Do All R60's with discrete graphics need a 90W adapter?

[ajsanjuan]

A few months ago, I switched out my old 9457 motherboard with integrated graphics to a 9462 with discrete ATI Radeon 1300X. I noticed that the old 65W adapter would shut off periodically or that I would receive random BSODs at the most inopportune moments. I never thought about the potentially larger power usage because of the upgraded graphics at the time, and instead chalked it up to a declining seven year-old battery, even buying another identical adapter with little improvement.

It was a puzzling conundrum, with the 65W chargers working fine unless performing intensive work, where the brick would overheat and shut down, resuming operation once they had cooled sufficiently, or in another situation, failing to work completely if the computer was allowed to operate on its battery for any extended period of time.

In that situation, the only way to get the computer to charge again was to plug in both chargers to the wall and at random plug them in and out of the computer, often also doing the same actions between the transformer bricks and the wall cords, as well as interchanging cords and bricks, but most the most effective method involved pulling the plugs in and out of the wall.

Over the course of these months, I began to notice that charging would only resume if the wall plugs sparked, possibly due to a build-up of static electricity. Sometimes even with that spark, the charging would resume, but stop after two or three seconds, but longer manipulation of the wall plugs such as rubbing vigorously against objects or the carpet would create larger sparks when plugged in that would permanently sustain the charging process.

Interestingly, my only hypothesis as to why this process works is 1) having sub-par 65W chargers for a 90W requirement and 2) having a seven-year old weakened battery, perhaps in the case that running the Thinkpad on battery for more than a few minutes depletes the electrical current required to complete the current when the relatively weak charger is plugged in! Thus, a build-up of static electricity is required to complete the loop...sounds plausible, right?

Anyway, after months of frustration and only very recently discovering the likely voltage requirements of my 'upgraded' R60, I finally decided to buy a 90W charger!

[RealBlackStuff]

Yes, any T60/R60 (or higher) with discrete graphics needs a 20V/90W adapter for proper working.
See also this: http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/detail. ... MIGR-50944

[ZaZ]

My R60 had the discrete GPU and I never had an issue with the 65w adapter.

[RealBlackStuff]

I said "proper working".
A 65W will also function, but must work much harder, is much warmer from the hard work, and will eventually overheat.
OP's adapter is near the end of its useful life, worn out from this overheating.

[Shredder11]

With all power hungry electronic devices it is always better to have more power in reserve than what is required, so the PSU will run cool and last far longer, plus delivering stable and reliable performance. I have a PVR box under the TV that shipped with a 2A PSU output and ran really hot and died soon after. I got a replacement 3A PSU under guarantee and that runs cool and still does eight years later, although if the company had not supplied this I would have bought a 5A PSU.