Is there any reason not to charge my laptop with a USB C phone charger?

Submitted ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨nimpnin@sopuli.xyz⁩ to ⁨[deleted]⁩

I am charging my laptop with one of the “quick charging” phone chargers right now, currently it says 5 hours until full charge. Does this wear out the battery faster or something? Or does it make no difference apart from taking a little bit longer?

source

Comments

Sort:hotnew top

Petter1@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Slower charging is generally more healthy for the battery, but faster charging is no problem as long as heat generation while charging is kept low.

source
- czardestructo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  This. I still keep my old 500mA phone chargers and use them on my phones to be gentle on the battery for slow, overnight charges. I am also a battery expert in my day job…
  
  source
  - Trainguyrom@reddthat.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    See I worried about this with my phones for a while, but then I realized I’m literally just doing the job of a charge controller for the phone which only cost about $300, and by the time any wear might show up from enjoying the fast charge capabilities I’ll have already have switched to a newer phone since I tend to upgrade every 2-3 years
    
    source
    -> View More Comments
  - Petter1@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    😁nice!
    
    😄did you have the joy of working USB-C PD charging and dead battery with self protection and USB OTG support? (On embedded Linux 4.15)
    
    (Plug in -> 5vSAVE due to CC pull down on default -> power negotiation -> agreement on 20v -> death of Linux due to short interupt of supply on Vbus and no power from battery because of self protection -> back to step plug in -> 5vSAVE)🤪
    
    source
NateNate60@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
If you are using the laptop at the same time, there is a chance that the charger may not provide enough power to the computer to operate and force it to temporarily draw from the battery to supplement the power from the charger. This causes additional wear on the battery.

For example, if you plug in a 15 W charger and the computer wants to draw 20 W, it will draw it from the battery. Spikes in power consumption are not uncommon during ordinary use as the CPU will temporarily engage turbo mode during certain tasks, such as when it is loading a Web page or starting a program. Depending on your operating system, plugging the charger in may also cause the OS to disable battery conservation features which leads to more frequent spikes in power consumption.

None of this would be a problem if, for example, your charger delivered 45 W of power, because during those spikes, it just means the battery receives slightly less power as more of it is consumed by the computer.

If you are not using the laptop at the same

source
- ji59@hilariouschaos.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  I think there should be written somewhere what the computer needs. For example 20V 3A ~ 60W. I don’t know how much voltage the super fast phone chargers have, but looking only at power isn’t enough. Just for curious readers: I noticed some annoyance with my laptop, it has 100W mode, but only with the original charger. So just plugging it into a dock with original charger attached limits the laptop to 65W only. And if I tried (mainly out of curiosity) charging with an insufficient phone charger, CPU switched to 300MHz and everything got very laggy. The same thing happened when I connected two of the USB ports together :D
  
  source
  - NateNate60@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    The required input for the computer is usually inscribed on the chassis at the bottom. However, the text is usually faint and can be easily rubbed off after the computer has been used for some time. Mine says 20 V 2.25 A.
    
    source
    -> View More Comments
- nimpnin@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Good to know!
  
  source
Holytimes@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Slow charging is marginally better for battery life so as long as it charges faster then it drains your fine.

Really the only problem you have to keep in mind for charging is heat generation. As long as the tempature is fine. Then it doesn’t matter how fast or slow you charge.

source
remon@ani.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Totally fine. Same goes for charging your phone on a laptop charger.

source
hexagonwin@lemmy.today ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
no problem at all, but in some cases the power drain on the laptop could be larger than the amount being charged which makes it kinda useless unless charging while in powered off/suspend mode.

source
HeyJoe@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
I have done this for years now and seen no problems. I have a Lenovo from my job and it can use and 85 watt charger for steady charging but my 4 bank phone charger is a 100 watt charger with the highest port charging at 65 watt if only 1 device is plugged in. It does fine with this, but i do get the message in windows stating slow charge. I only use this on trips to avoid taking more things than i have to.

source
T156@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Not really. It depends more on what wattage that the power supply can give, and what the laptop is willing to take. USB-PD is pretty smart, and will only give as much power as the laptop wants to take, up to the limit of the cable/power supply.

But if it’s capable of supplying the same wattage, it makes no difference if you’re giving it 65W by phone charger, or 65W by manufacturer power brick.

source
LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Some of it is the cord, but usually the limiter is the AC DC adapter. “The brick” some would call it. The battery should be fine as far as my limited knowledge goes. Stay at 80% and below and you should keep the life of a lithium ion battery long

source
- Thorry@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Good advice about the 80%! But just to add: Check if this is really needed, I’ve seen a bunch of devices where 100% indicated actually means 80% of the physical cells. The BMS won’t allow charging over 80%, so that’s where it caps out.
  
  Also, even if the BMS doesn’t self limit, check how you use the laptop. If it’s plugging in 99% of the time, just keep it plugged in and let it sit at 100%. The laptop will run directly off the wall power and the BMS will trickle charge the cells to keep them topped up. This prevents discharge-charge cycles, which is usually better for the battery in the long run.
  
  I’ve seen people say to always fully discharge the battery before charging it, absolutely do not do that. Deep discharge cycles are terrible for modern batteries. Just use it as needed and as soon as there is the convenient option to charge, just charge it right away regardless of the level.
  
  source
  - Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    It was better for NiCad batteries to drain them completely, but now that everything is Lithium, there’s no need to drain them.
    
    source
    -> View More Comments
  - Petter1@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    
    Li-ion and LiPo batteries don’t have the mini cycle problem as much as the NiMH batteries have
    
    Keeping always plugged in is terrible advice for Li-ion/LiPo batteries (except if your device is smart enough to support reducing tear on battery with intelligent charging behaviour, like not charging above 80%)
    
    Li-ion absolutely dislike being fully charged and will suffer extreme tear, if you let them always be charged to 100% -> reduces max capacity and increases risk of swelling
    
    this 80% labeled as 100% is mostly present on bigger batteries like car batteries, which have guarantees with min cap decrease over 5 to 10 years. Phones with guarantees of 1 or 2 years generally have near100% as 100%, as it is marketing relevant to have bigger numbers than competitors without need to offer long battery guarantees.
    
    fully discharging is recommended at least some times in order to recalibrate the percentage calculation (if a charging event is without interruption from lower than x%, the battery controller is counting the watthours pumped into the battery until it reaches the point where less than x ampere charging are required to hold the desired voltage. With this counting, you can then adjust the graph used to calculate percentage of capacity still available based on the corrected (compensated for drop of voltage due to current usage) Voltage of the battery)
    
    source
- Holytimes@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  The 80% rule is rather out of date and doesn’t apply to modern batteries. Lithium doesn’t care, and most batteries naturally report 100% at 80%. So it’s already accounted for when needed.
  
  source
Diddlydee@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
I use my laptop charger for my phone. It’s super quick.

source
EpicFailGuy@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Depending on the charger, it may be exactly the same thing.

Go watch a video about the P.D (Power delivery) standard.

Macbook air and up use P.D2.0 (65W)

There is a newer version (PD3.0) that goes up to 100W, but it’s more expensive, rare and hasn’t really caught up as much.

source