Power Struggle

If I had been using this laptop for years, I'd say that the charger probably became weak. But it's only been four months since I got it, and then its charger became faulty. I had never heard of this type of problem before, and it started a new type of frustration for me. It was to either deal with it or get a new one. Either way, I learned new things along the way.

I began to notice something strange. While I use my laptop plugged in, I would get a notification that the energy saver is turned on. This only happens when I unplug it, then it immediately turns on the battery saver. But the charger is still plugged in, so that never made sense. It would soon resume charging like normal, and then I forget about it. It grew worse, becoming a serious problem.

With time, I was no longer able to charge my laptop. Just as soon as I plug in the charger to my laptop, it charges for a second, and then the charger itself goes off. There was no way to use my laptop if it could not even charge up. But then I noticed something that seemed like a glimpse of hope. When the laptop is shut down, it would charge just fine.

Apparently, the charger has to charge the battery and also power the laptop when its in use. And powering the laptop is no small joke, as the display is UHD and it runs a high-end Core i7 processor and an NVIDIA graphics card. Therefore, the only solution was to fully charge it when it's shut down, use it until it's low—say 20%—and then charge up again. I just couldn't use it during the charging times.

I couldn't even fathom what could have caused the issue or even how to solve it. So for a long time, I managed that way—charging the PC shutdown. When I was ready, I then set out to buy a replacement charger.

The plan was to upgrade to a USB-C charger. One reason was to avoid whatever caused the problem in the first place on the usually port, the pin type. The other reason was to see if USB-C would charge the laptop faster. The cost was more than I had in my budget, however, so I just went back to find one just like the old type.

I got a replacement and tried it. Then I realised, thankfully, that the problem was really from the charger and not my laptop's battery. If it had been a battery problem, that would have just worsened the situation.

What then caused the first charger to become faulty? I don't know, but I think it may have something to do with leaving my charger plugged in, whether in use or not, all day. The thing is, I had never thought of it to ever be a problem because this is my third laptop, and leaving my charger plugged in is an old habit. But having gone through this stress, I need no reminder to unplug my charger when it's not in use.