get the Mini Dock Plus Series 3 (4338) because out of all the docks it has an eSATA port, which I use quite a lot on the T420 itself and would find very useful on the dock.

Right now I use an aftermarket 65W charger for the laptop (not the best, but it came with this when I bought it second-hand and it's worked well). The ebay listing for the dock that I have identified doesn't include a charger, so I will need to get one (as swapping the charger between my work bag and the dock every day would defeat the point of getting the dock!). I'll be going through ebay for the charger, but getting a genuine one as I don't trust non-genuine ebay ones.

Naturally, the 65W charger is the cheapest. Is it OK to use the dock with this power supply? My T420 doesn't have the Nvidia graphics, and I don't plan on plugging any high-current USB devices into the dock (and all eSATA devices will be powered separately, as I think(?) the dock eSATA power is not powered anyway).

[shawross]

If your battery on your T420 requires charging when you plug it into your dock I would allow time for it to charge before using it with the 65 watt charger. Also you can monitor how hard the adapter is working by feeling how much heat it is putting out. This will also apply even when undocked and eventually getting a bigger charger is recommended.
I think the charger for my dock is 135 watts.

[dr_st]

65W is borderline for a dock powering the laptop and charging the battery. Get a 90W one.

[w0qj]

Our T410 with discrete GPU came with a 90W AC charger upon purchase.

Strongly suggest you get 90W AC charger if you are to power both your T420 + docking solution + other accessories.